Terence Armentano - eResume & ePortfolio » google

Distance learning and gas prices

Terence Armentano — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:24:00 +0000

I thought the results for a Google search I performed on “distance learning + gas prices” was pretty interesting. What do you think? Since most subjects can be taught online effectively and driving to class is becoming more $$$ for students and teachers, people are looking for online options. I have always said that online courses and programs add immense value to the traditional brick and mortar university (See University 2.0) and this is just another example. Online courses can be flexible, accessible, engaging, interactive, and very personal. As students continue to discover both the monetary and educational benefits of online learning, they will continue to look for the option as they hunt for the right university. Those universities that are paying attention to the needs of modern day students will benefit. BGSU, my university, which has been around since 1910, seems to get it as they have been adding more online courses every year since 2000. Check out our online degrees

Scour - leveraging the search engine to empower and pay the user

Terence Armentano — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:11:00 +0000

The idea is simple. Search, Contribute, Reward. Search for a topic using the Scour search engine (it searches google, yahoo, and msn), then rate the links with a thumbs up or thumbs down, then accumulate points for your contribution and get rewarded with money. It is an interesting idea to move the search engine forward and I wonder how well it will catch on. Like any web 2.0 idea, the community base is key to success and maybe the monetary reward may be enough incentive to boost the community participation. We will see. Overall, it sounds interesting and I’ll check it out. Let us know what you think of it. Scour - The social search engine

Google goes 3D with Google Lively

Terence Armentano — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:24:00 +0000

Google Lively is Google’s move into the 3d world. One thing that is neat about google lively is that after you download the installer, it runs in the browser and allows people to place their virtual rooms on their blog or websites. Therefore, I could put a link to my virtual world on TerenceOnline and you could meet me in the 3d realm of my blog. That’s kind of neat. Another neat feature about the system is the kind of animation the characters can do, specifically fighting moves. It’s kind of funny to watch a bunch of avatars throw each other around in a virtual space, though I’m not sure there is much educational value in it. If you are interested in 3d worlds, go ahead and check it out. This is Beta so they are working out the bugs. How do you think it compares to other virtual environments such as Second Life and Small Worlds? What educational advantages do these environments provide for students? Let us know what you think.

Info from the website:

Create an avatar and chat with your friends in rooms you design

Requires Windows Vista/XP with Internet Explorer or Firefox
By using Lively you agree to these Terms

Create your own virtual space

Chat and interact with your friends in rooms you design

Express yourself

Customize your avatar and stream personal photos and video

Add your room to your site

Invite your friends to chat and help decorate

[an island in google lively]

launch of app store for iPhone could revolutionize the mobile world

Terence Armentano — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:40:00 +0000

Jobs: App Store launching with 500 iPhone applications, 25% free - Engadget

Tim Bajarin at Creative Strategies said, “When IBM introduced the PC, it was good, but it didn’t take off until people started discovering the software.” It’s these apps then, he adds, that will “dramatically differentiates the iPhone” from Treos and BlackBerrys. Indeed, while consumers are focused on the launch of the iPhone 3G device, it’s the App Store which has analysts in such a tizzy.

Imagine your computer with only an operating system and a couple software programs. You wouldn’t think it is all that great. That situation is somewhat analogous to the mobile phone world in many respects until now. With the introduction of an application store for the iphone, mobile technology should dramataically enhance. Though 33% of the apps will be games, the development of apps for the phone will revolutionize the mobile lifestyle. It will be interesting to see how Google’s pet project, Android, will compare. Android is an open source application that will run on many different cell phone brands and they have opened the code up for people to develop apps for Android. In fact, google is giving away 10 million dollars to the top 50 developers of apps for Android. Who do you think will be a bigger player in the mobile technology world? I typically lean toward open source solutions whenever practical for educational reasons.

[iphone apps store]

PB Wiki steps up their game. Will Google Sites respond?

Terence Armentano — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:23:00 +0000

It appears that PB Wiki is fiercely competing with the Goliath that is Google and their new product, Google Sites. I really enjoy both products and have implemented them both in different ways at BGSU. We have been using the PB Wiki in our training programs and Google Sites for our own project management organization. I think wiki’s are awesome collaboration tools. I wrote a post a few days ago about ways I thought Google Sites could improve their system and it appears that PB Wiki already has pretty much all of the feature I said should be integrated into Google Sites, so I hope the competition drives excellence for both companies. Sometimes I wonder if Google is wishing they would have bought PB Wiki instead of JotSpot, but I guess they still could if they wanted to. I mean it is Google! The reason I like what Google Sites is doing is because it has the the patented ease of use guarantee and it integrates well with other Google apps we use. I am typically a fan of their web apps and they usually integrate search technology like no one else. However, PB Wiki is looking a bit more sophisticated at this point and I hope the Google Sites development team is working hard to match their features very soon. For example, the new PB Wiki provides page level access, page folders and folder access controls, as well as a new sleek interface. Check out this video of the new PB Wiki 2.0 and let us know what you think.

Google Sites - Some quick thoughts to improve the system

Terence Armentano — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:47:00 +0000

I am liking Google Sites as a team intranet wiki collaboration tool. However, there are a couple of things that need improvement and I’m hoping people from google read this.

