Apple announced the dates of its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. We're seeing rumors that the next-generation iPhone will be announced and available at the June event. But Apple seems to be giving the cold shoulder to its longtime mainstay business: The Mac.
Apple plans to hold the annual conference June 7-11 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, according to a statement from the company. The WWDC is a big deal; in recent years, WWDC in June is when the company announced availability the latest iPhone, although consumers couldn't actually get their hands on the devices until a few weeks later.
That could change this year. Mashable.com's Ben Parr says sources are saying the new iPhone will be announced and available at the conference, although supply chain problems could delay the launch:
We were already pretty sure that the new iPhone would be released in June — AT&T employees have been blocked from taking vacations during the month of June, something that has only occurred during previous iPhone launches.
Last year's WWDC was the same week, but announced much earlier, March 26, says Daring Fireball's John Gruber. He adds:
The focus is heavily iPhone OS centric. There are some Mac OS X developer sessions and labs, but not many. (Translation: Mac OS X 10.7 is not going to be announced this year.) The IT track appears to be gone. Looking at the session list, one could argue that this year’s WWDC is an iPhone OS developers conference, not an Apple developers conference. Look no further than this year’s Apple Design Awards, which will only honor iPhone and iPad apps — no category for Mac apps.
The changed focus of the conference is a sign of the changed focus at Apple, Gruber says:
That doesn’t mean I think the Mac is going away. Apple is selling more Macs than ever; it’s an extremely profitable business. You can’t create iPhone apps without a Mac.
But despite the fact that Apple’s Mac business has never been bigger, it’s already been eclipsed by the iPhone OS business — iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads. If you pause and close your eyes, you can feel it — the tectonic plates are shifting underfoot. The long-term trend is inevitable.
The exclusion feels like a snub to Mac developers, writes Macworld's Dan Moren.
"I think it's a mistake for Apple to miss such an easy opportunity to acknowledge Mac developers," says Red Sweater Software proprietor Daniel Jalkut. "While the iPhone and iPad are understandably hot right now, the Mac is still a huge part of Apple's business, and Mac developers are important in sustaining that."
Rogue Amoeba CEO Paul Kafasis agrees. "Ultimately, I find these moves disappointing. Having an iPhone slant at WWDC is one thing, but completely cutting the Mac out of the ADAs? That feels like a snub to plenty of Mac developers who continue to do great work on a well-established, popular platform."
Mitch Wagner is a freelance technology journalist and social media marketing consultant. Follow him on Twitter: @MitchWagner.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Is Apple making the Mac a second-class citizen? - Computerworld Blogs
Monday, April 26, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
…And the Lord Taketh Away and Giveth All Over Again
I’m giving a quiz during first period when a coworker saunters in, takes a look at the letter A on my laptop/projector rig, and announces that he’s got it signed out for 2nd Period.
Uh-oh, I think. They were serious about that. They want me to give up the Smartboard twice a week so that other teachers can use the projector. I grimace and say OK. But I didn’t really think they would go ahead and cross my name off the sign-out sheet, which is exactly what happened, so my colleague signed it out, leading to our current discussion.
I don’t see the situation as being in any way his fault, so off it goes. I end up using poster paper and the overhead projector instead…and I like it.
In some way, I had become hooked on the tech and was losing focus on the pedagogy, and resorting to markers and pens, paper and plastic, brought me back into focus. So every dark cloud, yadda-yadda-yadda.
Later, in 4th period, which is generally my worst class because of a few characters in the room, those very same characters did not show up for the quiz. The class went great. So it goes.
I believe the projector situation is at least in part motivated by an AP’s dislike for me. Ah, well.
Some Days Are Better than Others….Some Days
OK, so some days I am on fire, some days I’m not. I got used to that idea a long time ago. Still, there are days you just want to go “RARGH!” and make your way to the nearest stein of whatever it is that makes you feel better on days you need to go “RARGH"!”
Today was such a day.
I am posting this on my Math blog because I always have the Math aspect of things at the crosshairs of whatever is going on for me on a given day, whether it’s the classes themselves, my co-workers, or the St John’s class. So.
I have been struggling with my Geometry class for a few weeks now – how to make this course seem relevant, and worse, how do I tie in that #% World Savvy project in a way that makes me give more than half a damn? I am simply tired of it, is all.
The Integrated Algebra class, normally fun, was like sludging through molasses. Dead class, entirely my fault, because usually this is my best class of the three I teach at Middle College. Best in the sense of fun, at least. SmartBoard work, everything comes together. Less so with Geometry. Today even less than usual.
Top this off that this was the day, of all days, that Giulia a coworker decided to pick a fight.
