Families and Technology

Get Some Fresh Air at Threadless

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 03:44:00 +0000

Another shirt with a related theme: Get Some Fresh Air

Technology Ruins Nature shirt

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 05:16:00 +0000

Cute: Technology Ruins Nature shirt at Threadless.com.

Americans work more, seem to accomplish less

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 13:13:00 +0000

I've not blogged at all for the last couple of months. I'm just overwhelmed lately, maybe even a bit burned out. My day job has been intense as we prepare an updated ComputerTime for release. I've had a lot going on in my personal life too. Time to reorganize my weeks and force some time to reenergize.

Back in February there was study that had this to say about how our productivity is affected:

The biggest culprit is the technology that was supposed to make work quicker and easier, experts say.

"Technology has sped everything up and, by speeding everything up, it's slowed everything down, paradoxically," said John Challenger, chief executive of Chicago-based outplacement consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

The trick is to let technology speed everything up without letting yourself get "sped up" along with it. A year ago, when the Kaiser Family Foundation came out with it's Generation M report they talked about how there is more multitasking going on, and that kids are doing a lot more of it. Generation M wears that like a badge and they think they're accomplishing more by doing all of this multitasking. The truth is that context switches are expensive and there is no substitute for focusing on a task and getting it done without interruption, when it comes to being productive.

"We never concentrate on one task anymore. You take a little chip out of it, and then you're on to the next thing," Challenger said on Wednesday. "It's harder to feel like you're accomplishing something."

Unlike a decade ago, US workers are bombarded with email, computer messages, cellphone calls, voice mails and the like, research showed.

The average time spent on a computer at work was almost 16 hours a week last year, compared with 9,5 hours a decade ago, according to the Day-Timer research released this week.

...

"We think we're faster, smarter, better with all this technology at our side and in the end, we still feel rushed and our feeling of productivity is down," said Maria Woytek, marketing communications manager for Day-Timers, a unit of ACCO Brands.

Being a software developer, I log that amount in less than two days.

But if people are being bombarded with emails and phone calls, then who's doing that bombarding, but other people! The availability and ubiquitousness of these technologies causes people to be less thoughtful of other people's time and it's also led to this notion that everything can be done in realtime. Instant messaging is even a better example of this. I've lost count of the number of people who have told me that I should install AOL IM, and their rationale was essentially that this way, they don't have to call me or email me when I have a "quick question", they can just IM me. No consideration whatsoever as to what I'm doing. I guess I'm there just to answer their questions in a timely fashion — in realtime. Hence, why I've always referred to it as "Instant Interruption".

Expectations that technology would save time and money largely haven't been borne out in the workplace, said Ronald Downey, professor of psychology who specializes in industrial organization at Kansas State University.

"It just increases the expectations that people have for your production," Downey said.

"The irony is the very expectation of getting more done is getting in the way of getting more done," he said. "People are stressed out."

Which is where I have been lately and why I've had to just say no to blogging during this stressful time.

I'll be continuting to work to get out of that stressed-out state very consciously in the next month or two. I'm looking forward to spring and doing some local hiking on the trails near where I live, and with the summer coming, I'll be taking more time out with the kids and doing some chilling at the beach.

So if you don't see me blogging here, then I'm still stressed. If you see in increase in posts, then the de-stressing regimen is working.

I hope I haven't lost all my readers in the past two months!

Reuters article where these quotes came from is here.

Kids, Gadgets and Family Life on Anderson Cooper Tonight.

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 01:08:00 +0000

According to the editors note on this article alerts us to what might be an interesting show to watch on CNN:

Tonight, learn how kids' obsession with their electronic gadgets is seriously affecting family life on "Anderson Cooper 360�," 10 p.m. ET, on CNN.

Sorry for the short notice! I just found out about it myself!

More on backing up photos

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 00:55:00 +0000

Today, Brett reminded me that he'd written a very similar article on the proliferation of digital photos and the risks of losing them if we don't plan for disaster.

The difference is that I self-published on my blog (no big accomplishment really) while his was published in the LA Times (very impressive). He's also a better writer than I. If only my memory had been better, I could have just linked to his instead of doing all that typing since I actually read his when it was first published.

My earlier post: Best memory for your memories.

