Guest Blogger - Will Parker: Military Training and Technology

Today's trending topic is brought to you by Will Parker...

“Military Training Hollywood Style”

This kind of training that our military is receiving is as good and real as it gets. There are car bombs, bullets flying by, RPG’S, wounded soldiers screaming, broken glass and metal pieces everywhere, and you would think this is only in the movies. The new training for the military these days is called Strategic Operations, which is a small program, developed to make a scenario for the soldiers as if they were in a real battle. Hollywood-influenced military trainers use video, 3-D and mechanical simulations. But Strategic Operations brings advanced special effects, actors, and sets that can be moved quickly if needed, to create training grounds so real that troops feel stress and can come up with ways to get by it. The main goal for this program is so that the soldiers aren’t shocked by anything and feel as if they were just in another simulation.
Strategic Operations prides itself on hyper-realism to perfect what it calls "stress inoculation," the process of preparing troops for the horrors and surprises of wartime. The company creates incredibly life-like training environments, from objective-based scenarios such as boarding a cargo ship via helicopter, to environments like "Mojave Viper," Strategic Operations' massive desert grounds, which replicates an entire Middle Eastern city with a population of 50,000 or more. Strategic Operations has dozens of locations like these throughout the country, and has 80 full-time employees. In 2009, its revenues doubled due to strong military demand for its products and services ( Carr). This advance training has had outstanding results from our soldiers In the field and they mention how they feel a lot more safe and ready for battle than they have ever been before. This kind of training is relatively small but because of the impact its having, its starting to grow.

Here’s some links with videos and information.
http://www.fastcompany.com/1696703/how-the-military-trains-soldiers-using-hollywood-effects-amputated-actors-robots-laser-explo
http://www.okcteaparty.org/support-our-military/hollywood-magic-helps-military-training/

Guest Teacher: Sydney Smartt - How to use the MyHomework App on a Mac.

Ever had trouble keeping track of a paper agenda or just see it as a hassle? Well there is now a solution to your problem! The MyHomework app on the Macbook is just like an agenda but it's digital. This way  you'll never lose track of it! It's simple, easy to use, and it is also available on your iphone! You simply put in your classes and each time you're given a new homework assignment, you enter it into MyHomework. This app notifys you when assignments are due and let's you know if you have a late assignment. This app is great for staying organized!

I made a screencast to show you just how easy and helpful it can be.
Learn how to use the MyHomework app!

If you would like to read a review on this app then, click here!

Let me know what you think.

Guest Blogger - Erin Anderson: Crowdsourcing

Erin will be leading the class in a "Trending Topic" discussion about crowdsourcing. Below is her blog post review of the subject.

Crowdsourcing: to outsource work to an unspecified group of people, typically by making an appeal to the general public on the internet.
In my opinion, crowdsourcing is a clever advancement in advertising. It allows consumers to become involved in choices the company will make. Allowing consumers to become involved in a company's process creates interest in the company.

Crowdsourcing also creates an increased revenue. Generally, when people are involved in something, they become interested. For example, when Mountain Dew introduced the Dewmocracy campaign increased sales of the product. This result is very common after a crowdsourcing campaign. Dewmocracy

American Idol was also discussed in crowdsourcing. Thirty-three million people watch American Idol every week and three-forths of those viewers contribute to the voting. How many of those viewers do you think would still stay true to the show if they weren't able to vote? A lot of the viewers watch that show are intrigued by the fact that they are allowed to participate in the decision making.

A huge topic in the blogging community is how to use crowdsourcing effectively. Effective Crowdsourcing is a website I found on how use crowdsourcing to benefit your company or cause most.
The first thing it says to ask is will the crowd care. This means, if you are selling a toy for children, you should not ask adults to participate in your voting process. This crowd will not care about a child's toy. The second and third things to consider are crowdsourcing requires time and needs structure. People must be hired and plans must be made for the way you will get your ideas out. People want to know what they are contributing to or voting on. The forth and most important when you have started your campaign would be to enforce the rules. In 2007, Pepsi became overwhelmed with votes from the same people. They needed to enforce the rule of one vote per person.

