Two Science students from Pakuranga College in Auckland, New Zealand have found that the claims of Vitamin-C content wrong! It goes to show that science is important. And chemistry, at that.
Maths and Science do have the power to change the world and improve people’s lives.
I am sure both of the girls, who say they are getting into Advertising and Law, will take their science-process knowledge with them into their future. Good on you!
From World in their Hands, Sydney Morning Herald Icon today:
But Dr Jan Fletcher, of the Child Study Centre at the University of Western Australia, is wary of virtual lives for children. “There is a danger that this online interaction might be limiting the amount of social interaction the child is actually having,” she warns. “I want kids to talk to each other about what they’re interested in, not about a world invented by a toy company.
Hmmm, online interaction takes many forms – and kids do talk to each other about what they are interested in. Online, offline, within and without borders.
It seems the world of “toys” and “information” joined together magically means “education”. What if information is actually, well, fun? Gone are the bookish days of reading an encyclopedia and welcome to the world of instant information.
The critical skill is information literacy.
As highlighted by one of Australia’s leading Social Networking thinkers in Education, Mike Seyfang, technology in schools is already in schools. Mobile phones, the MSN Messenger communities, blogs, Myspace, Wikipedia: these technologies are being used by students today.
One pervasive technology that hounds parents today is the use of MSN Live Messenger. It’s the standard tool for all kids today. Without Messenger, kids are outcasts from their social networks. They use it to gossip (like the telephone of previous eras) and to collaborate on school projects. And probably bully, too. In all instances, collaboration is king. Today, the ability to collaborate in work and life scenarios is underdeveloped in K-12 (especially at the pointy end of K-12) as the focus moves to individual achievement.
Unless you are stuck on a deserted island, your life is going to be collaborative. Work, too. In a connected world, this is amplified and packetised.
What is needed is policy and technology-frameworks to unlock the power of the networks that exist. It might be Single-Sign-on (sometimes referred to SSO), firewalls and other pieces of technology that corporations already use. Microsoft (my employer) eats its own dogfood: smartcards, firewalls, network security and the like.
However, it is my contention that the first hurdle isn’t the technology: it’s enabling the passionate teachers to engage in the learning networks. Removing the blockages of knee-jerk blanket restrictions – as they do not work. Remember, the internet was designed to deal with failure and route around it. Censorship is classed as a failure, and therefore is routed around.
I’d love to hear teacher stories.
A drive to work normally takes me 45 minutes, and is around 12Kms from home.
Today, with the opening of the Lane Cove Tunnel and onramp from Falcon Street to the middle of the Warringah Freeway (which should have been done in the first place) I can get to work within 22 minutes, and 10Kms to work. This was at 8:19am (peak time for Military Road)
I was into the Lane Cove Tunnel within 10 minutes of leaving home; the bulk of the time on the trip was at the Epping Road/Delhi Road end. Even here, the flow rate was acceptable.
There are three lanes heading toward Epping Road as the Pacific Highway in-coming traffic gets its own lane until the end of the Tunnel.
Only contentions are now the 5 traffic lights on Military Road (although the far right lane flowed extremely well) and the two on Delhi Road. Also, the single lane from dual lane just over the M2 overpass is a bottleneck. So arriving at the intersection at 8:32, I was in the Microsoft car park at 8:41am
From memory, the Delhi Road contention was predicted as a potentional problem; however it is no different to norming morning traffic.
PM Update: Evening run took 15 minutes for 10.2 Kms. Low traffic in tunnel, and the freeway and the exit to Falcon Street. Usually, this trip is at least 40 minutes for 12 Kms.
As recently highlighted by Frank Arrigo, Joseph Cooney’s ThoughtEx is an excellent example of how interfaces can be created by code cutters. Yes, Shane, there are probably many UX rules Joseph is breaking.
Click to Play
Uncle Dave “Likekludger” Wallace goes large!
This video was originally shared on blip.tv by nickhodge with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.
TCP/IP is the low level stuff that has changed the world. VoIP, Web, Web 2 and all that stuff require TCP/IP to work. When I was first introduced to this protocol in 1987 (late bloomer, here) I wasn’t that overwhealmed.
What has TCP/IP have to do with life? TCP/IP packetizes data. Instead of have a channel open (like TV, Radio) and streaming constantly – TCP/IP puts bits into discreet packages at one end, throws them out the network, and expects the other end to re-assemble to get the data.
