In the Teeth of Tropical Storm Ernesto

Whoo boy! This is one vicious storm.

Not.

I honsestly believe that the greatest wind generated by this particular storm was caused by the TV guys and gals who fulminated and conjectured and speculated about what might happen with this particular storm. Like how it might turn into a Category One hurricane once it gets out over the Florida Straights, and how it might generate strong, heavy, flooding rains where I live.

Actually, none of that has happened, and while it is a blustery rainy day, there's no high sustained winds to take down power lines and disrupt infrastructure. So that's good.

But there are two bad parts to a storm like this. First, many of us busted our humps getting ready for this storm and for little reason. I admit that I did some storm prep here, boarding up the large windows in the front of the house and putting a tarp on the roof to prevent further damage inside from the leak that we developed two years ago. (That wasn't supposed to be necessary since we were supposed to have a new roof by now, but that's another story.)

Secondly, when a storm is over-hyped people become jaded and when the next tropical system comes along they'll look back at Ernesto and say "Jeez. I busted my hump getting ready for Ernest and for no reason whatsoever. Maybe this will be another Ernesto and I can skip all that."

So, it's a day off for all of us and a day off from school. The weather is pretty messy, so it's probably best that we're all at home today watching the trees blow around and the radar showing how hard it's raining somewhere else.

But all in all, we're thankful that Ernesto has turned out to be a bit of a sissy. I'll take my tropical storms like this every time.

[7] comments (4261 views) |  [0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

Web Platforms and Our Science Fiction Future

Doing a little "light" reading this afternoon on web platforms and the current state of networked data on a massively scalable platform.

OK, I need to let that one sink in a little bit myself.......


Here's the thing though. This stuff is pretty cool. I started reading an excellent article, Web Platform Primer - what's available via API? over at Read/Write Web and it got me to thinking about where we stand at the moment and where we may be 20 years from now. Because the days when our computing was done as I do now--with a desktop computer possessing finite storage and processing power--will seem quaint to us in the way that those big floppy disks and dial-up modems seem archaic now.

If you read the article closely, you'll see that many of the building blocks are being put into place that will make the way we perform our computing tasks vastly different in the near future. Who knows exactly what that will look like, but with the ability to store, retrieve, and process data on a network of a tremendous scale, we'll have the capacity to move most of the tasks of a computer onto smaller and smaller devices. Perhaps we'll carry around a cell-phone sized device that we can plug into any size screen we need. Small internal screens for handheld chores, and then increasingly larger displays as our needs change. And why not? Why not one device? Not to carry our data and perform number-crunching, but one that merely identifies us in then taps into whatever resources are required at the time they are needed. And all of those resources, from storage to processing to data storage and messaging and secure transactions, to well, you name it--those are on the Web.

So, you start thinking like that and all this talk of APIs and SOAP and web platforms starts to spark your interest just a little doesn't it? These capabilities are being built right now and coming online in small insidious ways that worm right into our networked consciousness. After all, what are YouTube and mySpace? MSN Spaces? Google? flickr? Digg? Huge, giguendous wads of data, all tied together by some sort of set of rules that allow different giguendous scads of data talk to each other.

Well, it got me to thinking anyway. And that is sort of the point of this little foray into SciFi territory.

That the future is never as far away as you think

[0] comments (3669 views) |  [0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

Gangs, Guns, and MySpace

Today's headline in the Palm Beach Post jumped off the page at me. Internet video fuels deadly rivalry between Boynton Beach gangs tells the story of how a group of kids from Haiti or of Haitian descent, have posted videos to MySpace that have provoked drive-by shootings and other gang retaliations. Throughout the summer this particular group of thugs have terrorized my old home town, ultimately killing a man accidently in a drive-by gone bad.

What's the moral here? That MySpace is evil? No, it's just the current way for kids to stake out turf, make their mark, bully those who were bullying them a short while ago, and antagonize their enemies. Is this so different than what we saw in West Side Story 50 years ago? The violence is different, the means to go after your rivals is now electronic, but the story of how immigrant kids strike out and turn to crime isn't new.

