I avoid political positions on my blog, but for years now I have been advocating for teachers to become politically active to protect the educational interests of our nation's children.

Most of the nation's teachers are women. Most of the US population are women. Women are substantively under-represented in the political process. I sincerely believe that if 51% of our politicians were women, just like the nation as a whole, we would be in far better shape than we are as a country today.

I heard last night that the state of Ohio is working to send 10 teachers to the legislature this November.

Teachers, male and female, why shouldn't you seek public office?!

I applaud this effort and hope that other teachers in ever state will follow this lead!

A Vision of the Future -- Really?!

I love stumbling upon a brilliant mind at the right time, a person whose amazing insight causes you to have some fundamental perceptual shifts that enlighten your path forward. The video at the end of this post began one of those encounters. But first...

Bret was a Human Interface Inventor at Apple, an employment experience that, based on his website, worrydream.com, was at times something less than satisfying. Near the end of 2011 he wrote a piece about the future of interactive design, which I highly recommend! Last year, when I first saw the Microsoft video about a "Vision for the Future," I was completely underwhelmed, not inspired--as I think Microsoft intended the audience to be. I clearly remember thinking, "This is not a future in which I wish to live." Apparently that video piece was Bret's impetus for writing A Brief Rant On The Future Of Interaction Design.

In his short rant, Bret says several things about interactivity that I think are dead spot on the mark. Here are a few of his thoughts that resonated with me:

• A tool addresses human needs by amplifying human capabilities. That is, a tool converts what we can do into what we want to do. A great tool is designed to fit both sides. [I've always grumbled about how our tools limit us as much as they define new possibilities.]
• His graphics for the above are great illustrations of the point.
• He then goes into detail about the human hands and how sophisticated, sensitive, and capable they are, how we use them in complex ways to manipulate, observe, and gather information that immediately and instinctively informs function--what we do/make with them.
• He then talks about the limitations of the iPad and Microsoft's boring vision of the future as merely "pictures under glass" that are basically swiped with a single finger and "sacrifice all the tactile richness of working with our hands, offering instead a hokey visual facade. ... Pictures Under Glass is an interaction paradigm of permanent numbness. It's a Novocaine drip to the wrist. It denies our hands what they do best. And yet, it's the star player in every Vision Of The Future."
• What is the Future Of Interaction? The most important thing to realize about the future is that it's a choice. [Brilliant!! Instead we passively have these boring vision of the future foist upon us as if they are transformational, inspiring, even "magical."] People choose which visions to pursue, people choose which research gets funded, people choose how they will spend their careers. ... And this is my plea — be inspired by the untapped potential of human capabilities. Don't just extrapolate yesterday's technology and then cram people into it."
• "In 1968 — three years before the invention of the microprocessor [emphasis mine] — Alan Kay stumbled across Don Bitzer's early flat-panel display. Its resolution was 16 pixels by 16 pixels — ...  and he went home, and he picked up a pen, and he drew a picture of a goddamn iPad."
• "Any dancer or doctor knows full well what an incredibly expressive device your body is. 300 joints! 600 muscles! Hundreds of degrees of freedom! ... With an entire body at your command, do you seriously think the Future Of Interaction should be a single finger?"

How Do You Choose to Live Your Life?

These are my notes from the January, 2012, video below* (which really focuses on the field of technology but can be extrapolated to any field) of Bret's presentation which is divided into 4 parts:

1. Introduction
2. His Principle: where he talks for about 30 - 35 minutes about the guiding principle that informs his work, showcasing several examples
3. Four shorter but compelling examples from the lives of 4 other people
4. Finding your principle

In the introduction Bret talks about the ways you can choose to live your life. We have heard the top two many times before, but the third?

• Following your passion or
• Doing something you love or
• Following a principle: something you believe is important and necessary and right that guides your work.

The nature of a principle: Violations of the principle aren't really seen as an opportunity but feel more like a moral wrong and injustice, like you have a responsibility to do something about it. These words (violation, moral wrong, injustice, responsibility) are found in social causes but not in the technology field. They produce an activist lifestyle where a person dedicates his or her life to fighting for a cause, a principle that person believes in deeply.

You recognize a wrong in this world, not a social wrong but a principled wrong, have a vision for what a better world would be, and fight for that principle. Social activists fight by organizing, but we (in technology) can fight by inventing. Principles are larger issues that react to a cultural context, not simple, limited areas of concern. The guiding principle can't be just anything you believe in as that's too vague and not actionable. Powerful principles are insightful and illuminate a new way to see the world moving forward.