First and most importantly, they need to make the page management system better!
- For example, they need to allow people to create folders to organize the pages we create, instead of just a huge list of created pages. I know google is anti creating folders and I am fine with that since I too prefer the search engine for organizing and retrieving, but they need to provide a search engine to find the page I am looking for to link to.
They need to enable each user the ability to add a list widget to a page so that people can add co-workers’ lists to their page and have an updated list of everyone’s projects on their page. In addition, it would be nice to have the ability for individual lists to export their lists to 1 Master Team list. Therefore, everyone could keep their individual project lists on their pages and it exports to a team list. It would also be neat if it could take list information and generate a graphical diagram.
The Google Sites Start Page is pretty weak. It would be cool to have all of my RSS Feeds there and i’d like to be able to upload them in one fell swoop with an OPML file. It should be something more like Netvibes or at least iGoogle.
Why not incorporate email with Google Sites?
More page privacy options.

Though I have these requests, it is a very cool product and I look forward to see how they improve it over time. More thoughts coming soon as I discover more about the inner workings of the system…

Google Sites - Putting it to the test

Terence Armentano — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:17:00 +0000

I was eagerly awaiting to see what Google would do with the wiki software company, Jot Spot, that they acquired quite some time ago. From the acquisition, Google has created Google sites, which is this hybrid wiki/project management application that is really quite interesting and easy to use. I must admit that I am a huge fan of using technology effectively to make things better. However, the only way to truly know it’s deep value is to put it to the test in a real life team and project management situation. So lets do it. I just designed and am now beginning to implement a google site for my team to use. My logic in developing my team’s Google site was to give each team member their own wiki page to help them manage their own projects, invite collaboration, and track their own status, while simultaneously sharing with the group what they are doing. In addition, everyone has a file upload page, which is linked to their wiki page. I’ve also created a dashboard (this is a custom template provided by Google sites), an ongoing projects page (custom template to easily add and track projects), an Announcements page to communicate with the team (also a custom template), and a Team Wiki page. The beauty of the system is that it is incredibly easy to use and enables the team to be productive on their projects while giving managers a snapshot of our workloads. Most project management software systems are clunky and not this easy to use, so I give it props for ease of use. The question is how effective this method will be for team collaboration and project management. It seems that it is off to a good start, and I’ll report back in about a month on my thoughts of the system.

JotSpot + Google = Google Sites…hmmmm?

Terence Armentano — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:35:00 +0000

Well, I got an announcement in my inbox today from Google informing me that they have finally incorporated JotSpot (a wiki application) within the Google framework. They call it Google Sites. It can essentially function as an intranet and workspace for a school, team, organization, etc. The unique thing about it is that it functions like a wiki though they are not using the term wiki. Instead they are just calling it a Site. What is different about this wiki platform is that it is designed to seamlessly integrate many of the google apps right into the Site using an Insert button. So if I am working with a team we can all edit the site easily and add documents, spreadsheets, videos, calendars, blogs, etc right into the Intranet. They are close to making the web an easier place for all people to create content and work together, however, the design of it all is still a bit lacking. Here is a video that explains Google Sites a bit more. If you have used it before, let us know what you think of it and how your team is using it.

The web is better when it is social

Terence Armentano — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 14:48:00 +0000

There is a lot of buzz about Web 2.0. It seems that a new Web 2.0 application is built every day that leverages the brainpower of a community, uses ajax, and enables greater connectivity between people on the internet. Google is working to make standards so that the new social landscape on the internet is seemless by getting developers to agree on standards for building the applications so that websites can leverage each others content. They call it OpenSocial and it’s pretty interesting. Read the text below and watch the video for more about the idea and process of using open standards.

-From Google’s website
The web is better when it’s social

If you’ve been involved in web development, you’ve noticed the continued trend towards more social applications. The web is definitely more interesting when you can build apps that easily interact with your friends and colleagues. With this trend has also come a growing list of site-specific APIs that developers must learn.
Introducing OpenSocial

OpenSocial provides a common set of APIs for social applications across multiple websites. Using standard JavaScript and HTML, they enable developers to create apps that access a social network’s friends and update feeds.
Many sites, one API

Common APIs mean you only have to learn once in order to build for multiple websites. OpenSocial is currently being developed by Google in conjunction with members of the web community. The ultimate goal is for any social website to be able to implement the APIs and host 3rd party social applications.

Ubuntu rocks walmart and education

Terence Armentano — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:03:00 +0000

I am a big fan of open source technologies especially in the realm of education. Because open source technologies are free to use, many people mistakenly assume they are inferior in quality and support. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. For example, the $100 laptop program runs on a modified open source distribution of linux. Moodle is used in schools and universities world-wide and it is a free open source Learning Management System that can be scaled from 1 user to 50,000 users. Open Office is a free open source office suite, which is quite comparable to the expensive and market dominating MS Office Suite.

The desktop computer has been dominated by Windows and challenged by Apple (You the know the commercials, I am a PC…I’m a MAC). However, is it possible that a free open source operating system can compete with the big dogs? Well, with the huge shift in the wide-scale use of web applications and the ever increasing role of the google online empire, an open source operating system might be in a prime position to really compete in the market. Plus, it helps to get a boost from the biggest retail store in the world, Wal-mart. Recently, Wal-Mart announced that they will be selling a $200 computer running the Ubuntu Linux Operating System. For those curious about Ubuntu, Mike Kudela, instructional designer for BGSU, wrote an informative article about Ubuntu for the BGSU distance learning newsletter, titled “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC, I’m an Ubuntu?“

I have a passion for spreading education in underdeveloped areas in the US and around the world and I think open source can play a major role in connecting the human netork and Ubuntu computers would be a great way to get the ball rolling. Thanks to Brian Childs for sending me the links to this info.