I generally like this co-worker but I do not think much of her teaching skills. God know what she thinks of mine. Suffice it that I don’t particularly have a lot of respect for her. This sometimes comes through, which is entirely my flaw and something I should fix. So I can understand if she resents me. But today she as simply irrational and one thing led to another, and now we are not on speaking terms, again. To which I can only say, Good. What a relief. She’s a pain in the @$$ anyway.
But it doesn’t make for a peaceful day, I can tell you that.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Sanity in the US – the map
A little more grist to my mill identifying just which are the craziest states of the United States of America.
Alternative Education for Teachers Gaining Ground
Not long ago education schools had a virtual monopoly on the teaching profession. They dictated how and when people became teachers by offering coursework, arranging apprenticeships and granting master’s degrees.
But now those schools are feeling under siege. Officials in Washington, D.C., and New York State, where some of the best-known education schools are located, have stepped up criticisms that the schools are still too focused on theory and not enough on the craft of effective teaching.
In an ever-tightening job market, their graduates are competing with the products of alternative programs like Teach for America, which puts recent college graduates into teaching jobs without previous teaching experience or education coursework.
And this week, the New York State Board of Regents could deliver the biggest blow. It will vote on whether to greatly expand the role of the alternative organizations by allowing them to create their own master’s degree programs. At the extreme, the proposal could make education schools extraneous.
“In a lot of respects, what the Regents have done is the ghost of Christmas future,” said Arthur Levine, a former president of Teachers College at Columbia University and now president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. “Education schools are on the verge of losing their franchise.”
While alternative programs now operate in most states, only a few, including Rhode Island and Louisiana, allow these programs to effectively certify their own teachers.
Arne Duncan, the United States secretary of education, is also trying to expand these programs. The 2011 federal education budget doubles the financing for teacher training through a $235 million fund that will go to both alternative and traditional preparation programs focused on high-needs schools and subjects. And in the Race to the Top competition, points are given to states that provide “high-quality pathways for aspiring teachers and principals” including “allowing alternative routes to certification.”
At an appearance at Teachers College last fall, Mr. Duncan highlighted some “shining examples” of education schools, including Teachers College. But he also fired a shot across the bow: “Many, if not most, of the nation’s 1,450 schools, colleges and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st-century classroom.”
David M. Steiner, who became commissioner of the New York State Department of Education last year, insists that as much as he wants to introduce “new actors” into the realm of teacher preparation, he also wants to encourage education schools to reform themselves. Dr. Steiner, who in 2003 published a paper critical of the required reading at 16 elite education schools, says that colleges still devote too much class time to abstract notions about “the role of school in democracy” and “the view by some that schools exist to perpetuate a social hierarchy.”
As dean of the Graduate School of Education at Hunter College, he sought to elevate the practical aspects of teaching: when to make eye contact, when to call on a student by name, when to wait for a fuller answer. He now urges the use of video, a tool he pioneered at Hunter, to help student teachers see what works and what doesn’t in the classroom (“Like taking apart a serve in tennis,” he says).
In New York, teachers can begin working without a master’s degree as long as they have had some education courses as undergraduates, but they must earn a professional certification within five years by receiving a master’s degree from a teaching school. New York is one of a dozen states that requires teachers to get a master’s degree. Alternative certification programs like Teach for America offer a quicker path for graduates who did not study education in college, allowing them to begin teaching from the outset while pursuing a master’s degree after hours.
Under the Regents’ proposal, which the board is expected to approve on Tuesday and does not need the approval of the State Legislature, Teach for America and similar groups could create their own master’s programs, and the Regents would award the master’s degree, two powers that are now the sole domain of academia.
The Regents are looking for academic programs that would be grounded in practical teaching skills and would require teachers to commit to working in a high-needs school for four years.
“Ten years ago, this would have been an incredibly tough sell,” Dr. Steiner said.
Education school deans say they are grateful that groups like Teach for America, which recruits heavily among recent college graduates, and N.Y.C. Teaching Fellows, which attracts young professionals seeking to change careers, have managed to rebrand teaching as both sexy and noble. Some in New York have formed partnerships with these programs.
But the deans also say that the charge that they are mired in theory is outdated. Geoffrey L. Brackett, provost of Pace University in Manhattan, pointed to Pace High School in Chinatown, which the university created in 2003 and functions as something of a laboratory for the university’s education school. “You have our students at the graduate level being placed in that high school, but you also have current teachers working with our faculty on best practices and innovation,” he said.
Susan H. Fuhrman, president of Teachers College, said she had another concern — the potential separation of teacher training from what she called an “explosion of new research” into how children learn. Teachers College has chosen not to team up with alternative programs, in part because of philosophical differences over the concept of anointing a neophyte to be the “teacher of record” — the one responsible for a classroom — from the first day of school.
“We’re at a huge frontier when it comes to understanding learning,” she said. “Divorcing teacher preparation from this research would suggest to me that you would prepare doctors with hands-on tools without their benefiting from medical research.”
