Inside View

Future #edchatie Classrooms at Today's #ictedu

IRELAND'S ICT in Education Conference pointed a laser at the fabric of future classrooms during a series of presenations and workshops. But I think many of the educators watching the day's events in Thurles could easily have missed what several prognosticators were saying about trends involving hardware and software.

Selfie from MakerMeet.

The light came on for me during the pre-event MakerMeet when Mags Amond pinned a glowing LED onto me. We need only a few lines of code and a little chunk of silicon to make the dumb LED smart. The specifics on how to accomplish this kind of work bubbled up during the Friday MakerMeet with Mags Amond and Bianca Ní Ghrógáin,  on the main stage with Steve Bunce, during several Saturday workshops (like Steve Holmes') and in the #ictedu capstone presentation by Mary Loftus.

Getting a Perfect #OneNote Routine

Ready to work OneNote on Surface with an iPad pen.

WEEKS OF HEAVY archiving have shown me real value in a workflow involving Microsoft OneNote and Office Lens on Lumia. The workflow is like having a high resolution OCR scanner in your pocket.

Proof She Could Use a @GoPro

Video by @miarosegold in Clonegal.

TODAY MARKED A milestone of sorts as 7yo Mia asked to use my Lumia 1520 to run alongside her cousin while recording her best circuit of the Huntington Castle's obstacle course. Next time, I hope Mia has a GoPro.

I am impressed at Mia's clever creativity and by the way she's able to sprint around with an over-sized smart phone without running out of breath or ideas. I told her the steps to use with Camtasia after she pulled the video clip off the phone with a USB cable. [1] I think it's time to upgrade our array of recording devices and also to train other young pre-teens at Busybees in Clonmel with the handheld technology. Expect to see more of Mia's road camera work on my blog during the clear summer days ahead. [2]

1. Mia explains rendering at http://1drv.ms/1MT6ID1

2. Multimedia storytelling features in several parts of the ICT in Education Conference held on the campus of LIT-Thurles on Saturday, April 25, 2015.

[Bernie Goldbach teaches multimedia storytelling in the Limerick School of Art & Design.]

Computer on a Stick #chromebit

Asus Chromebit for EUR 95 available in July 2015

WE HAVE OLD television screens and PC monitors that would benefit from the Asus Chromebit.

The simple device turns any television with an HDMI slot into a low-end PC. The dongle is no larger than my highlighter pen and comes in three colours (not pink or purple). It uses Google's Chrome OS which means it comes with 2MB of RAM and 16 GB of SSD capability. [1]

The Chromebit dongle has a swiveling head, so it will have no problems plugging into awkward HDMI locations. Power comes from a relatively modest Rockchip processor. It has both WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. And its USB 2.0 port means I could plug in a keyboard.

1. Richard Nieva -- "Google Pushes Chrome OS software, with or without Chromebooks" on CNET, March 31, 2015.

2. Google Chrome Blog -- "More Chromebooks, for Everyone", March 3, 2015.

Universal Tech Rules My World

Photo of iPad Cross Pen with Microsoft Surface

I HATE IT when I have to use technology that only works with specific things. It's like having a knife that can be used only to slice bread.

So I was so very happy to get a Cross pen (white because it's being hyped as an iPad pen) whose soft rubber top works as a stylus not only with the iPad but with my Microsoft Surface, iTouch, Lumia 1520 and iPhone 5C. This is a big win.

I started thinking about other things that are examples of universal technology, reached into my Bihn bag and found five items worth sharing.

When Building your Business on Top of Another's

YOU DON'T HAVE TO LOOK far to find start-ups that sputtered and died when their core business processes depended upon access to Twitter's firehose or APIs. All Twitter had to do is change how a business could access its API and a complementary business would fold. Twitter's example has been followed by a number of other businesses, including Audioboom.

Screenshot from @Omaniblog on Audioboom.

In Audioboom's case, a decision to the company to introduce a log-in wall in front of anyone wanting to listen to a audio clip caused some upset. The Audioboom log-in wall meant many people could not simply click to hear recordings anymore. The log-in wall means you have to have a free account to listen to anything on the Audioboom system. Paul O'Mahony explains how that has affected his business. [MP3 File 5:38 stored in OneDrive]

Audioboom Damaged My Business