The back story is more interesting and instructive. The story of how many of these kids come from Haiti to Florida too late to get an education, and how they slip into lives of hopelessness and crime at an alarming rate. Despite the good efforts of many schools and educators and families, young Haitian boys are following the same tragic path that so many immigrants have done here in the U.S.

These days they're using the Web to more easily spread their message of violence and despair and hatred. And while many many Haitians do get educations and do succeed and do pull themselves up by their boot straps, a large subset of this particular immigrant group take another path. Just as with the waves of Irish, and Italians, and African-Americans, and Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans, when there is no sense of hope and no idea that there is a way out crime and the false security of their gang families violence consumes these young men.

That's the real story.

Unfortunately it's an old one.

[0] comments (3643 views) |  [0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

6 Words You Never Want to Hear Your Teenage Daughter Say

I gave your change to Mom.

[0] comments (3996 views) |  [0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

What to do with Beginner's Guide to Dreamweaver and Fireworks?

I've had a web site online for 5 years now that featured excerpts from my first book, followed by excerpts from the second. In addition, for a while I was sponsoring a 'competition' called Fun with Fireworks. Sort of a poor (very poor) man's Worth 100.

Here's a link to my old site--Beginner's Guide to Dreamweaver and Fireworks--but as you'll see, the site blinked off-line and the domain name is for sale, a victim of neglect by its owner.

Me.

Sure, sure, somewhere there's an e-mail from the host letting me know that renewal was up. Or not. Last time around I had a tough time getting the site renewed, and for some reason couldn't convince the host to give me automatic renewal with a notification.

But there's no getting around the fact that I haven't so much as nudged an electron at the site since I don't know when. And it's not likely that I'm going to. At $20 a month for hosting, the books I was promoting now out of print, and the tutorials now 2 versions old, I wonder if it's worth it. Sure, the very occasional check would appear from Google ads, but they rarely covered the hosting costs. Let's face it. I was paying for that site out of pocket and really not getting anything in return. Hate to be cold, but there you are.

So, I'm thinking that the time may have come to lay that site to rest. We had a good run over there. Fun with Fireworks was a blast to do with the folks who were hanging out at the Fireworks Forums. I sure learned alot getting to have a running conversation online with some of the top Fireworks designers around. And the site also gave me a little cred with the Dreamweaver crowd, and those relationships have continued in new ways.

I guess I'm feeling a little sentimental about letting the old girl go. There were lots of hours that went into that site, and I've had tons and tons of notes from people to say thanks for the tutorials they found there. Of course, I'm still writing for Community MX but that gig is a little different from the days where I started out trying to promote my book and ended up making lots of new friends.

That time has passed as I've moved over to the blog here for most of my writing, and I have other avenues for promoting my work and making a few dollars here and there.

And while I'll miss the old site in some strange twisted way, it's really time to just let go.

[0] comments (3560 views) |  [0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

Good Doggie

Heather Armstrong over at Dooce manages to stack 16 pieces of chicken jerky on top of her dog Chuck's head before he gets permission to have a treat. Maybe I'm twisted, but I think the Flash video of the construction process is the funniest thing I've seen online in awhile.

[2] comments (3750 views) |  [0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

To My Old Friends in Their New School

I went back on the first day of school today to the middle school where I was a teacher and technology coordinator for eight years. Today was an extra special day for the students and teachers at good old Congress Middle School, as they were moving into a brand spanking new building. So when I followed the tradition of emptying out the school district office to pitch in at schools on their first day I jumped at the chance to see the new building.

My reason for going back after 3 years away was partially selfish, since I mostly wanted to check out the new school building and see how it had come out. But as I saw my old friends--from fellow teachers to the janitors and cafeteria workers to guidance counselors--what I felt was a profound sense of joy for them and for their new school. Sure, it's great that the kids have a new school to attend, but I couldn't help but feel that there wasn't a more deserving group of teachers in the world than the ones who were beaming and bustling around the new campus. For years they worked in a building that wasn't just a sad excuse for a school, but a building where even the 1960's industrial minimalist architecture conspired against them. Frankly, it was a horrid building, but the teachers who worked there were the most dedicated and inspired and fun group of people I've ever been around.