La Toya C. K. Caton, 26, of Baldwin, N.Y., decided to become a teacher after she was laid off as a systems analyst. Last spring, she applied to Teach for America but withdrew at the last minute, enrolling at Teachers College instead. “During that time I was a substitute teacher in middle school and high school, and I felt that more training was necessary,” said Ms. Caton, who will complete her master’s in May.
“Teachers College really provides you with an amazing opportunity to learn from supportive teachers,” said Ms. Caton, now a student-teacher at Public School 180, the Hugo Newman School, in Harlem. “They really act as mentors. They’ve given me the space to become the teacher I want to be.”
Dr. Steiner said that the alternative groups would have to shape their own certification programs subject to Regents approval. While those programs would involve some theoretical classroom learning, he said, they would be “given some relief from the traditional constraints of course credits and hours.”
“We believe there are a few institutions that have earned their right to the table,” he said, although he declined to identify them. “They would be held to exactly the same performance assessment that the traditional schools of education would be held to.”
A spokeswoman for Teach for America, which has 800 new teachers enlisted in its two-year program in 300 schools in New York City, said the group would consider submitting a plan for a certification program.
Some education schools have already seen a drop in their application numbers as a result of the allure of alternative programs, though the effect has been blunted by the recession, which has helped fill up graduate schools in general. In a weak economy, alternative programs are especially attractive because participants can earn a regular starting salary from the outset while also receiving a discount on tuition for a master’s degree.
In contrast, annual tuition for a master’s degree program at a public university like City College of New York costs $7,360, while tuition at a prestigious private institution like Teachers College runs $26,040 for a full course load. (For a student living in a dormitory, Teachers College puts the total cost for nine months of study, including tuition, books, fees, room, board and other expenses, at $63,196.)
In Brooklyn, Dan Cosgrove, 24, is now in his second year with Teach for America, teaching fourth grade at Leadership Prep Bedford-Stuyvesant Charter School. He joined Teach for America after graduating from Trinity College, unsure which career path to follow but eager to right the social inequalities he had studied as a sociology major.
Despite a grueling schedule (teaching all week and pursuing a master’s degree on weekends and in the summer), Mr. Cosgrove is sold on teaching. At Leadership Prep, classrooms have co-teachers, which has helped him develop classroom-management skills.
“It’s incredibly challenging and difficult, but it’s also extremely rewarding,” he said. “I think the best way to learn is by watching people here and being in all kinds of situations.”
Alternative Education for Teachers Gaining Ground
But now those schools are feeling under siege. Officials in Washington, D.C., and New York State, where some of the best-known education schools are located, have stepped up criticisms that the schools are still too focused on theory and not enough on the craft of effective teaching.
In an ever-tightening job market, their graduates are competing with the products of alternative programs like Teach for America, which puts recent college graduates into teaching jobs without previous teaching experience or education coursework.
And this week, the New York State Board of Regents could deliver the biggest blow. It will vote on whether to greatly expand the role of the alternative organizations by allowing them to create their own master’s degree programs. At the extreme, the proposal could make education schools extraneous.
“In a lot of respects, what the Regents have done is the ghost of Christmas future,” said Arthur Levine, a former president of Teachers College at Columbia University and now president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. “Education schools are on the verge of losing their franchise.”
While alternative programs now operate in most states, only a few, including Rhode Island and Louisiana, allow these programs to effectively certify their own teachers.
Arne Duncan, the United States secretary of education, is also trying to expand these programs. The 2011 federal education budget doubles the financing for teacher training through a $235 million fund that will go to both alternative and traditional preparation programs focused on high-needs schools and subjects. And in the Race to the Top competition, points are given to states that provide “high-quality pathways for aspiring teachers and principals” including “allowing alternative routes to certification.”
At an appearance at Teachers College last fall, Mr. Duncan highlighted some “shining examples” of education schools, including Teachers College. But he also fired a shot across the bow: “Many, if not most, of the nation’s 1,450 schools, colleges and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st-century classroom.”
David M. Steiner, who became commissioner of the New York State Department of Education last year, insists that as much as he wants to introduce “new actors” into the realm of teacher preparation, he also wants to encourage education schools to reform themselves. Dr. Steiner, who in 2003 published a paper critical of the required reading at 16 elite education schools, says that colleges still devote too much class time to abstract notions about “the role of school in democracy” and “the view by some that schools exist to perpetuate a social hierarchy.”
As dean of the Graduate School of Education at Hunter College, he sought to elevate the practical aspects of teaching: when to make eye contact, when to call on a student by name, when to wait for a fuller answer. He now urges the use of video, a tool he pioneered at Hunter, to help student teachers see what works and what doesn’t in the classroom (“Like taking apart a serve in tennis,” he says).