A Case of Playstation Twitch

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 04:17:00 +0000

Doctor Bans Boy From Playstation To Stop Head Twitching

A 9-year-old boy in California who suffered from uncontrollable head jerking movements after long hours of video game playing stopped the twitching after his doctor banned him from playing PlayStation, according to a report.

Actually, I get the same thing from reading too many blogs. :-)

Nicholas Lavin said that he played PlayStation constantly over the holidays at his home in San Diego and began to notice that his head would jerk back and forth.

"All the head jerking is gone and his eyes are completely back to normal," Barbara Lavin said. "I think it's a direct connection to the PlayStation and the amount of time he spent on it."

Maniac! Learn how to drive!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 03:41:00 +0000

Today's drivers suffer without high-tech systems

Best memory for your memories

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 02:29:00 +0000

By now you've probably dumped your pictures off of your digital camera, and onto your hard drive. Everything from the 3rd grade Christmas musical, the kids sitting on Santa's lap, putting the cookies out for Santa, opening the presents, etc, etc — all six-hundred of them.

You certainly don't want to lose them; you want to keep them safe in the photo drawer, along with the pictures of your great-great grandfather that came over on the boat 100 years ago. But right now, they're on your hard drive, which could crash in the next minute, week, or two years from now.

You do archive these treasures somewhere safe, right?

Since most computers come with CD or DVD burners, most people — if they're doing backups at all — are backing them up onto CD-R's or DVD-R's. I also know people who've spent a small fortune transferring their old Super-8 film reels onto DVDs

Enjoy them now, because they'll likely be gone in 5 years.

In Do Burned CDs Have a Short Life Span?, we find out that burned discs will last 2-5 years. You're best bet is magnetic tape which typically has a 30-100 year life span.

I'm sure both of those figures assume ideal storage conditions. I'm also going to suggest that you need to make sure that you're using good quality media and hardware to ensure that you're making good archive copies to start with. Years ago, I had been lured into the inexpensive (<$100) tape drive hardware offered by Iomega. We got four of them at the office. Three out of the four were either DOA, or so marginal in quality that we couldn't get a verifiable backup out of them. I swore them off. Iomega later became well known for their inexpensive Zip drives. Removable disks which you could use to backup and transport data. These earned a lot of notoriety for a mis-feature known as the Click Of Death (also here)

You get what you pay for. So perhaps you should spend good money on a tape drive (at least a few hundred dollars) and a few hundred dollars on good quality tapes. You will also need to hope that in 30-100 years that your great-great grandkids will have the technology to read that tape and to decipher what's on it. By then they'll be using some miniature compact flash cards that store Duotrigintillion bytes of data, and you will buy them in 50-packs for $15.99.

Or maybe do what I've been doing for the last 10-15 years. It's all on my hard drive. It's all backed up onto another hard drive, either on the same machine or in another machine that I have on my network at home... Or both. In three years, I'll have a new computer with a drive that's 3 times bigger than the one that I have. So I'll plug that one into my network, copy everything important to it, and then make sure that I keep that one backed up somewhere at all times.

In other words, I'm not putting anything onto disc or tape and expecting it to stick around in a drawer somewhere. I keep the data with me and it just keeps hopping from old hardware to new hardware, and I keep multiple copies on various machines. Slim chance of two or three hard drives going down at once. Have a large external hard drive so that you can keep a copy at work also.

Need a great utility to help keep your data synced or backed up in different drives and across a network? I found SyncBackSE which is a superb tool.

UPDATE: Brett Levy already covered this territory in Shelter for the storm of digital photos, in the LA Times.

Amazon Saves Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 13:26:00 +0000

After joining in the chorus about Amazon and delayed shipping at the holidays, I received an automated email from Amazon:

Greetings from Amazon.com, We thought you'd like to know that we shipped your items, and that this completes your order. This shipment was sent via UPS Next Day Saver (estimated delivery date: December 30, 2005).

Huh? "Next Day" shipping with an "estimated delivery date" of December 30th?

I punched in the UPS tracking code and it told me that they expect to deliver on the 23rd. That's more like it. Phew!!!!

Stress be gone! I'm going to whip me up a batch of egg nog and join in the Christmas cheer right now!

UPDATE Dec 23: Nevermind... This part of my order did get hosed, but since I already started partaking in the holiday cheer, I'm not going to let it bother me. I'll have to head out tomorrow to grab some last minute replacement gifts. Sigh.

