EduCampSG3 Photos

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EduCampSG3 was held at the National Institute of Education in Singapore today.  PC022920

We had about 60 educators, researchers and education entrepreneurs and students coming together to share ideas on making learning fun and meaningful. Here are some photos from the event.

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Sean on the search of extra-terrestial intelligence.

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@jocelynesze on her interest in nature

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@shamsensei on #edsg community. If you are educator, follow #edsg hashtag on twitter.

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Thomas on students learning the value of selling ideas.

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@pnjm talks about iPad physics game Eenies.

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@intmath on making math education more relevant to the times.

We will be posting a detailed commentary on the educampsingapore.com site little later.  Also read Otterman’s summary here

 

Estimating Dimensions with your Phone and a Google Search

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One of our collaborators for the upcoming educamp emailed me the dimensions of post-it notes we would be using to post topics. It was 127mm X 76 mm.  I was trying to figure out if these dimensions would be comfortable for people to write their topics . And I don’t have a ruler with me.  In such situations what I end up doing is googling for the dimensions of objects around me – for example the iphone. So this is what i did

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And I got a page with the dimensions – they are 115.2 mm by 58.6 mm

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Now that I have the dimensions of my phone, I can compare it to the dimensions of the post-it notes I got earlier – I found that the post-it notes have a bigger surfacer area compared to the iPhone, which works for us.  I can also use my iPhone as a rough ruler and measure other objects if I ever need to.

In the days of old, British India spies used to measure the length of their span, their stretch while walking and their average walking speed. This way they used to enter Tibet and other “here be dragons” places as pilgrims and collect geographic information. This way, even if they were searched at the checkpoints, no measuring instruments would be found on them.

The mysterious Free Public Wi-Fi

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So you walk into a cafe and settle down with your dessert. You turn on the wi-fi on your phone and you find this Free Public WiFi network. Should you join it?

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You connect to it and nothing happens. I mean you can’t browse at all. It is like you are connecting to a WiFi router  that is turned on but has no connection to the internet.

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What is this mysterious network that is everywhere. You can find it in airports, cafes etc. And you can never connect to the internet via it.

The answer is actually a funny bug with older versions of Windows XP (pre SP3). Let’s say we have a computer AA in Bangkok airport that is running an older version of Win XP.  AA can’t find the regular network it connects to, it creates its own ad hoc network. The WinXP names this network after the  last  wi-fi point it connected to. Now imagine another notebook BB running an older version of Windows is in the vicinity and it is trying to connect to a network. BB finds the network that AA is broadcasting. Now BB is connected to AA’s network. imagine now that  the owner of BB took a flight to Hong Kong. At Hong Kong airport, notebook BB is turned on and it can’t find any network. Computer BB will now start broadcasting a network. The name of this network will be the same as the the network it connected to earlier in Bangkok. In this way this “zombie” network continues spreading throughout the world with computers running older versions of XP as its host.  What must have happened is someone, somewhere created a network with the name “Free Public WiFi”. Many people tried to connect to it and unknowingly they just kept spreading this network name around the world.

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This Free Public Wi-Fi network is harmless. As all you do is connect to a computer. But there might be some naughty people purposely running a network with this name to try to get people to connect to it. It is possible to spy on your data this way. So even if you see this network, don’t join it. Avoid joining any public wi-fi network that you are not sure of. Also, if you see this “Free Public WiFi” network at your home or office, it means that there is an un-patched Windows XP computer somewhere. Try to find it and apply updates to it.

I found out about this at http://www.npr.org/2010/10/09/130451369/the-zombie-network-beware-free-public-wifi

EduCamp Kuala Lumpur 3

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The Singapore Educamp 3 is coming up on Friday, December 2, 2011. Let me share some pictures from my last week’s participation of Malaysian educamp.

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The event was hosted by MindValley. It was nice to see educators, parents and even kids. Yes the blur that you see on the picture is actually kids running around.

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Guitarist, composer and music educator Az Samad talked about ideas on how he motivates his music students.

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Az is at http://www.azsamad.com/about/ Twitter: @azsamad

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Designer Rames talked about not limiting our imagination and using whatever tools we have to shape them. Encountering an un-inspiring ad for a Malaysian telco inspired him to switch his career from business to design.

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Rames sharpens his Photoshop skills by working on photographs of himself and turning them into another person/situations. Here is changing himself into Damo. See more of his work at http://www.ramesstudio.com. On twitter: @ramesstudios

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Orianne Mignot,  a clinical psychologist shared her experiences of educating young people with special needs.

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This being Malaysia, we had food too. One of the participants had prepared this for the educamp. Thanks also to Wu Han (@Ngeow) and Mindvalley for hosting us.

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Malaysians hold their Educamps on a weekday evening, I think this is a good ideas as it allows for a more diverse attendance. My own presentation was on how I see travel as a learning experience and what else is happening in South East Asia with similar learning events.

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I also found it interesting that the educamp has folks from the Malaysian iPhone developer community attending. That is Chris, well known iOS developer,  talking about app builders spending time with end users and how it will help them make better products.

Container Terminal 9 and why I love the future

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I was in Tsing Yi. From my window I could see the Container Terminal 9 stretching all the way to Rambler’s Channel. I have always been curious about how well the global logistics system works.

