Install Box on your Android phone by March 23rd and get 50GB of storage for life for free. Cant pass this up. I believe it applies to IOS users as well.
Android – https://market.android.com/details?id=com.box.android&hl=en
IOS – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/box-for-iphone-and-ipad/id290853822?mt=8
While not quite there yet, it is pretty cool:
Here is what soldiers think of CoD/BF3. I do not think anyone thought any differently. Obviously no one would really run around in the open shooting
From the article:
Developers of games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 spend millions of dollars to ensure their games are as realistic as possible. Everything from the noise of guns firing to the war-torn environments are created with meticulous care. Military experts are brought on board to ensure that details look and feel as true to life as possible.
Everyone understands that shooting games are fantasies but how close is the experience to real-life combat situations? We asked three soldiers who have served their country in dangerous war-zones.
They explain that as much as they enjoy playing games, the real-life experiences are vastly different. And while games can be very good at portraying physical environments, they aren’t even close to recreating the emotional strain of combat. Also, while games focus on the individual, real soldiers are trained to focus on the team.
To continue from yesterdays post, my students installed moodle last night. I just wanted to share the process and lessons learned from this experience:
1. I had all students buy their own websites with shared server access where they each installed moodle. They are each creating their own courses in my class.
2. I had them download FTP.
3. I had them download Moodle and upload it to their servers. A note here, make sure they unzip the file. I had maybe 1/3 of my students try to upload the zipped file and of course it would not work. Also, uploaded took quite a while in some cases. Moodle is 91mb and has around 10,000 files, so it can easily take 30-60+ minutes to upload. Be prepared for this.
4. Next we set up Moodle. Now this will change depending on what kind of server you are using. This process was not too bad. Some students needed help due to some slight configurations that needed to be made to get everything working but overall this part was fairly easy.
5. Some students just had no luck. I also students who tried to use other web hosts that they own their own websites through and of course those services were sufficient to run moodle so they did have to buy sites from icdsoft as I had originally recommended. For the students that had no luck, I simply asked them for their usernames/passwords and upload the Moodle files myself. This solved all the problems – thus is was user error causing the problems.
I hope this has helped anyone looking to do something similar.
Today in class my students will be installing Moodle on their websites. There are really three main steps that need to take place for them to be able to use Moodle and I thought this would be helpful for them or anyone else wanting to do something similar in their courses.
1. Have a server. I have my students buy their own website (http://icdsoft.com/promo-code/course359) for $38 and just use the server that comes with that site. Its very easy.
2. Download and install FTP. FTP which stands for File Transfer Protocol allows them to transfer files from their desktop to their website. It is the middle man. There are many free FTP programs online. I personally like cyberduck.
3. Go to Moodle.org and download the standard Moodle package. They then upload this onto their website using the FTP program from step 2.
At this point they go into their browser and install Moodle. Set up will vary depending on the type of server you are using. Its actually a very easy process that can be done in as little as 10 minutes.
3D printing is the ability to take any object and recreating it with a printer. Now of course I do not mean on paper, but a plastic model version of the object. As this technology gets better, this will change manufacturing. 3D printing is absolutely amazing. Imagine being able to take an idea that you have and created it with a printer. I can think of a so many uses for this technology.
Check out this demonstration video:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aghzpO_UZE]
Blogger is a free tool from Google. I use this tool in my courses and have become fairly impressed with it as of lately. It offers a lot of customization and is perfect for educators or just about anyone who wants a blog. It’s also very easy to use, so it gives novice computer users an opportunity to publish on the web.
Here is a video tutorial that I put together which shows you how to create your first blog with blogger:
*Note – To see the next post on Blogger features click here
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmOmQraJl0s]
I recently wrote a blog post concerning all students having their own website. Well I believe all faculty in higher education and K-12 teachers should have their own as well.