Service Type:   NEXT DAY AIR SAVER   
Weight:         2.00 Lbs  
Note:           Your package is in the UPS system and 
                has a rescheduled delivery
                date of Dec 27, 2005.  :-(

UPDATE Dec 24: Well, UPS showed up at my house doing a Saturday delivery at 12:15pm today. All presents HAVE arrived in time for the holidays.

The egg nog is good and strong. Everybody enjoy their holidays!!

I thought online shopping reduced stress?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 21:23:00 +0000

So is online shopping supposed to reduce stress, or should we all just go to the malls to catch the spirit?

Here we go, I ordered 6 items on December 17th. All were "Usually ships within 24 hours".

I chose "standard shipping".

It's now the end of the day on the 22nd. I have received the one item that actually came from Crutchfield (an XM Roady receiver) That arrived on the 20th.

The stuff that actually is coming from Amazon hasn't arrived yet. The stuff tagged as UPS 3-day select supposedly shipped on the 18th, but I don't think it was until the 19th that the status actually started to show it in transit. It's supposedly "out for delivery" today, so it might arrive today.

The item that supposedly shipped on the 18th via USPS priority mail, I have not received yet. Tracking shows that it arrived one town over from me though... so I might have that soon.

The other two items still haven't shipped yet, and I can't understand why. Amazon still lists them as "usually ships with in 24 hours, yet it's 5 days later and they still haven't shipped.

So much for saving time and reducing stress by shopping online. Now I hover over the package tracking buttons, bang my fist on my desk and swear all day. My productivity is shot because I'm consumed by this frustration. Sure, if I went to the mall, I'd deal with crowds and wait in lines, but at least there is Christmas cheer there.

Order Date: December 17, 2005 Order #: XXX Recipient: Mark Sicignano The following items will arrive after December 24, 2005. Items shipped on December 18, 2005: Delivery estimate: December 22, 2005 - December 27, 2005 1 package via UPS 3 Day Select with tracking number XXXXXXXXXXXXX 1 of: a paperback book 1 of: Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble - Live at Montreux 1982 & 1985 The following item will arrive by December 23, 2005. Items shipped on December 18, 2005: Delivery estimate: December 21, 2005 - December 23, 2005 1 package via USPS Priority with tracking number XXXX 1 of: Plantronics Audio 90 Multimedia Stereo PC Headset The following items will arrive after December 24, 2005. Items shipping soon: Delivery estimate: December 27, 2005 - December 30, 2005 1 of: Sennheiser PX 100 Headphones 1 of: The Real Thing (CD)

Apparently, I am not alone.

Support the Troops

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 05:13:00 +0000

Keep the troops in mind at Christmas time, and give them your support.

If you want to do something for them, go here.

One teen's descent into online porn

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 04:20:00 +0000

A computer out of the oversite of parents, an internet connection, and a web camera were all that were needed for a 13 year-old to begin a long decline into the world of online child porn.

I monitor a steady stream of news about computers, the internet, families and children. I don't typically comment on stories about internet stalkers and "kiddie-porn" because they're already covered heavily in the news and it's roughly the same story each time, but the stream of these stories is non-stop.

The New York Times has a long article about a boy who started posing for older men on his web cam and received praise and gifts. Over time it went further than that and the number of men that were "fans" of the boy was over 1500.

Brett at DadTalk summarized this one nicely. (Thanks Brett!) or read the full Times article to learn all about this poor kid's morally bankrupt father, who encouraged his son's destructive behavior. On the positive side, the story concludes with how he's turning his life around and working with the authorities to go after the sickos who are exploiting kids online.

And if you love your kids, keep your computers in a public area, and know what your kids are doing online. Stay involved with them, and talk to them often.

UPDATE: If only it was this easy to catch the monsters.

Why Do Computer Games Claim Lives?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 04:56:00 +0000

I received an email from J.W. Koebel tonight, pointing me at this article:

Why Do Computer Games Claim Lives?

"People who haven't slept for a long time usually don't realize how exhausted or stressed they are," says Dr. Song Hyeong-gon of Samsung Seoul Hospital's Emergency Department. "Because they are stressed by the obsession with winning the game, they consume a considerable amount of energy. In such a physically exhausted condition, exposure to bright colors or stimulating images on the screen is likely to irritate the cerebral cortex and can cause sudden death."

J.W.'s played MMORPG's in the past, and shares some additional thoughts about the addiction to playing these games. I'll let him take it from here. Go read his post.

"Stacker" video game safe for kids!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 15:42:00 +0000

New Video Game Designed To Have No Influence On Kids' Behavior!

Heh.

Living Will :-)

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 13:45:00 +0000

My friend Dennis sent me this one...

A man and his wife are sitting in the living room and he says to her, "Just so you know, I never want to live in a vegetative state dependent on some machine. If that ever happens, just pull the plug."

So his wife gets up and unplugs the TV.

Rabbis say, "Pull the Plug"

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 14:09:00 +0000

Frank Ahrens writes in Looking For Middle Ground In Forbidden Territory (WaPo) (registration required)

Religious leaders in a tightknit Orthodox Jewish community in New Jersey have instructed parents who have Internet access in their homes to unplug from the Web, else their children will face expulsion from the area's 43 yeshivas, or Jewish private schools.

"We really . . . don't want children to see ladies who are dressed inappropriately. . . . If that one image goes into a child's head, it can wreak havoc with all the religious instruction," said Rabbi Netanya Gottlieb, one of the yeshiva principals, according to the Newark Star-Ledger.

Rabbis said that the Internet is not inherently evil and acknowledged that it has some benefits for students in completing homework, but that its negatives far outweigh its positives.

The policy also prohibits students from using cell phones, Palm organizers and other handheld devices that have Internet access.

It appears that they're not just telling parents to make efforts to keep kids off the web. They're telling them not to have the connections in their homes at all:

In a Talmudic compromise for adults who do business from home, the Star-Ledger reports, some exceptions may be made for parents who have only e-mail access or who promise to keep the Internet locked in a room or cabinet, like a handgun, out of reach of their children.

I'm glad that I don't have Orthodox Jewish parents living in that tight-knit community in New Jersey!

In many ways, the rabbis' actions are admirable -- if draconian -- and represent the kind of strictures that almost any parent could identify with.

But on the other hand, I am a parent and I do understand that having a broadband connection into your home with no restrictions or parental control is like inviting the ilk from every alley in every seedy part of town into your living room.

As the article points out, Internet monitoring software is not "infallible", and computers in kids bedrooms are probably not the best idea anyways.

Here comes the plug: There are other tools available that help to make life easier for parents as well as internet filters. For example, ComputerTime which lets parents set limits one how long and when their kids can be on the computer. This lets parents ensure that they are present when the kids are on the computer. It also ensures that they're not overdosing on screen time and from what our customers have been telling us recently, it goes a long ways towards ending the fighting between siblings over a shared family computer.

The most important thing is that parents be alert and involved. Forcing families to pull the plug altogether is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

What do you think? Leave a comment.

Texting Teen Kills Bicyclist

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:15:00 +0000

Teen hit, killed man while text messaging (Indy Star)

HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colorado -- A 17-year-old Colorado youth likely will face misdemeanour charges after allegedly losing control of his car while text-messaging and hitting a bicyclist.

The bicyclist, Jim Price of Highlands Ranch, died Friday, two days after the accident.

"The investigation showed that he was text-messaging on his cellphone" at the time of the accident, said Lieut. Alan Stanton, spokesman for Douglas County Sheriff's Office.

The driver could face a charge of careless driving resulting in death, Stanton said. Under state law, the teen could face up to a year in prison.

Here are some related posts on the other problems that a simple cell phone can introduce:

School Welcomes Distractions and Problems of Cell Phones, Technology Misuse Leads to Increased Harassment, Cyberbullying 101

UPDATE: A related post at Question Technology about hanging up and driving.

Happy Thanksgiving

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 14:55:00 +0000

Remember Last Year's Happy Thanksgiving? We talked about how hundreds of thousands, or maybe millions were going to return home, not only for a delicious Thanksgiving dinner, but also to perform hours of tech support on Mom and Dad's computers.

Well it's that time again, and here is a list of things to help you out:

Top 10 things to do for mom's PC over Thanksgiving from the Download Squad.

This leaves me wondering what I'm going to do on Dad's PC of course

But here is the list in short:

Backup her files
Organize her photos and install Picasa
Buy her a nice LCD screen
Get her some real speakers
Install Firefox
Install Evernote
Update (or Install) anti-virus and anti-spyware
Setup Skype
Run a system check use has Systweak
Get her a real email account and set up a vanity domain

OK, now I can agree with some of those things -- Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 appear to be no brainers to me. It's all about fixing problems and keeping those customer support calls to a minimum throughout the rest of the year. But some of the other ones I worry would only cause more confusion and increase support calls.

Hmmm. There are some of these tools that I'm not even using myself. I'll have to check them out.

What recommendations do you have? What have you set up for your parents PC, either to make their lives easier, or more importantly, to make your OWN lives easier?

Internet Saves Another Life

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 00:32:00 +0000

I like to report examples of technology helping to help keep families together. In this case, keeping them alive together!

Internet allows sons to rescue mother on the other side of the world

To summarize: A diabetic mom, Karin Jordal, in California collapses with low blood sugar. Her sons in Norway and the Philippines notice this by calling her up by web cam. They see her unresponsive on the couch and call the local authorities in CA to get her help.

More Sex on TV, Study Says

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 13:45:00 +0000

Another Kaiser Family Foundation study is out, and as The Mercury News reports it:

The number of sex scenes on American television has nearly doubled since 1998, a new study has found, as seven in 10 programs on cable and broadcast networks now contain an element of sex.

The shows that had sexual content were found to average at least five sex scenes per hour, according to the study by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

...The report did not render judgment on whether an increasing amount of sex on TV is harmful to children, but Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., offered a pointed view during a speech at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

"We don't teach our children that healthy relationships involve drunken, naked parties in a hot tub with strangers - but that's what they see when they turn on `The Real World,'" Obama said, citing the long-running reality show on MTV. "When they're fed a steady diet of these depictions over and over again from the time they're very young, this behavior becomes acceptable, it even starts seeming normal."

Obama, the father of two young daughters, said the television industry should provide more guidance on the content of its programming. He said an improved rating system and an easier method of blocking shows that parents deem to be unsuitable for their children would be beneficial.

Still, he said, it's the responsibility of adults to monitor their children's television viewing habits and to be nearby to answer questions that arise. And, he said, the concern doesn't always revolve around prime-time shows, but also products featured in commercials.

Emphasis was mine. I don't blame TV itself for this. I agree that parents need to be more involved and they need to regulate what their kids are watching. Parents also need to let the television industry know what they want.

Related Site: Common Sense Media

OTB

Can a Game Make You Cry?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 02:36:00 +0000

Exploring how video games affect our emotions:

I could tell something was wrong as soon as I saw my friend's eyes. It was back in 1997, and he'd been playing the recently released Final Fantasy VII. That afternoon, he'd gotten to a famously shocking scene in which Aerith, a beloved young magician girl, is suddenly and viciously murdered.

He looked like he'd lost a family member. "I'm just totally screwed up," he confessed as he nursed a lukewarm beer at a local bar. Nearly all my friends were playing Final Fantasy VII too -- so, one by one over the next week, they all hit the same scene, until every nerd I knew was sunk in a slough of despond.

Read the whole thing. (Wired)

Walgreens Contributes to Lower SAT Scores?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Sat, 05 Nov 2005 17:07:00 +0000

I wonder how much lower math SAT scores are going to drop, as a result of a silly Walgreens policy being applied, at a minimum, in the Guilford, CT store.

I dropped by their store to pick up some photos which I uploaded to their site for printing. (By the way, good deal at 19 cents for a 4x6 and it's quick and painless to upload them, place the order, and do an in-store pickup)

I gather up a few other things and then walk to the check-out. It comes to $10.29 and I hand the teenager behind the counter a $20 bill. He punches in 20.00 into the register. While the drawer opens, I reach into my pocket and manage to pull out 30 cents. I tell him I have the 30 cents and reach my hand out. He doesn't make any effort to take it from me.

So I say, "Here, I've got the thirty cents, it will make it easier for you to give me the change." For those of you who already have really low math SAT scores, that would mean that instead of giving me one $5 bill, four $1 bills, two quarters, two dimes and a penny, I was trying to simplify life by making my change one $10 bill and a penny.

Now that I was pushing him to take it, he says, "Ummm. I can't take it, it's too late."

I must have had a puzzled look on my face as I said out loud, "Huh???" because he continued to try to explain:

"We're not allowed to take extra money once we've entered the amount into the cash register. Ummm. It's just the rules, ummm, for one reason or another... I don't know... Sorry."