In New York, teachers can begin working without a master’s degree as long as they have had some education courses as undergraduates, but they must earn a professional certification within five years by receiving a master’s degree from a teaching school. New York is one of a dozen states that requires teachers to get a master’s degree. Alternative certification programs like Teach for America offer a quicker path for graduates who did not study education in college, allowing them to begin teaching from the outset while pursuing a master’s degree after hours.
Under the Regents’ proposal, which the board is expected to approve on Tuesday and does not need the approval of the State Legislature, Teach for America and similar groups could create their own master’s programs, and the Regents would award the master’s degree, two powers that are now the sole domain of academia.
The Regents are looking for academic programs that would be grounded in practical teaching skills and would require teachers to commit to working in a high-needs school for four years.
“Ten years ago, this would have been an incredibly tough sell,” Dr. Steiner said.
Education school deans say they are grateful that groups like Teach for America, which recruits heavily among recent college graduates, and N.Y.C. Teaching Fellows, which attracts young professionals seeking to change careers, have managed to rebrand teaching as both sexy and noble. Some in New York have formed partnerships with these programs.
But the deans also say that the charge that they are mired in theory is outdated. Geoffrey L. Brackett, provost of Pace University in Manhattan, pointed to Pace High School in Chinatown, which the university created in 2003 and functions as something of a laboratory for the university’s education school. “You have our students at the graduate level being placed in that high school, but you also have current teachers working with our faculty on best practices and innovation,” he said.
Susan H. Fuhrman, president of Teachers College, said she had another concern — the potential separation of teacher training from what she called an “explosion of new research” into how children learn. Teachers College has chosen not to team up with alternative programs, in part because of philosophical differences over the concept of anointing a neophyte to be the “teacher of record” — the one responsible for a classroom — from the first day of school.
“We’re at a huge frontier when it comes to understanding learning,” she said. “Divorcing teacher preparation from this research would suggest to me that you would prepare doctors with hands-on tools without their benefiting from medical research.”
La Toya C. K. Caton, 26, of Baldwin, N.Y., decided to become a teacher after she was laid off as a systems analyst. Last spring, she applied to Teach for America but withdrew at the last minute, enrolling at Teachers College instead. “During that time I was a substitute teacher in middle school and high school, and I felt that more training was necessary,” said Ms. Caton, who will complete her master’s in May.
“Teachers College really provides you with an amazing opportunity to learn from supportive teachers,” said Ms. Caton, now a student-teacher at Public School 180, the Hugo Newman School, in Harlem. “They really act as mentors. They’ve given me the space to become the teacher I want to be.”
Dr. Steiner said that the alternative groups would have to shape their own certification programs subject to Regents approval. While those programs would involve some theoretical classroom learning, he said, they would be “given some relief from the traditional constraints of course credits and hours.”
“We believe there are a few institutions that have earned their right to the table,” he said, although he declined to identify them. “They would be held to exactly the same performance assessment that the traditional schools of education would be held to.”
A spokeswoman for Teach for America, which has 800 new teachers enlisted in its two-year program in 300 schools in New York City, said the group would consider submitting a plan for a certification program.
Some education schools have already seen a drop in their application numbers as a result of the allure of alternative programs, though the effect has been blunted by the recession, which has helped fill up graduate schools in general. In a weak economy, alternative programs are especially attractive because participants can earn a regular starting salary from the outset while also receiving a discount on tuition for a master’s degree.
In contrast, annual tuition for a master’s degree program at a public university like City College of New York costs $7,360, while tuition at a prestigious private institution like Teachers College runs $26,040 for a full course load. (For a student living in a dormitory, Teachers College puts the total cost for nine months of study, including tuition, books, fees, room, board and other expenses, at $63,196.)
In Brooklyn, Dan Cosgrove, 24, is now in his second year with Teach for America, teaching fourth grade at Leadership Prep Bedford-Stuyvesant Charter School. He joined Teach for America after graduating from Trinity College, unsure which career path to follow but eager to right the social inequalities he had studied as a sociology major.
Despite a grueling schedule (teaching all week and pursuing a master’s degree on weekends and in the summer), Mr. Cosgrove is sold on teaching. At Leadership Prep, classrooms have co-teachers, which has helped him develop classroom-management skills.
“It’s incredibly challenging and difficult, but it’s also extremely rewarding,” he said. “I think the best way to learn is by watching people here and being in all kinds of situations.”
Alternative Education for Teachers Gaining Ground
But now those schools are feeling under siege. Officials in Washington, D.C., and New York State, where some of the best-known education schools are located, have stepped up criticisms that the schools are still too focused on theory and not enough on the craft of effective teaching.
In an ever-tightening job market, their graduates are competing with the products of alternative programs like Teach for America, which puts recent college graduates into teaching jobs without previous teaching experience or education coursework.