And now, finally, they have the advantage of working in a school where the halls are well lit and clean. Where the computer labs aren't in some poorly converted metal shop, where there aren't 3,786 places for a kid intent on ditching class to hide, and where the gutters won't spray the hallways each time it rains. Where they won't need a rainy day schedule as there aren't 20 portable classrooms out in the flood plain behind the main school. In short, they have a real school with real facilities and a much better chance of performing their magic with a student population that needs every break it can get.

So for my friends, let me say congratulations! No one deserves it more than you.

[5] comments (4235 views) |  [0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

The Dave Matthews Band and the Wrong Side of the Bell-Shaped Curve

I hadn't intended to attend last nights concert by Dave Matthews and his band until my buddy Rick called yesterday morning to say he had an extra ticket. I mean, this is South Florida, and this is August, so sitting in a packed outdoor amphitheater isn't exactly my idea of a great time.

But still, I've been listening to Dave Matthews for quite awhile now, and I'd never seen him live, so I decided to head out anyway, not realizing that I was about to be thrust into a sub-culture of DMB fanatics that I never knew existed. I guess I should have known something was up when my 13 year-old daughter and her buddy reacted to the news that I was going to the concert.

"Dave Matthews! We love Dave Matthews!!! We want to go!"

"Well, sorry hon, but there's only the one ticket."

And then later, when I told my sister that I was going to the show she warned me not to say anything to my college age niece. "You know Dave Matthews is a big college band. She'll be really bummed that you're going and she's not."

I guess I didn't realize that the band had a following, and that their fans were or a certain age, but Boy! Once I got to the show it became pretty apparent that of the 22,000 in attendance I was in the decided minority, being somewhere far to the north of 25, which seemed to be the median age of those in attendance.

Not that this was a bad thing mind you. It gives you a chance to look at the event from a sociological perspective. If nothing else, you get to see the mating habits of the 20-somethings of the world in a whole new light.

One thing that surprised me were the large numbers of young girls who were dressed chastely, choosing not to wear teeny, tiny shorts and form fitting bare mid-drift tops. These girls chose sensible clothing that wasn't overly revealing. Many of them also were wearing brassieres.

I think I counted a good three dozen out of the 10,000 or so young women at the show that were dressed that way.

The rest? Well, you know. My interest was purely sociological. Really. I took no notice of the dancing, swaying, sweating sea of young women all around me. I'm old enough to be their Dad for gosh sakes, and I'm absolutely certain that's how they see me, if they take notice of the codgers in the crowd at all.

Oh yeah, the band rocked by the way. I'm pretty sure. They were far away from me and I had to peer through the aforesaid sea of feminine pulchritude and and bobbing mass of....Well, lets just say that a Dave Matthews concert has more perkiness to it than all the Starbucks in Seattle.

Not that I noticed.

Whoops! Almost forgot that you can see video clips (Flash video of course) of last night's Dave Matthews band show over at AOL/Network Live.

[4] comments (4377 views) |  [0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

10 Years of Flash in Education

There are a lot of stories floating about the last few days regarding the 10th birthday of Flash. And for good reason. In many ways Flash represented a sea change in the way interactive media for online publication was produced and distributed.

Adobe has a recap of how Flash affected the lives of 10 different Flash developers and a nice article at Wired News with Mike Downey, senior programmer dude for Flash, details his thoughts on where the program has been and where it's likely going.

My first exposure to Flash came when I downloaded and started playing around with FLash 3. At the time I was transitioning from a social studies teacher and had received permission to offer a course in web design at the middle school where I was teaching. Just about the time that I became interested in some of the animation and drawing tools in version 3, along comes Flash 4, with a whole new set of interactive tools such as buttons and goTo functions and a simple scripting language that even the 12 to 14 year-olds I was going to be working with could understand. Now this was interesting.