So I shook my head in disbelief and put my 30 cents back into my pocket and proceeded to be handed one $5 bill, four $1 bills, two quarters, two dimes and a penny

Now I could have been a pain-in-the-ass and gathered up my $10 in loose bills and coins and said, "Hey, could you change this for a $10 bill?" but I didn't want to break the kid's stones. I think he was perfectly capable to do the math, but he's a victim of some dumb policy by the manager of the store (or is it corporate policy?). He did seem a little frustrated that he couldn't help me out.

Why am I telling you this? Because I believe it's another case of implementing technology in a way that steals away an opportunity to sharpen the skills of the employees. Walgreens management is apparently telling the employees to let the machine do the math, and don't let the customer complicate matters by changing the amount that they're giving you, since the machines won't let you reenter the amount tendered, and we don't want to rely on your own math skills. That's terribly sad that they actively avoid giving their employees a chance to stay sharp or do not want to take time to teach them how to count change back.

It's also poor customer service; I wanted to eliminate the loose change in my pocket and and thin out my wallet a little bit, but since it's "against the rules", I guess I'm stuck.

This isn't an isolated incident. I was in a McDonald's a couple of months ago and, while there was no policy against recalculating change in your head, the teen-age girl was simply baffled as to why I was giving her extra change. She was caught in a situation where she saw what the machine was telling her to give me, and she didn't want to or couldn't do the math in her head.

My parents owned a retail gift store, and my dad disabled the feature in the cash register that allowed the employee to enter the amount tendered. He wanted them to be mindful of the transaction, what the customer was giving them, and wanted them to be in good practice of counting out change. If a new employee struggled, he'd work with them to transfer his skills to them. I think my Dad helped a lot of kid's math SAT scores.

School Bans Student's Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 01:30:00 +0000

Isn't this going overboard?

NEWARK, N.J. ? A Roman Catholic high school has ordered its students to remove their online diaries from the Internet, citing a threat from cyberpredators.

Students at Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta appear to be heeding a directive from the principal, the Rev. Kieran McHugh.

McHugh told them in an assembly earlier this month to remove any personal journals they might have or risk suspension.

From School orders students to remove blogs (USA Today).

UPDATE: Apparently there is more to the story.

"Old Grandma Hardcore"

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 16:26:00 +0000

This is definately not how I want to live when I retire... But to each his own.

Barbara St. Hilaire spends about 50 hours a week wielding a machete, dismembering demons and battling a slew of thugs, zombies, and other nasties of the video-gaming world. Having recently nailed a 100% score in Outlaw Golf 2, she's now focused on mastering the top levels in God of War. It's a passion that has earned St. Hilaire, 69, the moniker "Old Grandma Hardcore."

"If you saw her in a grocery store, you would see an old, Midwestern diabetic with thick glasses leaning on a crutch or shopping cart," says her grandson Timothy St. Hilaire, who launched a blog recounting her gaming exploits -- and her colorful expletives. "She's a polite mother of five and grandmother of 12...but get her in front of a game, and she becomes a monster."

Attack of the Gaming Grannies (Business Week Online)

Some 19% of gamers are over 50, up 9% in five years, according to Peter D. Hart Research Associates. And 53% of game players expect to be playing as much, or more, 10 years from now.

You're only on this planet for so long — enjoy it while you can. There will plenty of time to play video games when you get to Heaven and I hear the graphics are absolutely divine on the consoles they have up there.

:-)

Hat Tip to YPulse.

iPods in Education

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Sicignano) — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 14:28:00 +0000

Of course! Take something which kids are totally gaga over, and turn it into an educational tool. That's just what Jamestown Elementary is doing by letting the kids share their hard work with other students and their parents with podcasts.

The Washington Post reports, "IPods Fast Becoming New Teacher's Pet"

The kids go through the traditional cycle of doing their research, putting their reports, poetry and other things together, are graded on that, and then they get to share it with the other students, parents, and... well... the whole wide world really, via the schools podcasts.

Colleges are podcasting lectures for students who miss classes or want to hear them again.

This doesn't appear to be a new phenomenon (except to me perhaps). A Google search turns up quite a few elementary and middle schools that are podcasting.

What a great way for kids to showcase and feel proud of their work. What a great way for parents to share what the kids are doing. Now if I can receive the end of year concert via podcast instead of sitting in that sweltering multipurpose room with the other parent-sardines, that would be even better. :-)