Yeah, you heard me. I don’t mean something corny like sitting around a campfire singing Kumbaya, My Lord. Instead, I mean giving your team a way to interact regarding everything that is valuable to them — not just work. It’s all about building a team environment that makes people want to interact with eachother. Think about it: you spend a month hiring the perfect person to fit in your team, so why not facilitate the exchange of music between the people that you think are so perfectly fitted to each other? The good thing news is that there is a great site that allows you to do exactly that, with a little finesse. And now, I introduce you to Blip.
Is anyone else annoyed by the ostentatious graphics on the news?
Election night was the worst. In an effort to be super-informative, most networks succeeded only in assaulting my eyes with distracting, overbearing graphics for three hours.
The result? I actually watched Katie Couric on election night.
Now, I’m no Katie Couric fan, but I’ve got to say that CBS sported the least annoying graphics of the night. In fact, they were downright classy.
And, for the most part, their charts were minimalist and clean. They avoided the bright, “PowerPoint 95″ color scheme. And they didn’t have 18 graphs on the screen at one time.
Compare this to NBC:
Normally, I like NBC’s look. But, wow, what was going on tonight?
What was the deal with the virtual hologram images in the horribly rendered pillar-room? It made me feel like I was in a bad role playing game.
Last, let’s look at Fox:
Well, Fox is Fox. Still using five different fonts per screen.
I just don’t get why networks think that an excess of brightly colored charts is a good thing. For me, visual aids count for a lot, especially for something as important as the news. Unfortunately, things seem to be getting worse rather than better…
The internet provides a wealth of tools for analyzing today’s election. Some of my favorites:
Check out Twitter’s Election 08 page for a live feed of election related tweets. For information how on voting experiences went go to search.twitter.com and search for #votereport.
Check out Digg’s Digg the Candidates for news stories related to the candidates voted on by the digg social network. Tends to be liberally biased, but as long as you stay away from the comments you’ll survive.
For an awesome mashup of the two check out CurrentTV’s Election Night Party. They will be displaying live feeds from both digg and twitter over their election coverage. (If CurrentTV is not available in your area you can normally watch it online, I’m not really sure if that’ll work tonight though.)
And last but not least:
CNN’s Electoral Vote Calculator which lets you chose the winners of states and plan your candidate’s path to victory! Well, not necessarily to victory but you do get a chance to play out different scenarios if you can’t wait until the polls close.
With all this who needs political analysts any more?
Ok. I understand the rationale. Best Buy’s current logo looks a little cheap and very, very yellow.
It’s not surprising they’ve decided to update their image:
Sans-serif font? Check. Accent-colored icon next to text? Check.
Wimpy, nondescript logo? Check!
Don’t get me wrong. Their new logo is attractive, sharp and professional. I wish I could design logos that nice. But it’s a conservative choice (ala Walmart or Xerox) that threatens to undermine their curb-appeal.
Like many other Best Buy fans, I’ve been conditioned to salivate at the sight of that big yellow tag. I can spot ‘em from a mile away, whether I’m zipping along the interstate or navigating a strip mall parking lot.
I’m worried that the new logo, while snazzy, simply doesn’t stick out.
Undoubtedly, they are trying to project a more professional, high-quality image. But at some point, doesn’t the store affect the logo more than the logo affects the store? In other words, hasn’t Best Buy successfully overridden the apparent “cheapness” of their current logo, by simply being a quality store? So, isn’t it better to stick with the iconic image customers recognize, trust and like?
For years, SAGrader has been helping students learn more through writing and saving time for instructors.
Now, we’re giving teachers the chance to use it for free in their classroom this spring.
Why? We want your opinion and suggestions! We’re eager to learn how we can improve SAGrader to make it the ultimate learning tool. In exchange, you and your class will get full access to SAGrader for the Spring ‘09 semester.
Those of you who have been waiting for a commitment-free chance to try automatic grading, now is your chance! Sign up deadline is November 17th.
Meris Stansbury of eSchool News recently wondered how students’ reading and research habits have been influenced by our Google-centric culture.
She cites research commissioned by the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee that says:
[Web users] tend to seek information horizontally–meaning they skim, or bounce from page to page, without reading in depth and rarely return to a previous source. About 60 percent of electronic journal users view no more than three pages, the study found, and 65 percent never return.
The study also reveals statistics about students’ preference for web researching. For instance, 89 percent of college students use search engines to begin an information search, the study found–while only 2 percent start from a library web site.
Are students to blame for this? Or is it a design issue?
In my experience, students don’t use library web sites for research because they are more difficult to use. While libraries contain richer, more reliable information than Google, they aren’t designed as well. Students can’t find relevant data as quickly as they can with Google.