And this week, the New York State Board of Regents could deliver the biggest blow. It will vote on whether to greatly expand the role of the alternative organizations by allowing them to create their own master’s degree programs. At the extreme, the proposal could make education schools extraneous.
“In a lot of respects, what the Regents have done is the ghost of Christmas future,” said Arthur Levine, a former president of Teachers College at Columbia University and now president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. “Education schools are on the verge of losing their franchise.”
While alternative programs now operate in most states, only a few, including Rhode Island and Louisiana, allow these programs to effectively certify their own teachers.
Arne Duncan, the United States secretary of education, is also trying to expand these programs. The 2011 federal education budget doubles the financing for teacher training through a $235 million fund that will go to both alternative and traditional preparation programs focused on high-needs schools and subjects. And in the Race to the Top competition, points are given to states that provide “high-quality pathways for aspiring teachers and principals” including “allowing alternative routes to certification.”
At an appearance at Teachers College last fall, Mr. Duncan highlighted some “shining examples” of education schools, including Teachers College. But he also fired a shot across the bow: “Many, if not most, of the nation’s 1,450 schools, colleges and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st-century classroom.”
David M. Steiner, who became commissioner of the New York State Department of Education last year, insists that as much as he wants to introduce “new actors” into the realm of teacher preparation, he also wants to encourage education schools to reform themselves. Dr. Steiner, who in 2003 published a paper critical of the required reading at 16 elite education schools, says that colleges still devote too much class time to abstract notions about “the role of school in democracy” and “the view by some that schools exist to perpetuate a social hierarchy.”
As dean of the Graduate School of Education at Hunter College, he sought to elevate the practical aspects of teaching: when to make eye contact, when to call on a student by name, when to wait for a fuller answer. He now urges the use of video, a tool he pioneered at Hunter, to help student teachers see what works and what doesn’t in the classroom (“Like taking apart a serve in tennis,” he says).
In New York, teachers can begin working without a master’s degree as long as they have had some education courses as undergraduates, but they must earn a professional certification within five years by receiving a master’s degree from a teaching school. New York is one of a dozen states that requires teachers to get a master’s degree. Alternative certification programs like Teach for America offer a quicker path for graduates who did not study education in college, allowing them to begin teaching from the outset while pursuing a master’s degree after hours.
Under the Regents’ proposal, which the board is expected to approve on Tuesday and does not need the approval of the State Legislature, Teach for America and similar groups could create their own master’s programs, and the Regents would award the master’s degree, two powers that are now the sole domain of academia.
The Regents are looking for academic programs that would be grounded in practical teaching skills and would require teachers to commit to working in a high-needs school for four years.
“Ten years ago, this would have been an incredibly tough sell,” Dr. Steiner said.
Education school deans say they are grateful that groups like Teach for America, which recruits heavily among recent college graduates, and N.Y.C. Teaching Fellows, which attracts young professionals seeking to change careers, have managed to rebrand teaching as both sexy and noble. Some in New York have formed partnerships with these programs.
But the deans also say that the charge that they are mired in theory is outdated. Geoffrey L. Brackett, provost of Pace University in Manhattan, pointed to Pace High School in Chinatown, which the university created in 2003 and functions as something of a laboratory for the university’s education school. “You have our students at the graduate level being placed in that high school, but you also have current teachers working with our faculty on best practices and innovation,” he said.
Susan H. Fuhrman, president of Teachers College, said she had another concern — the potential separation of teacher training from what she called an “explosion of new research” into how children learn. Teachers College has chosen not to team up with alternative programs, in part because of philosophical differences over the concept of anointing a neophyte to be the “teacher of record” — the one responsible for a classroom — from the first day of school.
“We’re at a huge frontier when it comes to understanding learning,” she said. “Divorcing teacher preparation from this research would suggest to me that you would prepare doctors with hands-on tools without their benefiting from medical research.”
La Toya C. K. Caton, 26, of Baldwin, N.Y., decided to become a teacher after she was laid off as a systems analyst. Last spring, she applied to Teach for America but withdrew at the last minute, enrolling at Teachers College instead. “During that time I was a substitute teacher in middle school and high school, and I felt that more training was necessary,” said Ms. Caton, who will complete her master’s in May.
“Teachers College really provides you with an amazing opportunity to learn from supportive teachers,” said Ms. Caton, now a student-teacher at Public School 180, the Hugo Newman School, in Harlem. “They really act as mentors. They’ve given me the space to become the teacher I want to be.”
Dr. Steiner said that the alternative groups would have to shape their own certification programs subject to Regents approval. While those programs would involve some theoretical classroom learning, he said, they would be “given some relief from the traditional constraints of course credits and hours.”
“We believe there are a few institutions that have earned their right to the table,” he said, although he declined to identify them. “They would be held to exactly the same performance assessment that the traditional schools of education would be held to.”
