Archive for: August 2005
§ ¶Dennett on ID
Daniel Dennett had a very nice piece in the NYTimes this weekend explaining why intelligent design has no status as scientific theory. Here’s an excerpt explaining when and why alternative theories are taken seriously in science:
In just about every field there are challenges to one established theory or another. The legitimate way to stir up such a storm is to come up with an alternative theory that makes a prediction that is crisply denied by the reigning theory - but that turns out to be true, or that explains something that has been baffling defenders of the status quo, or that unifies two distant theories at the cost of some element of the currently accepted view.
To date, the proponents of intelligent design have not produced anything like that. No experiments with results that challenge any mainstream biological understanding. No observations from the fossil record or genomics or biogeography or comparative anatomy that undermine standard evolutionary thinking.
Instead, the proponents of intelligent design use a ploy that works something like this. First you misuse or misdescribe some scientist’s work. Then you get an angry rebuttal. Then, instead of dealing forthrightly with the charges leveled, you cite the rebuttal as evidence that there is a “controversy” to teach.
§ ¶InqScribe 1.0.2
We’ve released InqScribe 1.0.2. This free update greatly improves subtitling support for non-English transcripts and contains several minor fixes. You can download InqScribe 1.0.2 here.
§ ¶GUIdebook
I just found GUIdebook, a treasure chest of user interfaces from the past.
This site is meant to be an online museum of graphical interfaces, especially those old, obscure and in desperate need of preservation. Whether you want just to look back and refresh some nice memories from years ago, or are interested in seeing how the GUIs evolved throughout the decades (and it is sometimes fascinating to witness that), I hope you’ll enjoy your stay.
§ ¶Space Space Space: Comparing Monitor Sizes
If you could double your computer’s processor speed, or double the size of your monitor, which would you choose?
I’m in the monitor camp. Speed is nice but I’d almost always rather see more. I put together this little graphic to help show visually how much extra room some of the new, larger displays could give you.
The graphic includes 640x480 for historical purposes, although I think currently most designers treat 800x600 as the smallest screen size they need to support. 15” monitors might go to 1024x768 at the most; 17” and 19” monitors up to 1280x1024. 20” and 21” monitors hit 1600x1200, and the new wide screen behemoths (with vertical type in the image) get even bigger.
(Another historical point of comparison. I remember when the Apple Monochrome Two Page Display came out. It was huge. You could make windows stupendously big. When I looked it up the other day, I found it was only 1152x870; modest, compared to the current crop of LCDs.)
So if you’re looking at shiny fast new computers, please, don’t hamstring them with a tiny little 15” monitor. Give them room to roam. They need, you know, space.
§ ¶What Educational Market?
And yet, I’m not worried. This NYTimes article describes the precipitous decline in the home educational software market. And I do mean precipitous.
In 2000, sales of educational software for home computers reached $498 million, and it was conventional wisdom among investors and educators that learning programs for PC’s would be a booming growth market.
Yet in less than five years, that entire market has come undone. By 2004, sales of educational software - a category that includes programs teaching math, reading and other subjects as well as reference works like encyclopedias - had plummeted to $152 million, according to the NPD Group, a market research concern.
Does that mean everyone’s given up on educational software? Not quite. As the article points out, it is more the fact that traditional PC-based, shrink-wrapped software must compete against a variety of educational technology. Standalone gadgets like those made by LeapPad target similar developmental skills in the 8 and under crowd, and have the advantages that children can carry them around, drop them, and interact with them in a more tactile way.
Once the computer’s turned on, there’s tons of educational content available on the web. Why bother going to the store and buying something in a box, that you can’t really assess until you’ve paid for it, when there’s stuff online you can try for free?
So it’s understandable that sales of shrink-wrapped software are down, although the steepness of the decline is surprising. But I’d argue that interest in educational technology is as strong as ever. What’s changing is that the technology is moving — it’s embedded in toys or distributed on the web — which means that educators need to design for these new environments.
§ ¶Background on Discovery
The NYTimes has an informative article describing the history of the Discovery Institute, a major contributor to intelligent design theory. If you’re curious who has been pushing ID and why, this is a good read.
When you’re done, hit the Panda’s Thumb for the latest debunkings of ID, or head over to the Onion to read the latest theory of intelligent falling.
§ ¶QuickTime 7 Public Preview 3
Apple has been releasing public previews for QuickTime 7 for Windows, and these previews have had the unfortunate side effect of making every other application that depends on QuickTime (including InqScribe) crash immediately. Needless to say, this has been awful for users who are interested in QT7, who often don’t realize the connection between installing the public preview and discovering that all these other applications stop working.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that Apple just released Public Preview 3, which — finally — fixes the problem (at least for InqScribe, which is obviously my main concern). Note, however, that Apple still includes this warning with the public preview:
Apple recommends that you use QuickTime 7 for Windows Public Preview only for testing purposes on non-essential systems. We do not recommend its use with other QuickTime-based applications, such as iTunes. The Public Preview is not supported by AppleCare.
My advice? Stick with QuickTime 6.5 unless there’s a compelling reason why you have to upgrade now. If you do need to use QT7, upgrade to Public Preview 3 right away.
§ ¶New NRC Report on High School Science Labs
There’s a new National Research Council report out assessing the state of high school science labs. Here’s the lead-in.
The quality of science laboratory experiences is poor for most U.S. high school students, but educators can improve these experiences by following four key principles of effective instruction, says a new report from the National Academies’ National Research Council. The shift would make lab activities more likely to help students reach important goals of science education, including cultivating an interest in science, developing scientific reasoning skills, and mastering science subjects.
The committee that wrote the report conducted a comprehensive review of research on how U.S. high school science labs affect science learning, and on the whole, available knowledge is inadequate, it said. Research gaps, including a lack of consensus on how to define these labs or their purpose, make it difficult to reach conclusions on the best approaches to laboratory teaching and learning. However, sufficient evidence shows that the nation’s high school science labs generally do not follow four established principles for effective science instruction:
- Design science lab experiences with clear learning outcomes in mind
- Thoughtfully sequence lab experiences into science instruction
- Integrate learning science content and learning about the processes of science
- Incorporate ongoing student reflection and discussion
Full news release is here; the report itself will be available in the fall.
§ ¶Daylight Saving Time
So for the first time since 1986, Daylight Saving Time is being changed. It’s not Y2K, but it’ll be fun to see how many gadgets get confused come October, when they were programmed to change over. (Now’s a good time to make sure your computer gets its date and time from a time server.)
§ ¶Showing Evidence Featured in The Intel Innovator
There’s a nice introduction to our newest project, Showing Evidence, in the latest Intel Innovator.
Students encounter arguments everywhere they turn — from talk radio to television crime dramas to family discussions. But what makes an argument convincing? And how does evidence come into play to support a well-reasoned claim?
The Showing Evidence Tool is designed to help students construct an argument and support it with evidence. The newest thinking tool from Intel® Innovation in Education, Showing Evidence provides an online, interactive tool and workspace, with supporting materials for teachers to use with their students.
§ ¶Video Codec Improvements
QuickTime 7 prompted me to dig through some old VHS tapes from my coaching days. Might as well get them archived before they disintegrate. The new MPEG-4 codec, H.264, is pretty darn good. Here’s a sample frame from one of the tapes (Dartmouth v. Yale, 1991).
Considering the VHS source and wide angle view, that’s about as good as I’m going to get. As a point of comparison, here’s what that same video would have looked like had I digitized the tapes right away, in 1991. At the time, Cinepak was cutting edge.
Keep in mind that the Cinepak example here uses almost double the bitrate of the H.264 example. Amazing what a decade will do.