The depth of information a reader seeks is also a design issue.
Good designers can present large amounts of information in an intelligent way, that encourages users to read all of it. Perhaps students are skimming more because information sources aren’t designed to encourage in-depth reading.
Ask any student to compare/contrast their favorite textbook with their least favorite. I’ll bet each textbook presents the same amount of information. But the good textbook packages their data better.
Library web sites (and other rich sources of information) aren’t losing the popularity content because they have lots of data. They’re losing because they’re poorly designed.
Getting colors to behave and work together on a web page is a challenging task. Luckily, there are plenty of helpful tools available for free on the web.
Here’s a rundown of my favorites:
If you never took art class in high school, start by checking out this brief introduction to color theory. It goes through all the basics like: Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Colors, Tints, Shades, and Tones, Complementary, Analogous, Triadic schemes.
One of the slickest tools out there is kuler made by Adobe. Boasting an easy-to-use flash interface, it lets you refine a color scheme based on a color, image or choose a scheme shared by one of the community members. If you sign in with your free Adobe ID, you can save your work, download files and more.
For quick and easy testing, I like to use Color Scheme Generator 2. Provide a base color, then let the app suggest pleasing schemes based on color theory - things like monochromatic schemes, analogic colors, or “soft” contrast.
Quite a few sites allow designers to share color schemes. My favorites are Colour Lovers, Colorcombos.com and the Color Schemer Gallery. You can search for a color scheme by title or by base color (like, find every color scheme containing #80C31C).
Colorcombos.com also has a neat feature that displays your colors in big blocks on the screen, so you can see how they look together.
Nature is a consistent source of good color combos. Use the color palette generator to “color-palette-ify” your favorite image. Simply enter the URL of your inspiration and color palette generator will give you the 5 most common colors in the photo.
Similarly, colr.org picks out the color scheme from your favorite photo, a random Flickr photo or a website. It’s minimalist interface packs some interesting features like tagging your colors and browsing iStockPhotos that match your color scheme.
Using video games in the classroom is nothing new.
Like most children of the ’80s, many of my earliest memories of using a computer involve “The Oregon Trail“. Developed by a student teacher to supplement his history class, The Oregon Trail allowed students to get a glimpse of life in 19th Century America while also teaching them budgeting, decision-making skills, and how to hunt for buffalo (or waste your time shooting squirrels).
Today, instructors are using more complex video games to teach students about the scientific method, physics, math and literacy. It’s a strategic move by educators who hope to capitalize on the popularity of video games (97% of teens ages 12-17 play computer, web, portable, or console games) and keep students engaged in the learning process.
Educational Games
In the same vein as Oregon Trail or Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? some gamemakers are designing video games with a specific educational purpose. MIT-based The Education Arcade’s newest game, Caduceus , is a puzzle game for tweens focused on logic, reason and creativity skills.
It’s also designed to promote compassion:
Caduceus is a key content element of a new pediatric medical research awareness…designed to help parents teach their children to care about others and believe they can make a difference.
Another gamemaker, Education Simulations, created “Real Lives 2007” to let students experience how people live in other countries. Based on real statistical data, the game randomly assigns the user an identity - such as a factory worker in Brazil or a policeman in Nigeria - and teaches them life skills while letting them explore the global community.
As a John Lennon fan and a sucker for interesting animation, I loved this short animated film “I Met the Walrus“. It’s an Academy Award Nominee for Best Animated Short Film and combines the artistic talents of director Josh Raskin with pen work from James Braithwaite and digital illustration by Alex Kurina.
A perfect example of how a great director can piece together different types of media to create an engaging experience. Kudos. I hope they win the Academy Award.
SAGrader is designed to help students express their understanding of concepts through careful, precise writing. We’re not big fans of “fluff” writing that sounds good, but doesn’t actually say anything.
I call this writing to the point. The underlying goal is to remove any content that does not help define your main point in a unique way.
It’s similar to the system used by screenwriters. When you’re writing a script for a movie, each scene needs to contribute to the underlying theme of your film. If you can’t explain how a scene relates to the overall movie, cut it.
Use the same process for each word and sentence in your writing.
I recently read some of Ayn Rand’s editing notes for her first draft of The Fountainhead and she repeatedly criticized herself for using adjectives that don’t contribute something distinct to the noun.
I fall into this trap all the time. Often, I’ll end up using two adjectives to describe a noun that mean the same thing (“We need to keep our workplace clean and tidy.”).
Just stop it. It’s okay to reinforce your point. Repetition is a useful technique. But don’t add “filler” words and sentences just to take up space. It’s poor writing and less enjoyable to read.
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Like most children of the ’80s, many of my earliest memories of using a computer involve “
