Don't Try This At Home

Dutch chilled food and beverage enthusiast Matthijs Mourits has posted step-by-step instructions for how to convert that old $175,000 SGI Challenge DM Server into something useful: a refrigerator.

You can run Donkey Kong on a digital camera, but probably shouldn't.

Correction: In last issue's "Don't Try This At Home" item, I wrote that University of Toronto engineering student Keigo Lizuka has posted instructions for using Saran Wrap to transform your laptop screen into a 3D display. In fact, Dr. Keigo Iizuka is Professor Emeritus at the University and a Fellow of the Optical Society of America. Here's his bio.

Proof You Can Buy Anything on the Web

You can buy really, really big stuff.

And you can even RENT an entire village or country!

Cell Phone Follies

Is that a smoke detector in your pocket or are you just glad to see me? Romanian inventors Marian Gavrila and Garbriel Patulea have come up with an idea for building smoke detectors into cell phones. They say mobile phone smoke detectors are better than standard detectors bolted onto home ceilings because they protect you no matter where you go, and because people tend to keep their cell phone batteries charged. The inventors have approached the major handset makers with their idea.

Two Finnish families coincidentally purchased identical Mediamaster products, which are used for viewing camera phone pictures on TV sets via Bluetooth. Both left the default password set. One of the families was shocked to see their neighbor's cell phone camera pictures popping up on their TV.

Entrepreneur Miles Kronby has launched a New York City tour service by cell phone. It's a list of NYC sites to visit, each with its own 800 number. By dialing the number, tourists can hear George's dad on "Seinfeld," Jerry Stiller, give context and information about the site.

British Telecom (BT) has finally figured out what to do with all those useless, unsightly red telephone booths that blight London: Turn them into wireless hot spots! BT announced recently that it plans to install access points in at least 200 of its payphones by Christmas. Later, it may extend the service to the remaining 108,000 payphones across the country.

Mike's List on the Radio

Craig Crossman's Computer America features Mike Elgan every Thursday night. The show runs from 7pm to 9pm SVT (Silicon Valley Time). Listen to Computer America on your local Business TalkRadio station or over the Internet every weeknight. Don't miss Computer America!

Gotta-Get-It Gadgets

The 3.2 megapixel Sanyo Xacti DMX-C1, which ships November 7, lets you take 2,048x1,536 pixel photographs and 30 frames-per-second MPEG-4 movies -- at the same time! The camera, which weighs just 155 grams, supports secure digital cards. It's unique shape is designed for one-handed operation. The DMX-C1 connects to your PC via USB cradle. Click here for a *really* good look at it. Here's the release in Japanese with Babelfish translation.

NeoMedia Technologies has come out with a PaperClick application that lets you take a picture of a book's ISBN using a Nokia phone's camera, then gives you the current price of that book on Amazon.com.

Los Angeles based Liebermann Inc. announced a new four-monitor display called the Grand Canyon Professional Desktop Monitor Series, with sizes ranging to 92", resolutions maxing out at 6400x1200 pixels and prices reaching $17,500. The company claims its monitors are the "largest, highest image quality and highest resolution LCD displays in the world." I guess they haven't heard about these $155,000 10-monitor displays...

Sharp plans to start selling next month a $2,989 laptop called the Mebius PC-RD3D, which sports a 3-D display that does not require special glasses. The display creates the illusion of 3-D by sending slightly different images to each eye at slightly different angles. Users can toggle between 3-D and standard modes with the press of a button. The laptop goes on sale October 27 in Japan and should be released later this year in the U.S. Sharp hasn't announced plans for European sales.

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Wacky Web Sites

Stealth Disco is dedicated to the proposition that movies showing people dancing behind the backs of the unsuspecting are, well, funny.

Now you can learn how to type upside down, thanks to the Upside Down Typing web site.

Welcome to the secret, cloistered world of international DrainSpotting.

If you love going to the dentist, but just can't make it every day, now you can watch a live camera of Dr. Arthur Zuckerman's dentist's chair, on his New York City DentCam.

Why didn't anybody think of this before: a Bar Code Clock.

At last, an online Camel Simulator!