Finding your principle is a form of self discovery that takes time. You might choose this life, or it might choose you. Bret says that he spent about 10 years making many things, doing many things, experiencing many things, and analyzing himself: what is the broader secret ingredient here that resonates with me? What is my principle?

Often, people define themselves by pursuing excellence in a skill, reaching a specific job title, a specialty, as a problem solver or the master of a craft. But some people define themselves by a cause that matters deeply to them. Practicing a single skill appears to limit the broad range of experiences that seems to be necessary for discerning one's vision, one's guiding principle by which they see the world and work in it.

You can choose to sleepwalk through your life and accept the path that's been laid out for you. You can choose to accept the world as it is. But if you find something you feel is wrong and have a vision for what a better world would be, you can find your principle.

I highly recommend you take the time to listen to his presentation and then think it through your work-a-day-world!

And What About You?

I've often said that teachers, educators in general, live a calling more than they work a job. What is your principle? Do you, as a teacher leader, as a school administrator, see a vision for a better way forward? Do you find a moral imperative in your work that drives and guides you? Certainly this has been true in my own work as an educator. I hope it is true for you as well!

* Presented at the Canadian University Software Engineering Conference (or CUSEC)

I just read this article in the New York Times about states passing laws to require local school districts to make new rules...

Always a good idea! [Yes, sarcasm.]

Our culture is so unsuccessful at legislating common sense, but such activity makes for good soundbites!

When a small fraction of people use poor judgement, I think we are better served directly dealing with those specific issues and circumstances rather than encumbering organizations with more obligations with which, in all probability, they will not succeed. The expectation is appropriate professional judgement. True leadership articulates the vision, provides resources for accomplishing the vision (including who is hired and fired), and reflects on the degree to which an organization is successful in accomplishing the vision; so, everything remains focused, at all times, on the vision becoming reality.

You see, if we really want to get to the root of this social media problem, I think our law makers should ban electricity in schools and in the homes of all school employees and students. I am convinced that, without electricity we would all but eliminate these issues of teachers and students crossing the line with social media. Hmm, perhaps we may need to ban them from even entering into places that have electricity...

Maybe we should pass laws requiring policy makers to have common sense...

Oh for some horse sense!

I've just completed two HD quickcasts about a really impressive interactive whiteboard (IWB) solution for the iPad: Doceri.

If you are thinking about purchasing a physical interactive whiteboard, think again. By purchasing an iPad and software like Doceri, you probably could easily save your school about $1,000 or so (per classroom installation) and have an even more versatile tool than a fixed interactive whiteboard. And if the iPad travels with the teacher, then you have greater flexibility of use over a physical interactive whiteboard that is permanently mounted in one classroom location.

While these quickcast videos are not a comprehensive tutorial in how to use Doceri, they do provide a good overview of the current features of Doceri.

The good people at Doceri are actively working to add some very impressive features to their already awesome product. I don't know if I am at liberty to share those or not, but this will be a product to place on your watch list. They are actively working to leverage the unique power of Apple iOS devices to extend Doceri well beyond a mere content deliver mechanism. I am eager to see how this product, already the most powerful in its class in my opinion, evolves into a comprehensive tool that teachers will just not be able to live without.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with nor am I receiving any consideration of any kind from Doceri or SP Controls, Inc., for bringing this product forward. I do so only because I would have to have and use it if I were working in the school setting. I use it now every time I present to educators.

Part One - What You Are About to See (7m.34s)

Part Two - Feature Overview (23m.10s)

This quickcast was created in HD using ScreenFlow and includes a live, simultaneous, side-by-side screen recording of both the iPad running Doceri and the computer display controlled by Doceri running on the iPad. (I'm delighted that Google allows my YouTube account to post large HD videos! And, on that note, all media used in this recording are used without violating any copyright laws.)

We have such a reactionary, crisis-driven, fear-motivated public policy and funding mentality in the United States. I personally find this so unsatisfying. The results of this type of failed leadership are so incredibly short term and surrounded by the negative energy of perpetual insufficiency and blame. Then the nation's attention gets focused on the next big crisis and the former one is pushed aside. Then a new crisis has to be created to direct attention back to the other crisis... A vicious "spin" cycle.

Many are now repeating the NCLB educational policy mantra: Sometime next year, 82% of our schools will be failing schools. Back in 2005 I began preparing my school community for the inevitable fact that by 2014, Mabry Middle School, then one of the best schools in the state of Georgia, would be labeled a failing school. Simply absurd. But, in my thinking, that community deserved to know where this policy was inevitably going to take us.