What amazed me then, and still does today, was just how fast kids were able to grasp the basic concepts behind Flash, and how engaged they were with the technology. From the ease that Flash afforded for their drawing efforts, to the ability to link parts of a movie together to make an interactive project, to the way they could extend the capabilities of their work through their own examinations of the scripts, kids found Flash to be fascinating, and I found it to be an incredible educational tool.

Back in 1999 I wrote an article with a co-worker of mine detailing just what we found to be remarkable about web design curriculum for younger students. (Sadly the links to student examples in the article did not survive several changes of web masters at the school where I was working at the time, but I'm pretty sure I have some 100 MB Zip disks around here some where with their projects on them.)

At the time, we thought that Flash had a significant impact on student learning, particularly when it came to fundamental skills such as problem solving, independent thinking, organizational skills, working in teams and building confidence. 7 years ago we had this to say about Flash:

Often the software itself forces students to examine their methods. A program such as Macromedia Flash, for instance, requires that students think ahead by examining the separate components that comprise their movie—choosing how to structure their layers, events, symbols, and actions in such a way that the content is presented in a clear and logical manner to the end user. Therefore, as students proceed through the design process, they are faced with many decisions that ultimately affect the final product. Students must define the problem (or task), critically consider their options (weighing the pros and cons), implement the solution, and evaluate the outcome (final product) to determine whether their goals were accomplished.

...On the global scale, the question becomes: How can we use technology as a tool to support our current and future educational goals? One answer is to utilize software in a manner that helps students construct knowledge and further develop the critical learning traits. These traits may very well represent the qualities that students need to face a future of technological advances and the changing needs of the job market. While the debate over the best practices for employing instructional technology continues within the education community, the possibilities afforded by using web design software points to fascinating possibilities for developing students who are active learners empowered in the learning process.

Have things changed in Flash since those days? You bet it has. But the goals we set back then we we first began offering classes in Flash and Dreamweaver and Fireworks still hold true today, and students can still gain a great deal by working with this software. They can still learn how to attack complex problems, work with members of a team, think for themselves, and express themselves creatively. In that regard Flash may very well stand alone as the one application that allows students to operate in so many different types of learning environments. From drawing to animating to coding Flash is the only program that combines so many different possibilities for students in one place.

[0] comments (3542 views) |  [0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

If God Had Meant for Humans to Fly in Pressurized Cans...

...He would have created us in the shape of tennis balls.

Seriously, I hate flying. From the shuffle of stuff and people to the airport, to the lemming-like progression through security, to the sad bumping and excuse-me-ing through the aisles of the plane, to the search for storage space for your carry on crap, to the hours spent crammed into a space suitable only for small children, to the pathetic grasping at proffered snacks and drinks from the benevolent stewards, to the final standing and waiting in a crouched position to get out of the damn plane the whole experience truly sucks.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things there are worse experiences (root canals come to mind) but on the whole I'm awfully happy to be home again, and even happier that I won't be flying anywhere else for a while.

[6] comments (4227 views) |  [0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

The San Francisco Death March

There's an old Southern saying--"Bless her heart"--that roughly translates to, "Boy, you really pi** me off sometimes, but I love you anyway". With that in mind...

Yesterday, the family and I did our one-day city tour of San Francisco. My wife, bless her heart, is one of those people who views travel as a competitive sport. You begin by gathering as much information as is humanly possible, usuallly through the purchase of several guide books well ahead of the planned travel date, with the intention of reading and planning and cramming as much as possible into any given day. This trip has been the usual, with my wife setting an ambitious schedule for the family on what we plan to see. Despite my pleas and supplications that we please not try to see 2,457 sights on any one day, or attempt to drive the car 450 miles per day so we can catch everything there is to see in a tri-state area, it never fails that we set out with way too much on our itinerary and end up the day exhausted and whiny. Such was the case yesterday.