Why is this? Students and parents should know who their teachers and professors are. They should know about all the work we do. They should know how many publications, presentations, and past work experiences we have had. I recently (yesterday) had a student tell me that her mom was asking about her professors and she liked the fact that she could go to my website and see my resume and some information about me. This is a great way for us as faculty to demonstrate just how valuable we are. Many of my colleagues and peers resumes are very impressive and I think its a great idea for us to show that off. It also shows we know a little bit about technology and are not stuck in the stone ages.
Having a website is just one way to accomplish this. Of course many of our schools have a ‘faculty page’ but these are very generic. Having your own website can really show off your skills and is informative to our students. My point – faculty, develop a website for yourself. If you are not tech savvy, ask your instructional technologists, they would be more than willing to help you out!
With the increasing popularity of Codeacademy (http://www.codecademy.com), a free online javascript course, many people are signing up to learn Javascript. This popularity is stemming from the current state of the economy, leaders saying that everyone should learn to code, and where our future jobs are going.
I think this is awesome and I believe having an understanding of basic computer logic is a great skill to have. This is why I push software like Gamemaker, Squeak, Scratch, etc. which require one to understand basic programming logic.I also teach HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, and Actionscript in my classes.
However, I do think people are jumping the gun a bit with Javascript. The reason why? Javascript by itself is rather useless. I would not tell someone to learn javascript unless they had a solid foundation in HTML and CSS first. You really cant do anything with javascript without HTML. Learning javascript without HTML/CSS is like learning to hold your breath, then being put into a deep swimming pool without knowing how to swim.
So while I believe learning Javascript is great and I think everyone should learn basic programming…at least the logic, I believe that you should understand HTML and CSS before jumping the gun and learning Javascript.
So for those who want to learn js, just take a few weeks and learn HTML and CSS first. They are both very easy to learn – the easiest languages. Then when you have that foundation learn javascript. Then when you understand js, start learning a database language like PHP or Ruby.
Just to clarify some more information and so much misinformation is out there:
– HTML5 is simply an update of HTML4. It does a few extra things, like include a video tag. It is not this be all end all code that will replace Flash and by itself is not very powerful.
– HTML5 is not compatible on most browsers right now. There are many standards issues. Please see this report for more details: http://www.longtailvideo.com/html5/.
– The power of HTML comes from Javascript. Javascript has been able to do much of this for many years, it is NOT new. Most of the features people seem to think HTML5 can accomplish are really javascript features.
– Flash is used for a lot of things that it was not designed for, like web banners, just because there is not other tool out there. Flash was designed for rich interaction and games not web banners. HTML5 is not going to be used for these rich interactions and games, flash will be. Maybe someday this will happen, but not in HTML5. Maybe HTML6, 7, or 8. But remember Flash will continue to evolve as well in that time.
– The power of HTML5 really comes with mobile devices, not PCs. However, with more advancements in mobile processors such as quad cores, etc. This really isnt going to matter much. The only thing really stopping Flash right now on mobile devices is Apple. However, you can put flash onto apple mobile devices – its a workaround though and not a process the average user can accomplish. Having said that, the same can be said of HTML5, the only thing stopping it from PCs right now is compatibility so as that gets better its use will grow.
So what exactly will HTML5 be used for that Flash once did?
Mobile applications. HTML5 will be used in the mobile world. Its more compatible and it’s free, which is the pure beauty of HTML5. However the main thing to point out here: HTML5 runs different on each browser right now. So its great if running on one device, like the iphone. But if running on android, iphone, and pc its really a pain to code. Flash is much better when using multiple devices. To get HTML5 to work on multiple devices I need to ‘trick’ the code for each browser which takes a lot of extra development time and adds a lot of extra code to my product.
Here are two good sources discussing this issue:
http://remysharp.com/2010/02/08/html5-vs-flash/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/fredcavazza/2011/07/17/why-opposing-html5-and-flash-is-a-non-sense/
*I am sure there will be many more HTML5 posts on here as it evolves:)