Newsflash: You're rich! Enter your salary into the box on the Global Rich List web site, and it will tell you how your income compares with salaries around the world. You won't believe how well off you are.

Send your future self an e-mail. Just enter the address and the date you'd like the mail to be sent and FutureMe.org will send it for you.

Here's a game that takes no skill or knowledge, just time. Lots of time. Years of time... How long can you Hold the Button?

If you're having trouble sleeping, try counting sheep.

There are scores of different types of electronic music. Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music sorts them out with taxonomy and samples.

If you're an extreme Halloween extremist, then only Extreme Pumpkins will do.
 

Twisted Games

Hexic

Differences

Magic Cube 4D

Teddy Bear Mayhem

Stare Down Sally

RSVP

Disc Golf

Reader Comment

Mike,

re. your comments on computers in schools... as an elementary school computer lab teacher, I agree with much of what you suggest, and disagree with other parts of it.

Much of the money spent on technology in schools has been poorly spent--simply placing a computer in a classroom or bringing a class to a computer lab can be money and time wasted, unless there is clear planning of the goals are-- what students are to accomplish. Too often, just as in many homes, computers or the Internet become expensive baby-sitters.

In my setting, we put a lot of emphasis on learning keyboarding (one ofyour suggested focuses), but also spend a lot of time teaching students Internet (and CD-ROM) research skills... how to locate information, evaluate its accuracy, read it for understanding, and reference its sources. By combining digital sources of information with pen and pencil presentation of material, we minimize plagiarism. Students are going to use online sources--our goal is to help them use them efficiently and responsibly.

We also use a range of 'edutainment' software, but always in conjunction with what they are doing in the classroom; math programs, simulation games, virtual travel, and more-- when it's one more way to reinforce concepts that are being taught as part of their school curriculum.

We don't do any programming, other than a bit of web page design (which isn't really programming). While there was a fantasy about 'computer literacy' in the 1970s and early 1980s that everyone would need to know how to program a computer, this is really a specialized skill-- like being able to solder a circuit board, or replace a set of brake shoes. I'm not convinced that, useful as all these skills are, that they should be taught to everybody-- at least not between grades 1 and 7.

Alan Zisman
www.zisman.ca

_______

Mike,

I read your opinion related to technology in schools ("Welcome to Microsoft High") and felt compelled to present an alternate opinion. I agree that it would be a waste of money for students to use school time and school computers to chat (non-educational chat), download pornography, and become passive consumers of technology. However, our school district is a perfect example of how educators can enhance a child's school experience by deploying various technologies in a purposeful way. Doing so actually increases a teacher's instructional time and provides educational opportunities at a level that is challenging and appropriate (though likely different) for each child. In fact, technology allows teachers to create educational opportunities for children which would be otherwise impossible. And though the Microsoft model provides the media with fodder for contemplating all that could go wrong and the many inevitable "what ifs" that those unfamiliar with education may ponder, there are school districts such as the Public Schools of the Tarrytowns in Sleepy Hollow, NY, that use technology in ways with which you may wish to become familiar.

Mike, a district with a well structured technology plan frequently monitors how its resources are used and minimizes the opportunities for those resources to be used for purposes that run counter to its educational goals. For example, by carefully monitoring our internet access logs we know that the number one site that students actively choose to go to is our blackboard.com server (see more on this resource below). By also reviewing the logs on our blackboard.com server (1,246,622 hits between 1/1/03 and 6/30/03), we know that students use the service at all hours and from multiple locations. More importantly, however, is that teachers know which students are accessing the service, what resources they are using, and how they (the teachers) can be responsive to the varying needs of the students they teach.

The technology in our district is second to none as a result of careful long term budgeting and a board of education committed to providing technological resources to its teachers and students. The technology itself, however, is secondary to the educational goals it supports. We do not focus on our network's gigabit backbone, our multiple wireless solutions, our point-to-point video conferencing, our 3:1 student:computer ratio (PIII or P4 only) or the many state of the art applications deployed (often over fiber) throughout the district. In fact, many in the district take those items for granted, as they should.