Certainly my profession, as does every national sector*, has its issues. In many places, those issues are very serious.

But 82% of schools are labeled failures while at the same time a significant majority of Americans believe that their local schools are doing a good job. Teachers are being dismissed in record numbers because funding has shrunk because of the failure in the financial sector while at the same time central office budgets and testing budgets are at record highs across the nation. Hundreds of children apply for only a tiny handful of seats in a small number of "high performing" charter schools while at the same time thousands in those same communities could care less, seeing no link between their education and their ability to attain the American Dream. After all, where are all of the jobs going? What do we build in this country?

I hear many explanations: the extreme conservatives want to privatize schooling in the US. The teachers' unions are the problem with New York City alone paying over $100,000,000 annually in teacher salaries for teachers who spend over a year not teaching while their termination cases are being reviewed. The inflexible, reform-resistent system is the problem. Too many bodies govern the classroom: federal, state, local. The country can't afford to fund public education which should become a business enterprise. ...

Waiting for Superman, an interesting perspective to be sure, suggests that it's all about the teacher in the classroom. Unquestionably, the living, breathing, human, proficient, dedicated teacher's face-to-face interactions with students in the classroom is essential to the educational future of our children. (Now, even that is under assault with the emerging energy around "School-as-a-Service" delivered through cost-effective, cloud-based, customized learning buzz being hyped as the next real solution.)

But even if marginal and poor teachers who are protected by unions are the source of all of the problems in our schools, as Davis Guggenheim seems to suggest in his docudrama, let's wave a magic wand and remove every single one of them from our schools in an instant. Then what? Who replaces them? Our current colleges are not preparing enough future teachers because being an educator is not seen as a valued career path in this country.

One thing is clear to me: a policy that labels 82% of the nation's schools as failures is bad policy. I dare say it is a failed policy. As the data comes in, even the charter school movement has clearly demonstrated that it does no better than their public school counterparts. Can "we the people," as informed, hard working, good people who care about our nation, our children, and our collective futures not envision a different perspective for what is going on here?

When will we finally have the courage to stand up and say that the reactionary, crisis-driven, hysteria-centric, failure-riddled, fear-motivated policy and funding mentality that began with "A Nation at Risk," and culminated with NCLB and Race to the Top simply did not and does not work. It completely misses the mark. It neglects what motivates human beings to live a culture of personal best. It has a demonstrated track record of failing to empower meaningful, sustainable, positive change. It effectively erodes public trust and confidence in an institution that is essential for our national interests and democracy.

If we can not motivate our country to support education reform through long term, sustainable funding models that empower local, human teacher leadership focused on the highest levels of individual student achievement in a caring learning community we will continue to be in this spin cycle of failure. I long for leadership that sees a better way to lead, that sees a better way to create policy, that sees a better way to empower sustainable, long term, positive solutions.

Our children deserve it.

*I've often pondered how national governance deregulated the financial sector and then reacted to that sector's sheer greed and incompetence, turning the national coffers upside down to give away unprecedented dollar amounts (no amount could be too much) compared to how those same governing bodies respond to the educational sector. Those were very powerful people, unlike educators, with tremendous financial and political resources.

For all of my educator friends who use Blogger, Google is about to introduce some significant enhancements to the blogging platform. Apparently competition in the blogging space is heating up a bit.

Google will be releasing 5 new dynamic templates that look really cool—see the video below. Users will be able to use and customize each template. These new templates use the latest in web technologies: AJAX, HTML5 and CSS3, to make all of their interactive goodness happen.

Google has set up a help center article about these new templates, and you can also preview them at: Flipcard | Mosaic | Sidebar | Snapshot | and Timeslide.

Finally, below is an introductory video from Google that highlights the new templates. You can see them in action.

OK, I'm going to really geek out here in this post. You have been warned.

A few weeks ago I came across a solution being used here in LA for wirelessly, over WiFi, streaming 1080 HD video from HDSLRs (digital SLR cameras that shoot full frame HD video, like the Canon 5D Mark II) to HD monitors. TV Producers and movie makers are using this setup in Hollywood so the Director of Photography and/or the Director can see what the camera operator is shooting in real time. (Oddly enough, this is actually what got me to initially start thinking about using the iPad as a wireless interactive whiteboard. Admittedly a convoluted train of thought... More could be said on that; but, I digress...)