Sure enough, things started out logically enough. We had a plan, and off we set to take a drive through Golden Gate Park with a short stop for a hike and chance to take in the sights. Very pleasant. We followed that up with a trip to Haight-Ashbury where wife and daughter could take in some of the funky hippie shops while I hit a bookstore and found something to read in one of the cafes. All went as planned, until the point that it was determined that at least one more hour was needed to really do the area justice. Oh yeah, we'll have lunch downtown, so there's no need for you to get anything to eat here. Being the mistrustful sort, and having been on many of these trips before, I decided to get some chow while the girls continued on with their shopping.

Things started to go downhill right after leaving the Haight, as we also needed to take a drive through a couple of other neighborhoods on the way downtown, followed by lunch, and then a cable car ride up to China Town.

Except the lunch in Ghiradelli Square was really slow, and I'm pretty sure that my daughter was near to tackling a pigeon in the hopes of wrestling a bread crumb from it. Luckily, the girls were finally fed, and then it was off down the street to check the cable car situation. Uh oh, there's a huge line to get on here. No worries though, as the guide book is handy and my wife, bless her heart, decides that if we just walk down a few blocks there's another cable car terminal that will probably have a much shorter line. Shorter yes, but still not short enough to satisfy my wife, bless her heart.

"I know", she says, digging once again into the guide book, "we can just walk up to North Shore and see the Italian neighborhood and then go on the Chine Town from there. We can ride the cable car back down. Look how close they are on the map."

"Uh, honey, that maps not particularly accurate you know. It only shows the major roads, so even though it looks like its only a few blocks, it's really much much further."

"No, no. It's right there. See? All we have to do is walk down this street here and we'll be there in a few minutes."

And so off we go, my wife certain that we'll be there shortly and with an impending sense of doom on my part.

Sure enough, it was much further than my wife, bless her heart, really thought it was. Now, far be it from me to say I told you so (and live through the withering glare that would surely follow), but I did try to tell her that it was much farther than she figured, and that, this being San Francisco, much of the walk would be uphill.

So, a mere hour later, we'd finally made our way through the North Beach neighborhood (Look! Italian restaurants!) and into China Town (Look! Smell! Chinese markets with all sorts of fish, herbs, and strange vegetables on display!). And of course, there was the lovely crush of humanity to go along with those wonderful smells. Of course my wife, bless her heart, did her usual best to keep us moving and motivated along the way.

"Don't you want to see the Chinese Gate? It should be just down that street. It's only 4 or 5 blocks now."

We finally made it of course, and the only plus to the entire trip was the ride back down to the waterfront on the cable car. Of course, we'd had to walk for 3 hours uphill,, mostly to get to that point, but gosh! Wasn't that neat?

This morning we're heading out to the area north of the city on a driving tour. Thank God for Google maps, that alllowed me to prove to my wife, bless her heart, that the tour she'd laid out would require 6 hours of driving and no times for stops along the way. Hopefully today's sight seeing will have a certain element of sanity, but I'm not counting on it.

Because, bless her heart, my wife likes to cram as much as possible into each and every vacation day.

[3] comments (4516 views) |  [0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

Adobe Education Leaders Wrap Up

We're wrapping things up here in San Jose this morning as the first ever Adobe Education Leaders Camp comes to a close. As I type this I'm sitting in the big conference room here at Adobe HQs, watching a photo slide show of all the great people that I've been priveleged to work with the last 4 days.

It's amazing how quickly all the educators in this group have come together, despite the wide varieties of jobs we hold and the kinds of work that we do. Not really surprising though, given that we're all dedicated to using digital tools to inspire, motivate, and enagage students in the world of ideas. No matter if it's Premiere or Photoshop or Flash or Dreamweaver we're all working with kids at some level or the other, attempting to get them excited about learning.

It's been an awesome week, filled with great presentations from the different product teams, talks with program managers about how we use their particular software products with our students, classes from other educators on how to use these tools in our work, and of course, lots of time spent talking about the big ideas that we all try to focus on. It's particularly gratifying to be able to sit down with product managers from a big company like Adobe and let them hear how we use their products and give them our wish lists for future changes. To a person they have been incredibly receptive.

