Jonathan Davies

Tomorrow I set out on my holiday to Canada and more specifically Ottawa. The main goals for me in this holiday is that I: one, explore a bit more into photography - I’ve heard that there are some great areas around Ottawa, especially Parliament Hill to take photos. I’ll be armed with a D80 and snapping everything I can. And secondly to relax: I’ve got a load of things planned for when I get back - some I can’t really talk about and some I just don’t want to yet.

One of my deepest regrets is that I am not spending enough time producing content for this blog. I know I keep saying I will be writing more and not much has come of it…

I have been thinking of branching out a bit; maybe talking about things I wouldn’t normally care to mention. However I will not let this blog simply become a news website - frankly I think a lot of you would prefer a no blog posts than repeated ones that you can find anywhere.

What would you like to see from the blog?

On another note I’ve written an article for Desktop Vibes that I’m quite proud of: Five Reasons Why You Should Use Google Docs. I’ll also be having another article of mine published sometime tomorrow.

My previous blog post was about the use of technology in schools at the moment and I didn’t really touch on how school’s could improve learning in the digital age as much as I could have, I had a lot of thoughts, more than what warranted a simple update to the post - so here is a brand new one here for your enjoyment

So we are at this point where there is a gap between accepting computers as a mainstream learning tool and those who still prefer the good old pen and paper. Of course writing is an incredibly important asset, but it is getting to a stage where typing is going to be just as, if not more important. So, I suggest the following pieces of action to be taken:

• Write everything on the computer - by doing this you are forcing kids, from a level where they are (hopefully) all the same. Therefore they can build up there skills and abilities with each other and learn things from each other. Of course, they should be pretty capable in writing before they move solely over to the computer for writing.
• Teaching online - my own school’s site has a source where they can enroll in online courses that work separately, or in union with a scheduled lesson. One of the advantages to this is that students can work at their own pace and don’t have to wait for others to catch up.
• School Bulletins - Imagine logging onto your school computer to find a page telling you your time table, preps that need doing and any other school related notifications. My school has this on a limited basis, but the possibilities that can be gained from this are amazing.
• Homework by email - Now there is no excuse to say you forgot. Send out a mass email to all your students giving them the work that is needed and the course on the learning site that they need to reference. All they simply do is, put the homework into a reply and send it off.

The problem that we have with these is that they require a few other steps that need to be made first before they could reach their potential:

• Educate students and teachers - on day one they should be given a demonstration of how to use everything and have a chance to ask questions. There should always be a support email that people can go and ask questions.
• A standard system - a lot of schools have hobbled together a system that uses a lot of different technologies that haven’t been designed to work with each other. Chose a system and stick to it!
• Make it mandatory - The one thing that is letting down the online learning site at my school is the fact that teachers don’t have to put up content for it - or even use it. Before it can be used properly it needs the whole school community behind it.

This is simply what I think a school would need to put into place before they can expect a fully functional, online learning experience. What would you like your school to do?

Technology plays a large roll in my daily activities at school. For some lessons I write my notes on my MacBook Pro, I do a lot of video recording and editing for school events. In fact I am going to be editing a whole load of footage over the next few weeks.

Why do I write a lot of my notes on my computer? To stay organized really. All my notes are arranged specifically to the subject and lesson that I am studying. Most importantly; I know where everything is. I am not very good at manually organizing things. I tend to loose pieces of paper and it can take a long time for me to find stuff. If I can’t find something on my Mac, then I simply use Spotlight and get to it in seconds.

The problem with schools and technology at the moment is simply that teachers don’t seem to trust them as a learning tool totally yet. In all the lessons that I do - only a handful am I allowed to take notes for on my computer.

Why are they like this? I think it is simply because of the situation that my school’s network used to be in. There was a point where files could go missing or magically become deleted. This caused a lot of mistrust about the school’s network that I believe is still present today.

Luckily, things are changing, slowly, for the better. Teachers are becoming more educated and IT is becoming a bigger part of learning at my school. Interactive white boards are in a lot of classrooms and projects are more commonly requested to be presented on a computer.

They are small steps, but it’s still progress non the least.

How is technology treated in your learning environment?

I have never been very good at making targets, big nor small, I just never seem to be able to accomplish them - or at least as well as I’d like to.

For instance, only spending a limited amount of time “browsing” the internet - a massive time waster, or reading a book for a few minutes a day. I can write them out and plan doing them - but when it comes down to it, all I am really good at is procrastinating.

So I’ve put in a few measures lately to try and curve this problem and so far it seems to be working fairly well. One of the biggest hurdles was admitting that I am not (though some believe me to be) a superhero - who can do anything. Once this boundary is overcome you can just accept that what you have managed to do is enough, and should be enough to satisfy you.

By setting myself, small, doable targets I am able to slowly complete a whole large tasks. Because, after all, one large tasks simply a lot of small ones.

Organizing my life through one quick small step has increased my productivity ten fold.

What do you do to be more productive?

This evening, the internet is pretty much down here at school, I can still read my RSS feeds but frankly browsing the web is hopeless. So I have taken to the task of working my way through my entire file system of documents and folders and giving them all a spring clean.

Some of the worst spots to go through was my “school” folders where I had literally bunged in some random file names and places after after being in a rush to leave (as you can see on the left, this was my Biology folder). Another area of particular area of messiness is my Pictures folder, where I have bunged in a load of random drawings that I do in Photoshop and think “well I better keep them, as I might need them one day“.

This is the single most persistent problem I have. I think I’m going to need something that I save but 95% of the time I never open up the file again.

So here is a suggestion. Go through everything you have sitting around, from apps, to those songs you never listen to and think: “Do I really need these?” and delete them or “Maybe I could archive these on my external drive”.

Of course this is just one half of the problem, the next is finding things. I’m not one for spotlight, I very rarely use it and I prefer being able to go through my file system. And I manage it well enough that I can get to most things with fairly good speed.

Here are a couple of examples:

Macintosh HD >> Documents >> School >> English >> Coursework >> Shakespeare

Macintosh HD >> Pictures >> Design >> WSTL Invitation Design >> Invite Design

Of course it doesn’t hurt to name all your files with appropriate titles to help you find them. Once you go through everything and organize it appropriately, I think you’ll find your productivity increases and you’ll be a happier computer user for it.

Go try it out now!

Today, my grandfather pointed me in the direction on a interesting showcase article on a camera, knowing that I was looking at buying a similar one. The article talked about the Canon 40D with a lens for £499.99! knowing this looked like a good deal I went to the website which the article pointed too. Empire Direct and saw the camera being offered for £816 - quite a big price difference if you ask me.

So I logged onto the newspaper’s website (The Telegraph if you were wondering) looking for an email to contact them about the mistake. I scoured the whole website looking for a way to contact them via email. During this I found a very similar article about the 400D which had been showcased. I noticed that they hadn’t mentioned that fact that the successor to this camera had been announced so I was also looking at mentioning that to them also.

Well… there is a way to contact them. A letter. A LETTER!?! To contact someone about their website! That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard in a long time. This boggles the mind… I mean it just doesn’t make sense to me.

If you wish to contact someone featured within the paper, a journalist regarding an article or the Editor, please address a letter to them c/o the relevant desk, i.e. Travel, Features, News, etc., Telegraph Media Group, 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0DT. A reply is not guaranteed in the event of an editorially related enquiry or comment.

I am aware that this quote mentions the print publication but this the only possible way of contacting them that I could find. `Maybe there is an email address hidden away on the site; but I can’t find it so I doubt many other people can.

This is the whole problem with the way Old Media is working, they’re trying to join the digital revolution but they are missing out on the little things that don’t work for the end user. It isn’t seamless.

So my solution? I’m going to email someone who they do give the address for, maybe they will know the right person to speak to about this situation, but I don’t think I should have been put into it in the first place.

I don’t seem to read to many RSS feeds. From what I have gathered some people subscribe to a ton of blogs, instead I have selected only a few blogs that I would normally visit every day and then categorize them into the following folders:

Apple: Daring Fireball, TUAW and AppleInsider. Only three blogs because if you ask me they cover it all. Daring Fireball I get simply for John Gruber’s commentary. I tend to enjoy the software portion of TUAW and AppleInsider for the straight news and rumors (though I do wish they published the full feed).

Web: You might say it’s a pretty large category that could culminate pretty much most blogs. However I tend to use this for the blogs that write solely about the Web. Two I’ll highlight are Webware and Techcrunch. Both produce some fantastic content and tend to be the first to get a story. Another blog which is kinda’ different is Extra Life which is my favourite web comic - but Scott also runs a really cool blog as well.

Personal: This space I dedicate to personal blogs, mainly technology related. Just to mention a few; Michael Minstretta, Paul Stamatiou and Glenn Wolsey.

I also have a few other categories which aren’t really in need of mention - but these include Flickr, Gaming and Blogging. Some may wonder where are the other big blogs such as Engadget and Gizmodo; in actual fact I used to subscribe to both but found their post rate overwhelming so I now just visit them a few time a day an pick and choose so I’m not rushing through the articles.

And now the question you have all been waiting for:

How do you organize your feeds?