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And then I wondered about the history of containers. Who first thought about moving things in metal boxes? How did so many companies and ports standardize on the size of containers? How does the system work so well?  A search on Amazon, and i found The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger .

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And I was reading the Kindle edition of the book, barely  minutes after getting curious about container shipping. Isn’t future fun?

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We will probably stop shipping physical books soon.

QR codes on posters could be bigger

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I am happy to see more and more QR codes in Asia (and outside Japan). Though, sometimes I see that the publicity agencies miss the usability aspect while posting a QR code on an advert.

 

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For example, take a look at the QR code above. I found it on a train station somewhere in Asia. It is too small and positioned too low. It is hard to scan unless you squat down (which looks a bit odd when you are in a public place).

 

Here are my suggestion for folks who want to add a QR code to their ads.

 

1) Make it large – 140 mm by 140 mm or more. At this size, they can be easily scanned from a meter and a half away. People tend to be a bit shy and they don’t want to be seen scanning the code. If the QR is large, the mobile user can scan it without appearing to be interested in the ad.

 

2) It should be positioned somewhere between the average shoulder and waist height (around 1 meter above the ground).

 

3) Rather not have the fancy colors, as some QR reader apps or phones with weaker cameras fail to read them.

 

4) Next to the QR, have a small screenshot of the actual webpage or content that the users will see after scanning. This is because most QR codes are tied to a short url and one can’t tell where it will lead to. Letting the mobile users see what they will get after scanning might make them more keen on checking it out.

 

5) Please don’t make the link from the QR code a lame Facebook page or a microsite. What is the point? Make it a webpage where and I can interact and I can get something tangible – maybe a discount code or a ebook etc.

 

Compare the QR code above to one below. this one was waist height and fairly large. Much easier to scan.

 

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Even better here is another good example

 

You immediately know that scanning the QR code will take you to the sign up form on the website.

 

 

Outside Japan, I find Thai folks have more experience with QR codes. See my post from earlier this year and how their QR codes are sized and positioned ergonomically. http://smarterbysharing.com/2011/03/17/qr-codes-in-thailand/

 

Huddlespaces

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Many years back in in the far north of China, one morning I hitchhiked from Yinchuan, in Ningxia province to the border of  Inner Mongolia.

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Nothing but wilderness and crumbling ruins of a wall (part of the series of walls that make the great wall). There were no tourists here, hardly any traffic and the landscape wall all mine to wonder about.  I thought about all the people who had traveled though here to the west along the silk route. Places like these where the travelers may have camped – someone makes a fire and that becomes the resting places of several caravan headed in different directions  - Persian, Koreans, Chinese and a dozen other nationalities that no longer exist. Wish I could go back in time to find out what stories they exchanged.

These days the nearest I can get to the silk route camp experience is the  huddlespaces I find in airports – around power plugs and wi-fi points.

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This is one place, strangers are friends – they are happy to talk about their phones and gadgets.

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The price of iPhone on their respective countries is often the topic.

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Images from Kuala Lumpur budget terminal.

Time we change the way we run panel discussions

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One of the interesting happenings at the Phnom Penh barcamp.

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As a part of the program, they has couple of panels. This particular one is one the startups in Cambodia. Do you see the panelists up on the stage?

 

No more panel

As the session starts,  the panelists step down and join the rest of the participants. This session was certainly more interactive compared to the earlier ones where the panelists stayed up on the stage.

 

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I would go one step more. I will try to  distribute the panelists among the participants.  Let’s remove the distinction between the panelists and the participants, everyone is the participant.

(BTW who is the cute moderator? do we know her? )

Also many presenters chose to use the whiteboard.

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Sometimes you need to show some pictures or screenshots, I guess no harm in using a presentation software then.

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But whiteboard makes it more fun.

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Full room does not stop the Cambodia BarCamp attendees. They are happy to participate via the window.

Playing with some gadgets in Tokyo

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Am in Tokyo these days and some interesting things I am observing

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Small camera that doubles as USB storage.

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Reminds me of the early iPod Shuffle. Charges via USB.

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Increasingly the  QR codes in Japan are linking to Facebook pages.

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Mockup of Nikong’s mirror less compact camera. Though I am waiting for Fuji X10.

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Nikon 1.

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Sony’s dual screen tablet. It folds to fit into salaryman’s jacket.

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On screens that need text input, the screen at the bottom changed to a keyboard.

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Sony’s wi-fi only tablet.

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Side view of the wi-fi tablet.

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Softbank’s ladies only free magazine for iPhone and iPad users

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Its trying to persuade you why iPad is good for you.

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A friend books an appointment with Apple genius. Services like these makes iPads and iPhones more attractive to customers.

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Yamato Transport. I just edited information about this logo on wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_Transport

Soaring bird and making pictures with Olympus XZ-1

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Soaring

Saw this bird soaring up

Bird with grass in its beak

It is building a nest

Olympus XZ-1, enjoy shooting on this

I really enjoy using camera. Makes good images for its size. Have been using it for a while and happy to recommend it to travelers.

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The video on this camera is average so skip this if you care about video. The still images it gets you are great and the camera is very easy to use. Participants in my digital imaging workshop enjoy this camera. As a constant traveler, I like the fact that you can charge it via USB, that’s one less power adapter to carry.