Maybe life and work comes in packets, too? Bursts of energy and bursts of reflection
Why is there a 5 days work, 2 days weekend imposed on us by some distant hierarchy?
Another key concept is latency, or the space between the packets. Keeping the latency predictable, or as low as possible, is another life skill.
Life and work comes in packets and latency, that get munged.
It has been three days of absolute pleasure in Adelaide.
Firstly, a big shout out and major thanks to Mike, Mandy, Jamie and Jemma Seyfang for their hospitality and recording studio (which doubled as my late night work area and sleep area) for three days. Oh, and happy birthday Jemma. Getting out of the hotel room shenanigans and living with real people made the difference on this trip.
It also gave Uncle Mike and I to discuss the day’s events in depth, explore ideas and suggest directions. I must deeply thank Uncle Mike for his suggestions on improvements to “The Geek Stories”. Having Australia’s premiere Social Networking thinker at your beck and call night and day, making you cups of tea, is a rare experience. The value is inmeasurable.
Secondly, a major thanks to my video subjects: Dave “Lifekludger” Wallace, Mike “Fang” Seyfang, Kevin Richardson, Glenn Butcher and Kinglsey Foreman. Unlike last Friday, I purposely spread the video capturing over three days to ensure I was on the ball through all interviews.
Oh, and I rang Robert Scoble after he Twittered he was bored on his way south from Petaluma to his home. That’s California. Connections and wiring brings us together in strange ways.
Connections. This social networking thing is about connections. Using them to produce value greater than the sum of the parts. A common theme emerging from all my interviews is that either for life (Lifekludger), learning (Kevin) or entertainment (Glenn) humans value connections. Making them, and reinforcing linkages.
With Munge Brother, Uncle Tim Kleemann, we explored this from a business perspective. Tim owns NextByte, and originally hired me way back when I was a pimply kid in 1985. To Tim I owe gratitude for the 21+ years in this crazy industry.
These human traits of wanting connectedness extend to our kids, too. They have strong social networks that extend into the digital world, and outside of school in the home and on the proverbial bus – and the lines between school and home are becoming equally as blurred as work and home. Presence via Messenger; publicity via MySpace and YouTube. All around are connections. Both visible and invisible.
Uncle Mike is exploring some of the learning aspects to these social networks through his work with education.au; Dave experiences this everyday in his extraordinary life.
Ensuring Parents and Teachers understand the environment of social networking in all its forms is the major challenge for technology companies working in this space: Microsoft, Google or whomever. I think the time is ripe for a major model change in the way educators think about online access, and the skills kids are going to need to survive in a smaller, greater connected and information rich world.
Returning to Immanuel to speak to Kevin, I learnt many things. I did not expect this as an old scholar. One learning was that I owe Noel Volk and Greg Sharp a major thankyou. In my school years there was a concious effort to install computers into the school and use these as a part of education. This effort lead me into this industry I now find myself. Money was siphoned off other projects into this some 22 years ago. Like the Angle Park Computer Centre, Abefoyle Park project and others – the product of these efforts have not gone to waste. So thanks.
Internode is a connection company; the interview with Glenn and Kingsley will air sometime next week. Australian gamers know Internode as the best gaming network, and service, around. You can feel their passion for games; a passion that extends from the MD of Internode, Simon Hackett.
I feel that getting people’s stories told, and out there for all to see is important. Geek Stories or not, the connection potential is huge.
Send in your story, and let’s go make a difference.
In the middle ages of the web, Neil Finn hosted a webcast from his studio somewhere in Auckland. Avril and I watched, emailed and listened to Neil do our request and song online. This was in stark contrast to the very personal concert to the massive 1996 Farewell to the World show only 5 years earlier.
This morning, the reformed Crowded House webcast from Peter Gabriel’s UK studios (yes, that Peter Gabriel). Evidently, Peter was serving canapes and red wine outside the studio for the attendees.
Sometimes music is like sausages; you love the end result but never want to see what goes into the making. Watching Crowded House in these early stages of formation where it was a little loose could have put off an unsuspecting watcher.
Generally, people who write poetry or music when younger lose their edge when older. Life has stabilised, and there is little occuring that tugs the emotion strings of the lyricist. Neil and the band have had the tragic death of Paul Hester to deal with; and this flows through the new songs. From what I heard, the chord progressions are typically obtuse Neil but strangely the lyrics have a directness, not heard in recent Finn works.
The vibe was relaxed, the band feels like a bunch of old friends getting together. I hope this reformation is a cathartic experience for all; and the demons can be exorcised.