A spokeswoman for Teach for America, which has 800 new teachers enlisted in its two-year program in 300 schools in New York City, said the group would consider submitting a plan for a certification program.
Some education schools have already seen a drop in their application numbers as a result of the allure of alternative programs, though the effect has been blunted by the recession, which has helped fill up graduate schools in general. In a weak economy, alternative programs are especially attractive because participants can earn a regular starting salary from the outset while also receiving a discount on tuition for a master’s degree.
In contrast, annual tuition for a master’s degree program at a public university like City College of New York costs $7,360, while tuition at a prestigious private institution like Teachers College runs $26,040 for a full course load. (For a student living in a dormitory, Teachers College puts the total cost for nine months of study, including tuition, books, fees, room, board and other expenses, at $63,196.)
In Brooklyn, Dan Cosgrove, 24, is now in his second year with Teach for America, teaching fourth grade at Leadership Prep Bedford-Stuyvesant Charter School. He joined Teach for America after graduating from Trinity College, unsure which career path to follow but eager to right the social inequalities he had studied as a sociology major.
Despite a grueling schedule (teaching all week and pursuing a master’s degree on weekends and in the summer), Mr. Cosgrove is sold on teaching. At Leadership Prep, classrooms have co-teachers, which has helped him develop classroom-management skills.
“It’s incredibly challenging and difficult, but it’s also extremely rewarding,” he said. “I think the best way to learn is by watching people here and being in all kinds of situations.”
Sunday, April 18, 2010
iPhone HD Pictures Leaked? Possible iPhone 4G Photos Found
Speculation has been growing that Apple plans to unveil the next generation of iPhones, which have been called the 'iPhone HD' or 'iPhone 4G.'
In a recent article, the Wall Street Journal, citing 'people briefed on the matter,' suggested that Apple could be introducing two new iPhone models sometime later this year.
BoyGeniusReport added fuel to the fire with reports that AT&T had blocked employees from taking vacations in June--a restriction that reportedly occurs only for iPhone launches.
And now, Engadget has gotten its hands on what could be the most physical proof yet of the 'iPhone HD's' existence: pictures rumored to be of the forthcoming iPhone (see photo below).
Although there's no way to concretely verify whether the photos are actually of Apple's forthcoming phone, Engadget says of the images:
Apparently the phone was found on the floor of a San Jose bar inside of an iPhone 3G case. Right now we don't have a ton of info on the device in question, but we can tell you that it apparently has a front facing camera (!), 80GB of storage (weird, right?), and isn't booting at this point (though it was previously, and running an OS that was decidedly new). It's not clear if this is definitely a production model, or just a prototype that found its way into the world, but it's certainly a compelling design, no matter how you look at it.A Twitter user posted similar looking images reported to be of the iPhone 4G earlier this year, which could perhaps add credence to the newest images obtained (see photo below).
See more images of the rumored iPhone model on Engadget.
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Saturday, April 17, 2010
Copy/Move Files to a Pre-Defined Folder from Context Menu via with FileTargets (Windows)
Copy/Move Files to a Pre-Defined Folder from Context Menu via with FileTargets (Windows)
Posted in Utility
We commonly open the destination folder to paste a copied file. It’s a simple thing to do. Still, if we keep copying or moving files to the same destinations over and over again, we need something that can manage the process in a more efficient way. In such a situation, FileTargets provides a great help by enabling users to add a list of pre-defined folders in Windows Explorer context menu so files can be copied or moved without opening the target folder.
Users can add as many folders as necessary and optionally group them for better organization. When you need to copy some files, right-click on them, select FileTargets, and select to which folder you want the files to be sent. To move files, hold down the Shift key while selecting a target folder. If you want to always move files instead of copying, you can configure the program to run that way, too.
FileTargets is a freeware and was designed to work with Windows XP, 2000, 98. Download FileTargets from here.
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Thursday, April 15, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Sorry, Adobe, you screwed yourself « Sharing the truth one thread at a time
I realize this is a pro-Mac, pro-Apple forum. But being a designer myself, and an iPhone owner, I feel this decision by Apple is really just hurting the developers and designers. If I want to create some cool game for iPhone, I need to learn Objective-C? Common.
And what you don’t know or hear from the Apple propaganda machine is that Apple is not fixing the bugs in their own s/w that is preventing Flash from improving cpu usage on Mac by taking advantage of h/w acceleration for video decode. The comparisons to HTML5 are bogus because you’re comparing apples (pardon the pun) to oranges. A comparable comparison by a 3rd party (I think I saw this article on streamingmedia.com) where HTML5 compared to Flash with gpu support was the same. The performance problems that everyone keeps talking about is mainly due to having to do all the heavy video decoding in s/w vs. h/w.
Also, Apple is pushing HTML5 on everyone. But their own browser, Safari, on Windows doesn’t support H264. So how are they really be seriously pushing HTML5 as the standard for people to adopt? They’re still forcing people to have 2 versions of their site; one for iPhone/iPad, and one for everything else. Sure there may be some people willing to do that now to get on the iPad. But Apple went down this path before with a closed environment, and it got Steve booted out before he came back to bring them to the promise land.
I have total respect for the company. They make great products. And I totally respect their business motives here. But Jobs is not being honest about his motives. All this Flash bashing is just a smoke screen to stir up anti-Adobe/anti-Flash sentiment, so people don’t talk about the real issues, or motivation.
Did you know that of the bugs Adobe filed that would allow them to do h/w acceleration, not one of them got fixed?
Jobs claims that this translation layer results in subpar apps. What a crock of shit. You don’t think people can write crappy apps in Objective-C? Apple screen all the apps anyway. If they’re serious about their quality claims, why don’t they screen for quality, or have some set of tests that an app needs to meet to be deemed high enough quality to make it on their platform. In the end, Adobe’s packager is just translating swf byte code to native code, just like any Objective-C program compiles to. What’s the difference? But again, Jobs is deflecting all that with these ridiculous claims. Just be honest, and live or die by your decision.
by mc April 11, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Change We Can Believe In - Opinionator Blog
Steven Strogatz on math, from basic to baffling.
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Long before I knew what calculus was, I sensed there was something special about it. My dad had spoken about it in reverential tones. He hadn’t been able to go to college, being a child of the Depression, but somewhere along the line, maybe during his time in the South Pacific repairing B-24 bomber engines, he’d gotten a feel for what calculus could do. Imagine a mechanically controlled bank of anti-aircraft guns automatically firing at an incoming fighter plane. Calculus, he supposed, could be used to tell the guns where to aim.
Every year about a million American students take calculus. But far fewer really understand what the subject is about or could tell you why they were learning it. It’s not their fault. There are so many techniques to master and so many new ideas to absorb that the overall framework is easy to miss.
Calculus is the mathematics of change. It describes everything from the spread of epidemics to the zigs and zags of a well-thrown curveball. The subject is gargantuan — and so are its textbooks. Many exceed 1,000 pages and work nicely as doorstops.
But within that bulk you’ll find two ideas shining through. All the rest, as Rabbi Hillel said of the Golden Rule, is just commentary. Those two ideas are the “derivative” and the “integral.” Each dominates its own half of the subject, named in their honor as differential and integral calculus.
Roughly speaking, the derivative tells you how fast something is changing; the integral tells you how much it’s accumulating. They were born in separate times and places: integrals, in Greece around 250 B.C.; derivatives, in England and Germany in the mid-1600s. Yet in a twist straight out of a Dickens novel, they’ve turned out to be blood relatives — though it took almost two millennia to see the family resemblance.More in This Series
- From Fish to Infinity (Jan. 31, 2010)
- Rock Groups (Feb. 7, 2010)
- The Enemy of My Enemy (Feb. 14, 2010)
- Division and Its Discontents (Feb. 21, 2010)
- The Joy of X (Feb. 28, 2010)
- Finding Your Roots (March 7, 2010)
- Square Dancing (March 14, 2010)
- Think Globally (March 21, 2010)
- Power Tools (March 28, 2010)
- Take It to the Limit (April 4, 2010)
- See the Entire Series »
Next week’s column will explore that astonishing connection, as well as the meaning of integrals. But first, to lay the groundwork, let’s look at derivatives.
Derivatives are all around us, even if we don’t recognize them as such. For example, the slope of a ramp is a derivative. Like all derivatives, it measures a rate of change — in this case, how far you’re going up or down for every step you take. A steep ramp has a large derivative. A wheelchair-accessible ramp, with its gentle gradient, has a small derivative.
Every field has its own version of a derivative. Whether it goes by “marginal return” or “growth rate” or “velocity” or “slope,” a derivative by any other name still smells as sweet. Unfortunately, many students seem to come away from calculus with a much narrower interpretation, regarding the derivative as synonymous with the slope of a curve.
Their confusion is understandable. It’s caused by our reliance on graphs to express quantitative relationships. By plotting y versus x to visualize how one variable affects another, all scientists translate their problems into the common language of mathematics. The rate of change that really concerns them — a viral growth rate, a jet’s velocity, or whatever — then gets converted into something much more abstract but easier to picture: a slope on a graph.
Like slopes, derivatives can be positive, negative or zero, indicating whether something is rising, falling or leveling off. Watch Michael Jordan in action making his top-10 dunks.
Just after lift-off, his vertical velocity (the rate at which his elevation changes in time, and thus, another derivative) is positive, because he’s going up. His elevation is increasing. On the way down, this derivative is negative. And at the highest point of his jump, where he seems to hang in the air, his elevation is momentarily unchanging and his derivative is zero. In that sense he truly is hanging.