So, one more time, here are my thanks to all the great folks from Adobe who made this possible. Megan and Johann and Jack and Anuja and Jill have been with us every step of the way, and it's really terrific to work with people from a corporation that are as passionate about education as we all are. Thanks guys! Can we come back and do this again in a few weeks?

[1] comments (4175 views) |  [0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

Web 2.0: Connect, Communicate, Collaborate, and Create

My latest article is availabe at Community MX today. In The Real Story of Web 2.0 I take a look at some of the original ideas and writing from Tim O'Reilly and others that got people talking about the idea that the Web has become a platform for people to connect and communicate and collaborate and connect, and provide some background on the whole notion that the operating system is becoming obsolete.

This article was timed to coincide with a round table discussion that we'll be having this evening with the other teachers and educators here at Adobe's offices in San Jose. In fact, we already started kicking these ideas around yesterday, and I'm looking forward to more in-depth dicscussions this evening as we put our heads together and puzzle through what it all means in the world of education.

[0] comments (4215 views) |  [0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

On Visiting the Mother Ship

I'm out in California this week, participating in several days of workshops (and leading a few) with a great group of folks from the Adobe Education Leaders program. It's great that Adobe has the ability to do this, bringing together teachers from all over the world to talk about how we use web and graphics software in our schools and classes to get kids excited about education. So, now that I know she checks the blog here to see if I've mentioned her name, let me just say thanks to Megan for pulling this off and making it possible for all of us to get together.

But on a more personal note, I have to laugh at myself for getting all geeked up about being here in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area and having the chance to see and visit the places where so much computer stuff has flowed from over the last years. Stuff that I've eagerly consumed and even made a bit of a living working with. I'm not sure my wife and daughter, who are traveling with me as their summer vacation quite get why I find this cool and exciting. Actually, I'm sure they don't but never mind. I'm having fun.

On Sunday when we arrived in San Francisco we took a drive into town and as we rolled down the Embarcadero we passed Townsend street.

My excited outburst--"Oooooo! Oooo! Look! That's where Macromedia used to be located. Of course it's an Adobe office now, but it used to be Macromedia! Cool!"--was met with strange looks from the other inhabitants of the car.

Oh well. Arriving in San Jose later in the day it was much the same. My excited, "Wow! There's the Adobe offices. I guess that's where all our workshops will be. Cool! Man, that's a big place. I guess that's what you'd expect huh? They are a darned big company after all." was met with a totally nonplussed reaction from my wife. "Can we get room service tonight?"

Never mind. Because yesterday was THE day. Yesterday my daughter and I trecked up to Cupertino where we visited the Apple campus. Not only that, but through the good graces of our Apple sales rep I was able to secure an invitation to actually get a mini-tour followed by lunch in the company cafeteria.

Now, I won't go into all the exciting details here, but as we pulled into the parking lot at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino I have to say I was, well, really excited. I tried to put a little historical perspective on what Apple had meant to me personally and to the rest of the world for my 13 year old daugther, who I have to say, was incredibly patient and good humored about the whole thing, by telling her about the first computer I owned in 1984, and how Apple really revolutionized thinking about the value of computers for the average person.

But the real excitement happened as we sat on the patio outside the Apple cafeteria. Walking down the sidewalk was a tall-ish, older dude that...well, could it be? Was that really Steve Jobs? Oh. My. God. It is. And he's going to sit at the table just a few feet from us. And eat lunch like a normal human being. Be still my heart.

OK, maybe I wasn't that hyperbolic about seeing him, but as I told my daughter, it was sort of like seeing Bob Dylan or Mick Jagger. At least for me anyway.

So, after all that excitement it was off to the Apple company store, and some phone calls to my fellow Mac-heads back at work to see if they wanted any branded t-shirts of other Apple goodies. After all, this is the only place in the world where you can actully get some of this stuff.

Me, I picked up the black T-shirt that says "I Visited the Mother Ship" with the Apple logo on the back.

It seemed entirely appropriate.

[1] comments (3789 views) |  [0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks