Beach In Hawaii -Ziggy Marley
Take You There -Sean Kingston
Beautiful Girls -Sean Kingston
Fuego -Pitbull
Roll (feat. Sean Kingston) -Flo Rida
Me Love -Sean Kingston
Low (feat. T-Pain) -Flo Rida
Kingston -Sean Kingston
Ombligo a Ombligo Ft.Los Tucanes de Tijuana -Akwid
Tour -Capleton
No Matter What -T.I.
Fire Of Heaven/Altar Of Earth -Matisyahu
I Can Feel It -Sean Kingston
Change -Sean Kingston
More Justice -Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley
Stronger (LP – Clean) -Kanye West
One Day -Matisyahu
Got No Shorty -Sean Kingston
There’s Nothin [Ft. Paula Deanda] -Sean Kingston
Ay Chico (Lengua Afuera) -Pitbull
Dry Your Eyes -Sean Kingston
Drummer Boy -Sean Kingston
Whatever You Like -T.I.
Swing Ya Rag (Ft. Swizz Beatz) -T.I.
Columbus -Burning Spear

My iPad has returned to the Best Buy that it came from, along with $75 that they charged for a “re-stocking” fee. I suppose it was worth it to be an early adopter and I’ve been promised that the re-stocking fee would might possibly be refunded “when” I come back for my 3G model (since the Wifi is so weak on the Wifi model). Yah, I don’t know if that will actually happen or not. I did like having the iPad but I couldn’t really find much to do with it. It didn’t replace anything and didn’t really do anything that I don’t already have answers for.

There were many things it couldn’t do. It couldn’t leave the house since they decided to ship out far too few of cases. It couldn’t get a signal unless I was near a wireless router that I have access to. It couldn’t multi-task. The movie and video images were horrible. The iAnnotate app was decent but couldn’t highlight. The ABC television app was great except that it couldn’t really show more than a few minutes of a show before crashing. The Netflix app had the same problem.

I sat looking at the iPad trying to figure out what to do with it and had to refer to my laptop on several occasions to find out information about it. The worst part is that I had to download the latest version of iTunes in order to use it with the iPad and now it is all messed up and giving me headaches with syncing my phone. Oh yah, it took me way too long to get my iPad up and running.

So, it comes down to the facts.. it was pretty much a useless waste of money and time. A very expensive toy that’s only advantage was that it is bigger than my phone and even that advantage had many drawbacks. The iPad is big enough that it isn’t really portable (plus not having a case..), it is too big for the iPhone apps because the resolution on the double sized screen is horrible. It is too big to show the iPhone compatible movies on with any picture quality. It really is too heavy to use as an e-reader. I know it isn’t that heavy but to do any amount of extended reading on it just isn’t going to work out.

If I were going to give it a grade, I would have to give it a C- at best. It gets props for being smoother and faster than an iPhone, neatness factor but loses points for everything else.

Best Buy, on the other hand, gets a definite F. Being Apple’s bitch automatically costs them points. By allowing Apple to dictate secretive practices, it allowed internet rumors about low inventory to cause people to seek other options. The customer service and constant hounding of the sales staff that is always present at Best Buy costs them more points. The lack of cases and accessories is another deduction. The smart-ass security guy who told me, “enjoy your over-sized iPod Touch” because it was useless is another deduction. The same smart-ass guy that was working the sales floor today and lied to me saying that the data service for the 3G was going to be $60 is another strike against them. Still not having cases and accessories… strike. Finally, the return process of being told that my Wifi problem was common and there was no need to even bother trading it out then only to be told that I was being charged a restocking fee because there was nothing other than the common problem of the week Wifi that was wrong with it is another big negative. Oh yah, to top it off by saying I could possibly get the re-stocking fee back, maybe, when I come by the 3G model is just over the line. F. F. F.

Actually, change the grade on the iPad to a D because Apple deals with these people at Best Buy and it was the only place I could buy one without driving 75 minutes or more!

I am typing this post at 1:30 am on my iPad from my bed. I just finished watching three episodes of Modern Family on my iPad even though I intended to only watch one. Prior to that, I watched part of a movie from Netflix… On my iPad. I need to make sure that I don’t let it overtake my life! Actually, I suppose that it could end up just being the case of one addiction taking the place of another since I’ve grown pretty addicted to the iPhone ever since getting the 3G. I suppose not having 3G on my iPad will help me at least not be on it when I am out and about. The biggest drawback of the iPad so far is that it makes my iPhone seem so small and incredibly dim in comparison.

Please click on the link to participate in a brief survey about Facebook.

My semester officially starts today. I will be in EDPS 530, EDCI 572, EDCI 660 w/Bill on Thursday and EDCI 513. Anyone else in any of those classes??

Here is a copy of my write up for my final project write up: Purdue GERI Network Paper

and here is a link to the project site: Purdue GERI Network

The network, a NING group, is geared for the gifted and talented community or for educators in general. It is a great opportunity for any education field scholars to participate and network. Please stop by, check it out and sign up! Many things in education technology are especially related to GT because that student population often has greater access to computers and technology, often do special media related projects and usually are the first to do online collaboration with mentors and cooperating classrooms.

Thanks for the great semester! In addition to being educational, it was a very fun class!

How to Evaluate Online Learning Communities: A Review of the Literature

Fengfeng Ke and Christopher Hoadley

Educational, Interest and Professional OLCs A- Assess the function and B- effectiveness; A- How is knowledge constructed, roles and participation, environment and climate; holistic features;; B- individual outcomes, institution return on investment

Process based or outcome based evaluations;

Which type of measurement is better when studying OLCs? Qualitative or quantitative?

Assessing Learning Outcomes in CSCL Settings

Nancy Law

Computer-supported collaborative learning How could control be introduced into the study and what would it show us? What do the rubrics look like? What rubric was used for this study?

The originator of social networking and blogging, Geocities, is being closed by Yahoo. They are no longer allowing new registrations and will be phasing out the whole program soon.

Sorry that I wasn’t able to join you all in class the other evening! If it makes you feel any better, I was sitting in an extremely hot airplane waiting for our turn to take off while class was beginning. I was sitting between two very talkative people as well!

Russell, et al. – CHAIN

The information provided in this article made me think about ways of improving the GERI network that I am trying to establish. I need to reach out to more experts in the field to get more authority for the group.

Farnham, et al. – HutchWorld

I find it interesting that the users of HutchWorld tended to associate only with their previous network of family and friends. I do agree with the assumption that the sample size was too small since the network was often not busy enough for people to find others to communicate with. It seems as though this network could have been a downer for the patients since it probably could have replicated their real life situations of not being able to get enough contact. I wonder what the results would be if the study was to be expanded to a larger audience? Also, what would happen if they did let the family and friends of the patients get involved more? What would happen if this study involved more people that were in a close physical distance?

Nutbeam – Health literacy as a public health goal…

This article makes me wonder about the possibility of a socialized health care system and its effect on the participation in networking and the sharing of health information? Would the elimination of competition make people more likely to share their information? Would government funding do anything to help expand the sharing and dissemination of knowledge?

Covert pics from last week’s class!