The setup is really pretty cool, and the idea of wirelessly streaming that much digital video content in real time amazed me. The solution: the Teradek, a display device, and a wireless network. After watching a video demo of the technology, I was stunned to see that Livestream* and Teradek have already teamed up to allow users to stream HD video over the Verizon 4G network in real time. Watch the video below for a quick overview and amazing demonstration. (In the still poster image for the video below you can see the regular handheld HD video camera, the Teradek Cube sitting on top of the camera, and the Verizon 4G card plugged into the front of the Teradek Cube.)

This will be a game changer.

News organizations, video production houses, schools, anybody, can now broadcast live, in real time, their own HD internet TV station. High Definition! In real time! Using affordable HD video cameras. And the price is affordable for a school or district account that might broadcast concerts, games, board meetings. Production houses can stream their dailies in real time to the execs in LA or NYC on a secured Livestream channel. This has numerous possibilities. (And beware: Teradek claims their Cube will tunnel through any firewall even if you're using a private IP address to get to the Livestream servers. Hmmm...)

But that's really not what this post is about. That's just the setup for where my thinking is about to go.

After figuring out how to turn the iPad into an IWB, I've been wondering why tether the iPad 2 to the projector to stream a mirrored, real time HDMI video out of the user's interaction with the iPad. Well, the answer is cost. The Teradek Cube solution is too expensive for typical classroom or presenter use.

But, it didn't take too long.

Eric Govoruhk and Kelly McAteer have created a homemade solution to wirelessly mirror the iPad 2 in real time HD to a projector or HD TV. The cost: about $250.

I think he is using the HP Wireless TV Connect and a USB battery pack/charger for a cell phone—all purchased at Fry's.

Now, the solution isn't elegant. It's a hack (that does not involve changing the iPad 2 in any way). And it works—apparently with zero lag time. My prediction: it won't be long before similar devices appear on the retail market. Apple should have been a step ahead of this with their own accessory, at the least. And, maybe they are. Perhaps AirPlay, an accessory of sorts, will contain this feature in the not-too-distant future.

Imagine, streaming everything you do on your iPad 2 wirelessly to your projection device. The next logical step would be having IWB software for the iPad itself, so the teacher can write directly on the iPad screen, on apps, on the web browser with no need for a classroom computer.

Way cool! It's going to happen. As my grandmother would sometimes said, "I can just feel it in my bones."

*If you don't know Livestream, Ustream, and similar services, I encourage you to explore those possibilities. Think, "broadcasting your IWB lesson in real time" and a whole lot more.

I don't use a CDN service as they are out of my price range. And I had a few emails from people on the other side of our world who were having issues getting this series of quickcasts to play. Too many hits. Such great distance. One little server that tried.

So I've uploaded all of these iPad as an IWB quickcasts to YouTube in HD. Because I recorded them all in the 4:3 aspect ratio, they look stretched as 16:9 HD videos, but the visual clarity of the HD uploads is so improved, I thought everyone would just deal with the stretch. (The only way to prevent the stretching would be to redo the quickcasts in 16:9. Just not happening. But any future screencasts I make and upload to YouTube will be specifically prepared for YouTube 16:9 HD from the beginning.)

At any rate, because everyone has offered so many awesome suggestions, I'm releasing 4 more quickcasts with updated information (most of which came from your numerous emails) and one solid gold nugget! I really appreciate everyone sharing your ideas with me.

Update 1: General Updates (7m:08s)
Update 2: Splashtop Remote (9m:08s) <--the must have!
Update 3: xTag Wireless USB Mic (2m:54s) Previous post w/ audio here at drTT
Update 4: Updated Limitations & Advantages (6m:20s)

These are best viewed on YouTube in fullscreen HD but are squeezed in here for those in a rush. Here is the link to my YouTube channel.

Comments are open at the bottom of this post, so feel free to add your voice.

UPDATE: Now published in HD on YouTube. Here is the link to my YouTube channel. The videos below are in the correct aspect ratio but are lower quality.

Wow. I had no idea this would be so popular with everyone. My server has been slammed. To make the videos more easily available to everyone around the world, I've uploaded them to YouTube.

I've received numerous awesome ideas (from people all around the world) that address some of the limitations and make using the iPad as an IWB even better. I hope to get at least one more quickcast up this weekend to share those ideas. And finally, I'll republish the YouTube videos in HD this weekend as well.

Thanks for all of your feedback. I hope this is a practical and affordable solution for educators everywhere!