Guest Blog: Recommendation Engines by Katherine Hamil

Today's trending topic workshop is brought to you by Katherine Hamil. Said topic? Recommendation Engines and us.

"You might like this..." - a common sight for all of us using Facebook, Amazon, Pandora, or Netflix. Many of us are so used to these recommendations that we look right past them. Or do we? Here's an interesting article detailing the different types of recommendation engines and discussing the possible ramifications of their usage on our near future.

I myself am torn about their ubiquitous nature. While they are helpful in many ways, especially when it comes to helping us wade through the vast amounts of information available to us, they are also a bit limiting (literally). The free spirit in me bristles against anyone suggesting what I might like...especially a computer.

Guest Blogger: Hannah Kelly - Technology in Society Today

Hannah Kelly brought us today's "Trending Topic". Below is her blog post about the subject.

Initially I was intrigued when I saw the article: “How Steve Jobs Stole Christmas
- -Apple Products Top Of Every Kid’s Wish List”. I automatically assumed the article would be referring to the increase of Apple products on children’s wish lists. While this may be the case, as I read closer I soon discovered that the amount of children surveyed for this article was a very small number of people out of a very large population. This made me think about how attracted we are as a society, to the title of things---the big headlines that grab our attention. And hey! If they are catchy we tend to “read on.” The way the information was portrayed was definitely tilted, due to the fact that when I read this article, it felt like I was reading an article based on a survey of a larger amount of people. And did you notice that the headline stated that Apple products were att the top of every kid’s wish list? This is misleading advertising!


Even though this article surveyed a small sample size, it did raise the question of the influence of technology on our daily lives. Younger and younger children are utilizing the technology that was not even conceived of a few years ago. Connections across time and space are made regularly now through texting, video conferencing, virtual chat rooms and support groups. It occurs to me that while technology can certainly cause many problems such as increased incidence of motor vehicle accidents while texting during driving, it is not the technology itself that is the problem. Technology is not inherently bad, rather our relationship with the technology poses the problem. After reading this article I began to examine my own relationship with technology and I realized the huge impact it has had. My cell phone is always, and I mean always easily accessed when I want it to be. And I am spending more and more time communicating via facebook and texting than I am with one on one in person conversations. Take a second and evaluate the impact technology has had on your life, it might surprise you. http://passioncomputing.com.au/articles/the-social-impact-of-technology.aspx

Your Shortcut to Shortcuts

Our school just began a new era - DLE. The Digital Learning Environment. Instead of carrying bookbags loaded with heavy binders and cumbersome textbooks, all junior high and high school students on our campus are now fully armed and loaded with their own Macbooks and itouches. It's a move in the right direction, for sure, but it's not been without its challenges. (One being the fact that they still carry around their bookbags loaded with stuff!)

Moving from a PC to a Mac takes a bit of an adjustment, even for the most savvy of computer users. I know that I've been guilty of assuming that all of the kids know way more than they do when it comes to simple usage.

So, I thought it might be helpful to post the simple tips and techniques that I'm learning on the off chance that some of my students could use a tutorial as well. First order of business? Shortcuts. A must have for any self-respecting computer user.

If you are a Mac newbie or just in need of a refresher, this is a wonderful reference to get you flying around in no time. Check out Dan Rodney's List of Shortcuts.

Calling All Screencasters!

We're embarking on a project to learn about screencasts for the next couple of weeks. Step one is to figure out just what they are.

Screencasts are (usually) short videos which record whatever is happening on the computer screen, alongside a voice narration of that action. They are wonderful teaching tools and can be pretty darn entertaining when done well.

Here's a nice example from Tom at the Rapid eLearner Blog - a great resource for all things digital.



Face it - we all learn better when we can SEE how to do something rather than simply read about it. (Case in point).

I plan on showing this to the kids as an example of how a complicated process can be taught to even the most novice of novices via a screencast. We'll learn how to create images in Powerpoint while introducing ourselves to the screencasting tool. Then I'll turn them loose to see what they can come up with. I'll post the best ones here before we move on to Step Two: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.