What they do care about is the way in which technology improves the quality of our students' educational experiences. Middle school social studies teachers don't care about the data lines and ISDN connections to the videoconferencing center. They focus on making history come alive for their students by using the technology to videoconference in real time with a class of Lakota seventh graders in South Dakota. They focus on learning, in part, about Japanese internment by video conferencing with eight to twelve other schools and an expert who actually lived through the experience. These "value added" components make history relevant for the students by allowing them to participate and make personal connections with other students and educators, creating personal relevance that would have been otherwise impossible. Using our dedicated http://tufsd.blackboard.com server (contact me if you are unfamiliar with this transformational use of technology in our schools), students can discuss, often with participating experts, key issues related to their studies. The opportunity for these students to be actively involved in their learning (not just teacher centered learning, as some might expect) is now available to them 24/7, anytime, anywhere. The effective use of the videoconferencing center and our blackboard service did not happen by chance. It is part of an ongoing process in which our teachers are actively involved in improving the educational opportunities for the students that teach.

It is no surprise that the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade teachers at our Washington Irving School who recently participated in a project to integrate technology into the core curricula were excited by their grant funded notebook computers. However, their real excitement became exploring how technology can add a new dimension to what they do. This is evident from the many hours they stayed after school (without pay) working with trainers from Columbia University Teachers' College, the nature of their questions, and the lessons they designed.

Deploying technology in a school district requires extensive planning, not just in hardware, software upgrades and networking considerations, but planning on how using technology will really make a difference in the lives of children. The students in our Tappan Hill and John Paulding schools (grades kindergarten and first, respectively) will never know the time, cost, and effort that district educators put in to select software which will supplement reading instruction. They won't know that the managed reading instruction that supplements their formal "teacher led" reading instruction actually allows the teacher more time to work with small groups of children. What's important is that the teachers and administrators are using the detailed reports from the reading software to provide pinpoint remediation for some students, and enrichment opportunities for other students, all of whom are enrolled in the same class. The detailed data also allows the district to allocate resources more effectively and improve the communication and detailed information about each student between grade levels.

Mike, there are many ways computers and technology are used productively in schools. Providing the necessary safeguards helps a district minimize the use of computers for purposes that run counter to its educational goals. However, to use computers solely to "teach, programming, networking, hardware engineering, robot-making, etc." is to rob our students of the wonderful opportunities that are available.

I have taken the time to provide a detailed response to your article because I respect your opinion on so many fronts, but I believe you are doing a disservice by promoting an underinformed opinion. There are multiple other uses that improve our students' educational experiences with which you may be unfamiliar, and I would be willing to share these with you via telephone or further email if you like.

John Krouskoff
Director of Technology
Public Schools of the Tarrytowns
www.tufsd.org
 

_______

Mike,

As a teacher I wholeheartedly agree that more technology is not necessarily better. The problem seems to be large number of computers in rooms with teachers who do not know how to utilize the technology. If teachers were trained in the integration of the technology into the learning environment students would be much more prepared. Many computers are simply expensive solitaire stations.

Our staff is trained a minimum of 90 minutes each week in the use and integration of technology into the classroom. Our students are very technology savvy due to the concentrated efforts of our teachers to bring the 21st century into their classrooms. Computers can�t be thought of as a cure all to the learning deficiencies some students have.

Jay D. Powell
Moore MST Magnet School
1200 S. Tipton Ave.
Tyler, Texas 75701
tyler.sprnet.org/schools/moore/moore.html

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Mystery Pic o' the Week

What is it? Send YOUR guess to [email protected] (be sure to say where you live). If you're first with the right answer, I'll print your name in the next issue of Mike's List!

LAST WEEK'S MYSTERY PIC: No, it's not "a really big idea," the "world's largest T-ball," or even a giant "orgazmatron" from Woody Allen's 'Sleeper'" as suggested by some readers. In fact, it's an OmniGlobe A "self-contained spherical display system" by ARC Science. A set of mirrors distributes a 3D images from the inside, providing viewers with a 360-degree "monitor." Images need to be designed for OmniGlobe projections, so it's of no use to casual PC users. It's ideal, however, for museums and schools for projecting interactive globes, etc. Major Mike's List congratulations to Dennis Adams of Madison, Wisconsin, for being first with the right answer!

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