Inside View

Ireland's Ban on Smartphones for Pre-Teens

by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel

WE HAVE A tech-savvy 12yo in our home and he's facing restrictions on his use of a smartphone while on school grounds. Even though he doesn't bring a phone to school, he's watching with interest as the Irish Minister for Education Norma Foley writes a memo to Cabinet. The Minister wants a nationwide policy where parents are discouraged from buying smartphones for children of primary age.

Learning to think critically

by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel

I AM CARVING OUT four hours a week to immerse in a short course about Creativity and Critical Thinking. After a few hours in the classroom, I'm starting to think that critical thinking is at odds with creativity.

For the first 12 years after finishing my university education, critical thinking processes help me question, analyze, and evaluating. When working with men in suits, my creativity helped generate clever ideas and explore multiple solutions. But they weren't always welcome.

Factoring AI into UX Design

by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel

After one semester of integrating AI into my daily lab sessions, I can assuredly say AI has made a profound impact on the way our UX designers work. Leveraged purposefully, AI enhances creativity, improves personalisation, and trims workflows. As I review my early 2023 teaching practice, I want to offer a few observations about using AI while teaching creative media students in a university setting.

Aiding Accessibility and Inclusivity

Without even coming close to ChatGPT, people can take some simple steps to ensure their use of AI can enhance accessibility. It starts with reviewing the alt-text tags that Microsoft generates inside programs such as Word and PowerPoint. Microsoft's AI technology tries to make digital experiences more inclusive by automatically creating text descriptions of images. The content creators should review that AI-generated content. To be truly accessible, web sites should have alt-text for images that are optimised for screen readers. This is happening behind the scenes already which means AI contributes to a more inclusive design approach. I'm a big fan of adding meta data to online folders and directories because those ReadMe files help me locate locations of files I've saved since the 90s. I've discovered the Markdown files I'm adding to OneDrive and Google Drive locations help me locate information faster when I ask the respective mobile apps questions by using my mobile phone.

Getting Inside AI

by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel.
Image from The Emotion Machine.

MOST OF MY WORK with Artificial Intelligence has been in the field of Machine Learning. I teach students how to improve their online profiles so they enhance their prospects of gaining good jobs. And last semester, I introduced generative AI into classrooms to increase the speed of creating responsive web sites.

Technology and Education and Me #ictedu

by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel with Rode, Otter.ai, and Surface Book.

I TAKE INVENTORY of my teaching and learning every May as we prepare the annual ICT in Education Conference. This year's theme, Reshaping Education, has me thinking about my personal teaching practice.

TL/DR; I read my own transcripts more.

Singlemost valuable tool for creation

by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel

MY MOST VALUABLE tool for creating and curating content is the Microsoft Surface Book. I cannot overstate its value.

As many reviewers have noted, Microsoft's Surface Book is a leading Window 11 device. It's powerful enough to render a video using Camtasia while streaming audio on Spotify. Its stunning 3,000 x 2,000 display makes a big impression. When I've detached the screen from the keyboard many people think they're holding an iPad. And I'm love the rugged utility and feel of its brilliantly-designed Dynamic Fulcrum hinge.

Moving to Obsidian

By Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel

AS I RAMP UP teaching materials for a module I'm teaching about digital transformation, I've decided to migrate my Personal Knowledge Management process from Notion and Roam Research to Obsidian. I'm migrating because I believe I can teach principles of Zettelkasten and PKM with a series of hands-on tutorials that students complete with their own instances of Obsidian.

Twenty Years on Typepad Seeking Agency

I'VE BEEN PUBLISHING on Typepad at least once every fortnight since July 2002. I'm motivated by the thought that I'm creating agency in the process.

This has not been an easy row to hoe. Five years after I switched from Movable Type to Typepad, my average daily readership of Inside View fell below 1000 daily visitors. The downslope happened in mid-2007, even before it won "Best Technology Blog" in Ireland. Its peak viewership happened in late 2005, when all my work (i.e., photos and audio) emanated from my Typepad hub. Twenty year later, I still attract more than 1000 daily instances in aggregate but you have to count Flickr photostreams (around 400 a day), my YouTube channel (100 a day) and my podcasts (150 a day). Add 550 different people viewing my tweets and Instagram content and I'm back to 1000 daily impressions.

But I know my voice has faded in the mix.

Impressed by Veed.io #EdChatie

By Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel. Screenshot by @topgold.

I STARTED EXPERIMENING with Veed.io on my Samsung Note 9 handset. Here are a few impressions concerning mobile content production, project templates, and workflow.

Using Microsoft Teams for Big and Private

AS THE IRISH GOVERNMENT mulls over options to control an unexpected fourth wave of COVID-19, I'm auditing the technology I use that enables me to work from home. Near the top of the list is Microsoft Teams because of its ability to manage both large groups and private meetings.