My final project

Slideshow: One Laptop per child - Slideshow

The end of classroom?

I was reading an  article on how traditional class room are dying because of online classes, I was surprised first.
I  took history of American  higher education class last year and we  had  good conversation about online class vs  traditional class. Many thought that online classes has   long way to go to  replace by traditional classes.
But  when I read  this articles ,I think online classes will replace traditional classes . Because of advance technology, online classes  are becoming more interactive. Also online classes are banking on social media where people network ( collaborating) with each other on face book, blogs, twitter and youtube to get best education.

Gmail??? What about Facebook mail?

Facebook launches it own email services this week  with most fanfare and hype.  Gmail has dominate as email services for last 3-5 years but with facebook email services they will face stiff challenge. According to Facebook its aim is " to tie users more closely to the social networking site at a time when everyone is battling for their attention".
The product will merge texts, online chats, and e-mails into one central hub. Let see if it will remain as hype or actually become popular as time will tell. Google introduce "Buzz"  around two years ago  but  did not do well.  Both Facebook email services and google buzz looks so there is  chance it will have same fate as google buzz.
Lets all wait and see!

Do you play video game? You should!

I was watching TED talk show last night  about how game helps our brain to be creative. Virtual game is billion dollar business which not only attract teenager but also old people and small children. Tom Chatfield  talks about  & ways games can help our brain to be creative.
Games are all about imagination, reward, ways to get those reward , collaboration and sharing. Let say I am playing virtual game called dragon on the internet  with unknown people from all over the world. I will share my ideas on how to kill the dragon collectively since our individual power is weaker than dragon. We will share our ideas who will use what weapon and how we will use different strategy to kill dragon in order to get treasure or points. People will use their imagination on different strategies ,share them and come up with really good idea that help to get our reward. There are also games developed by Fisher king that will help to simulate learning environment. Wii has their  interactive game such as skate boarding, yoga, boxing that will help people to be fit without going to fitness center.
So after watching TED talk show on game my view on game( just for fun) is changed and from now on I will start playing game.

Do you have eureka moment?

When I first sat down  to write  blog , I did not have anything on my mind. I was planning to look at some of tech blogs that I have been following and get some idea. But  realized I should write blogs that  is not related to any technology or classwork.
Everyone has their "Eureka" moment in their life. Whether its discovering a new idea completely or solving problem with thing available to you. Each moment is "Eureka" moment because you are able to find  a solution to your problem  which is creative in itself. We have seen so many Eureka moment from past where new ideas were created. So I think from now one if i find any  ideas I will shout "Eureka", because that may be new and creative  ideas.

Does innovation stops when company get bigger?

I was reading an articles on CNN other day about how small company are more innovative than big company. The author point out  example between facebook and google.  Employee from google are fastly moving  to facebook because they think  facebook is more innovative and inspire their employee  to be more creative and share their ideas.
It was not before two to three years ago when google was "the place to work " for and they receive almost thousand resume  a day. Job seeker and employee think  google provide environment  for innovation and creative to their employee. But as google expand and become big company suddenly turnover become a major problem to the company. If they cannot retain their best and smart  employee there will be not innovation?  So is it ok to say that once the company  become bigger then  innovation stop?

Techology makes voting easy

Voting is once freedom to express support certain motion. People from all over the country has cast their vote  and exercise their freedom. No matter what they believe or which side they are in , by voting  they show they care for their community and countries. In traditional voting, voter use paper and ink to cast their vote.  Sometime this type of voting is not accurate and reliable because of voters mistake.  Percentage of votes using traditional voting system  being void is high compare to voting using technology. We will be seeing internet voting system where you can use your social security to cast your vote online. This technology will probably help to draw more people especially young people to cast their. Imagine if this same technology is intergrated some of social sites such as face book, twitter e.t.c.!

Green Technology : What it is?

Lately we have been hearing about "green technology" in news, business community, and political agenda. What exactly is green technology? It sound  really exciting and new idea when somebody mention "green technology" especially in this global warming. Last week I was talking  with my boss and he bring this idea of green technology that our company might use. Immediately I asked him what is green technology?  He could not answer to what green technology is? Its funny sometime we don't understand what something will do but we just  need to have it because someone is having same thing.
Before we get into something we need to understand how and why we need it. After Google search for some time here is what I find: "Basically, green technology is that in which the technology is environmentally friendly and is created and used in a way that conserves natural resources and the environment."  After all it sound to be really useful technology but how will we be using it?

The robot that reads your mind to train itself

When I first read this article on BBC news, I think this could be real good  instrument to teach person based on their brain ability. Let say robot read a mind of a person and based on their brain capability teacher can develop a learning material that suit  to this person.  E learning has been so popular now  a day because of its advance technology, flexibility and easy to access. Now with technology like this integrated on e- learning , it  make learning more easy and custom based ones skill set.

Skype-Facebook: Like peanut butter and chocolate?

So Google coming up with Google voice chat and IPhone with real time face chatting , Facebook and skype merged to  provide  more social feature to its user. We have used both Facebook and Skype in the past to chat be incontact with our social circle and both applications has huge number of user. Now  Facebook acquire Skype, not only its adding new user it also beat competition from Google and Apple. A genuine move!
With Facebook integration, you can:

• see your Facebook News Feed in Skype
• post status updates that can be synced with your Skype mood message
• comment and like friends’ updates and wall posts
• call and SMS your Facebook friends on their mobile phones and landlines
• make a free Skype-to-Skype call if your Facebook friend is also a Skype contact

Will physical books be gone in five years?

In one interview with cnn, author Nicholas Negroponte, founder of One Laptop per Child, said the physical book's days are numbered. "It will be in five years," said Negroponte. "The physical medium cannot be distributed to enough people. When you go to Africa, half a million people want books ... you can't send the physical thing."

It is sad to see the end of paper books  but with ebook it is easy to access anyway from the world and it will be lot cheaper compare to printing  a book.

CNN lntroduce "Tech Check" Podcast

Every friday CNN will broadcast podcast on various topics related to techology.Topics regularly covered by the Tech Check team include social networking, technology innovation, mobile phones and other gadgets, video gaming and the internet at large.
I usually listen TED  and MSDN podcast  for techology news. I have been saying podcast is the tool  for learning  while at work . If you have internet services in  your mobile device  then you can  do you work  while listening to podcast

Learning Cooking Through Technology



Spicy Potato snack

Last weekend I was trying to make my favourite snack, aloo dum but did not have clue on how to make it. When I was kid and back in Nepal my mom used to make it but its hard to get every instruction  from phone ( and long distance call are expensive too). I tried my luck on youtube and no wonder found 4-7 cooking videos that show how to make this dish. I was really suprised by numbers of video because I was not expecting people will post that many videos on this dish especially people from  USA ( nepali origin).
Out of 5-7 ,I found one really good one because instructions were easy to follow and she showed each step to cook it. I was able to make this dish without too many difficulties.
In wikinomics we learned so much about collaboration and open sharing. We find these things on our day to day life and we appreciate how another person  collaboration and sharing provide so much joy and help to another person. I thank Youtube for providing  platform for people to collaborate and share their ideas.

How good software makes us stupid

Sometime we think that technology will take care of everything and  become careless or totally depend on techology. For example before spell checking functionality on MS Word application we try our best to remember spelling of every word so that we don't misspelled it. But after spell check functionality we totally depend on it and does not bother to practice remembering spelling of words.So most of us cannot spell some of word correctly because we depend so much on MS word tools that we loose that capability.
BBC published this article which describe how we are loosing some of capabilities because we depend so much on software. One example author mention how we are becoming more "stupid" is GPS. GPS helps us to navigate direction and we rely on it to find direction. Before GPS we used to remember on ways to get direction such as remembering street address based on south, north. But since we rely on GPS we forget to understand on how to remember street address.
But if we use these type of tools fewer and when needed , we can still be smart.

The child-driven education

Sometime its important how children learn and  how we can teach them?  A session on TED fromSugata Mitra highlight why its important for children to let them learn them self and be creative. He perfrom an experiement on various children from asia to south africa and europe. He gave  group of children  one laptop and told them to come of something and  they did without any help from other.
Its amazing how human brain can be creative and can adjust with situations. Sometime we figure out some problem that might need other assistance with our creativity and thinking. You can check whole TED Session from Sugata Mitra on how children educated themselves with one computer and their own creative. Here is a link

"Education-as-usual assumes that kids are empty vessels who need to be sat down in a room and filled with curricular content. Dr. Mitra's experiments prove that wrong."
Linux Journal

Who said new techology totally displace old techology?

Most often we see that old techology  dies down because  new technology totally replace it. Its hard to see that some of the techology that you work with at the begining does not exist any more, it extinct . But sometimes these old techology help to educate student and provides excellent tool to work with in new techological surrounding.
One lucky flock of BBC Micros is getting another lease of life by helping to educate students in the art of rigorous programming. Student work with Micros to understand  how computer functions and understand to steps that take place from converting our text into electronic signal and back to the text.
You can read the whole article  here.

"The movie that defines our generation": Social network

Sorry, I don't mean to blog about movie  to provide entertainment . But this movie  talks about copy right,  collaboration and sharing of ideas that helps many people . Movie is about face book cofounder Mark whose vision and hard working led to one of the best creation ( interms of people using )  in web.  This movie is also about sharing ideas and collaborating   as two friends collaborate  to create an application that helps everyone.

One Laptop per child: Collaborating to share education to rest of the world

One laptop per child vision is to create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.


Children studying on road in Nepal.



We ( at least developed country) think education is free for everyone and its upto student to grab this opportunity. But its not true in developing countries from Africa and Asia where children cannot go to school because  either there is no school  or parents cannot afford to send their children to school. But   around 2005/2006 a non profit organization from US in collaboration with IT company from different part of world introduce affrodable latop that will help to educate every children  all over the place. On an average a laptop cost $100 and give opprotunity to be creative as well as their right to be educated.

We some time think about our self but we need to give credit to these people whose idea to share  education to student all over  world. You can check about their work on this link. Please also look at thier blogs and what they have done with their creative ideas. I hope this will inspire most of us to do something in collaboration and share with others.

Copyright issue: It will never go away!

We have talked about copyright issue in our first class and again  in my other class this weekend. Since techology has been all over the world and its impact on  business,  arts and our day to day life   there should be  set of laws that will force people to act responsibly  on net.

I was reading one article last week which said that Apple cannot used its most marketable name "pod" beacuse it voilated copyright issue.  You can read the whole article here.
Imagine Apple company without Ipod or Iphone , its scary !

How to create Podcast?

I have been listening podcast on new technology and its effect on business but did not had a chance to create one for myself. Today I learn on how to create podcast using free software available online. First step to create podcast is recording your thought as audio files. There are many free software that you can use creating, updating audio files but here is the one that I used called audacity. Once you are done with recording your thought as audio files then you can save it on cloud ( on web) so that everyone can access it without any problem. Box.net is really good cloud computing system that can house your media file and again it is free.
Once you are done uploading your media file then you can create a links to that file( using create link button on box.net). Paste that link onto you blog then there you have your first podcast that everyone can listen. What a way to express your thought online??

First Podcast

This is my first podcast that I created on audacity ( opensource software for editing audio files) early today.

Improving education through technology

Techology can be used to impact learning and help student to be successful. From google where student can search different scholars, articles and used their free application for learning to wikispace where they can share their ideas ,technology give various options to learn.
Instead of the teacher being the only source of help in a classroom, students can access web sites, online tutorials, and more to assist them. They can learn new thing even after school because students have access to teachers, resources, and assignments via the web and access these resources at any time.
Money is another factor that technology can help in education.Virtual field trips, electronic forms instead of paper, electronic textbooks helps to save money. Technology can also give different resources to use in class for free and equiped themselves thorugh online training, online conferences.

3D Internet TV !!! Future of Online class is bright

Last week there is 3D Internet TV show on Berlin German. Beside entertainment value there is possibility of online classes more popular than tranditional class. Online classes like Nursing, cooking where 3D is really important to show a complete object, school can look at 3D internet TV to provide classes on those subject. Here is a report by BBC on possiblity of 3D Internet TV. Click here.

'Professor Layton' offers 'steampunk'

How often we use game to  sharpen our learning skills? This unique puzzle game helps to sharpen your mathematical skills and increase attentions.  If you have some time to spare ,please check it out?
Click here

I was wrong

I thought I know everything about google  products before but I was wrong . On our first class ( learning new technology) we worked with google and its many products that I did not know before.
Here are some of those product you might not know either!

• Google reader
• Google Alert
• Google Lab
  These are some of many google  products that we  worked on and learned how to use them.

Acting Globally

Its important for business to understand phenomenon of globalization and become part of it.
Its always good to have diverse ideas  from different communities, cultures, and nationality.
Organization can benefit power globalization through peers (collaboration) and open sharing.

2 Cents on technologies

Here is my two cents on techologies.......................

Open Source and Sharing

Wikieconomics talks about  how open source help business to get new ideas and shares creativity from diverse group. One example book gives is how one  gold mining company struggle to find gold post their  private data on mining.