There’s a more general principle at work here — things always change slowest at the top or the bottom. It’s especially noticeable here in Ithaca. During the darkest depths of winter, the days are not just unmercifully short; they barely improve from one to the next. Whereas now that spring is popping, the days are lengthening rapidly. All of this makes sense. Change is most sluggish at the extremes precisely because the derivative is zero there. Things stand still, momentarily.
This zero-derivative property of peaks and troughs underlies some of the most practical applications of calculus. It allows us to use derivatives to figure out where a function reaches its maximum or minimum, an issue that arises whenever we’re looking for the best or cheapest or fastest way to do something.
My high school calculus teacher, Mr. Joffray, had a knack for making such “max-min” questions come alive. One day he came bounding into class and began telling us about his hike through a snow-covered field. The wind had apparently blown a lot of snow across part of the field, blanketing it heavily and forcing him to walk much more slowly there, while the rest of the field was clear, allowing him to stride through it easily. In a situation like that, he wondered what path a hiker should take to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible.
One thought would be to trudge straight across the deep snow, to cut down on the slowest part of the hike. The downside, though, is the rest of the trip will take longer than it would otherwise.
Another strategy is to head straight from A to B. That’s certainly the shortest distance, but it does cost extra time in the most arduous part of the trip.
![Figure 3 - straight line from A to B]()
With differential calculus you can find the best path. It’s a certain specific compromise between the two paths considered above.
![Figure 4 – best path, compared to two earlier paths.]()
The analysis involves four main steps. (For those who’d like to see the details, references are given in the notes.)
First, notice that that the total time of travel — which is what we’re trying to minimize — depends on just one number, the distance x where the hiker emerges from the snow.
Second, given a choice of x and the known locations of the starting point A and the destination B, we can calculate how much time the hiker spends walking through the fast and slow parts of the field. For each leg of the trip, this calculation requires the Pythagorean theorem and the old algebra mantra, “distance equals rate times time.” Adding the times for both legs together then yields a formula for the total travel time, T, as a function of x. (See the Notes for details.)
Third, we graph T versus x. The bottom of the curve is the point we’re seeking — it corresponds to the least time of travel and hence the fastest trip.
Fourth, to find this lowest point, we invoke the zero-derivative principle mentioned above. We calculate the derivative of T, set it equal to zero, and solve for x.
These four steps require a command of geometry, algebra and various derivative formulas from calculus — skills equivalent to fluency in a foreign language and, therefore, stumbling blocks for many students.
But the final answer is worth the struggle. It reveals that the fastest path obeys a relationship known as Snell’s law. What’s spooky is that nature obeys it, too.
Snell’s law describes how light rays bend when they pass from air into water, as they do when shining into a swimming pool. Light moves more slowly in water, much like the hiker in the snow, and it bends accordingly to minimize its travel time. Similarly, light also bends when it travels from air into glass or plastic as it refracts through your eyeglass lenses.
The eerie point is that light behaves as if it were considering all possible paths and automatically taking the best one. Nature — cue the theme from “The Twilight Zone” — somehow knows calculus.
NOTES
- In an online article for the Mathematical Association of America, David Bressoud presents data on the number of American students taking calculus each year.
- For a collection of Mr. Joffray’s calculus problems, both classic and original, see: S. Strogatz, “The Calculus of Friendship: What a Teacher and a Student Learned about Life While Corresponding About Math” (Princeton University Press, 2009).
- Several videos and websites present the details of Snell’s law and its derivation from Fermat’s principle (which states that light takes the path of least time). Others provide historical accounts.
- Fermat’s principle was an early forerunner to the more general principle of least action. For an entertaining and deeply enlightening discussion of this principle, including its basis in quantum mechanics, see: R. P. Feynman, R. B. Leighton and M. Sands, “The principle of least action,” The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume 2, Chapter 19 (Addison-Wesley, 1964).
R. Feynman, “QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter” (Princeton University Press, 1988).
In a nutshell, Feynman’s astonishing proposition is that nature actually does try all paths. But nearly all of them cancel out with their neighboring paths, through a quantum analog of destructive interference — except for those very close to the classical path where the action is minimized (or more precisely, made stationary). There the quantum interference becomes constructive, rendering those paths exceedingly more likely to be observed. This, in Feynman’s account, is why nature obeys minimum principles. The key is that we live in the macroscopic world of everyday experience, where the actions are enormous compared to Planck’s constant. In that classical limit, quantum destructive interference becomes extremely strong and obliterates nearly everything that could otherwise happen.
Thanks to Paul Ginsparg and Carole Schiffman for their comments and suggestions, and Margaret Nelson for preparing the illustrations.
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