Daily Archives: February 26, 2007

Life-Long Computer Skills

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This is an old story — the scandal of the ICT curriculum in schools. (I’ve ranted on about it before.) Now Jakob Nielsen’s having a go…

I recently saw a textbook used to teach computers in the third grade. One of the chapters (“The Big Calculator”) featured detailed instructions on how to format tables of numbers in Excel. All very good, except that the new Excel version features a complete user interface overhaul, in which the traditional command menus are replaced by a ribbon with a results-oriented UI.

Sadly, I had to tell the proud parents that their daughter’s education would be obsolete before she graduated from the third grade.

The problem, of course, is in tying education too tightly to specific software applications. Even if Microsoft hadn’t turned Excel inside out this year, they would surely have done so eventually. Updating instructional materials to teach Office 2007 isn’t the answer, because there will surely be another UI change before today’s third graders enter the workforce in 10 or 15 years — and even more before they retire in 2065.

There is some value in teaching kids skills they can apply immediately, while they’re still in school, but there’s more value in teaching them deeper concepts that will benefit them forever, regardless of changes in specific applications.

Teaching life-long computer skills in our schools offers further benefit in that it gives students insights that they’re unlikely to pick up on their own. In contrast, as software gets steadily easier to use, anyone will be able to figure out how to draw a pie chart. People will learn how to use features on their own, when they need them — and thus have the motivation to hunt for them. It’s the conceptual things that get endlessly deferred without the impetus of formal education…

He goes on to list the kind of conceptual skills he has in mind. Useful essay.

BitTorrent goes commercial; bye-bye BitTorrent

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From Good Morning Silicon Valley…

BitTorrent has gone legit — signed a deal with movie studies to enable them to use the system to distribute their content.

Unfortunately, getting in bed with the entertainment companies involves a lot of bondage, and that means BitTorrent will limp out of the starting gate. All the content is encased in Microsoft digital rights management and can be played only with Windows Media Player — no Macs, no iPods. And while the service will sell episodes of TV shows, it will only rent movies — they expire within 30 days of their purchase or 24 hours after the buyer begins to watch them. Ashwin Navin, BitTorrent’s co-founder and chief operating officer, told the New York Times the company could have offered movies for outright sale, but the studios wanted to charge prices so high he was afraid to even let users see them. “We don’t think the current prices are a smart thing to show any user,” he said. “We want to allocate services with very digestible price points.” And Bram Cohen, BitTorrent’s co-founder and chief executive, and the inventor of the technology, sounded like he had to hold his nose a bit to swallow the terms. “We are not happy with the user interface implications” of digital rights management, Cohen told the Times. “It’s an unfortunate thing. We would really like to strip it all away.”

Not an auspicious beginning, given the nature of BitTorrent’s core users — males between 16 and 34…

Yep. And it was such a nice technology.

What ironic about this is that BitTorrent is the kind pf P2P technology that the content industries once wanted to see wiped from the face of the earth.

PEW data on wireless users

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The Pew Internet and American Life Project has released findings of a new survey of Internet users who connect wirelessly to the network.

Headlines:

Some 34% of internet users have logged onto the internet using a wireless connection either around the house, at their workplace, or some place else. In other words, one-third of internet users, either with a laptop computer, a handheld personal digital assistant (PDA), or cell phone, have surfed the internet or checked email using means such as WiFi broadband or cell phone networks.

Facts about wireless use (among internet users)

  • Those who have logged on wirelessly from a place other than home or work: 27%
  • Those who have wireless networks in their homes: 19%
  • Those with personal digital assistants that are able to connect to the internet wirelessly: 13%

    Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project December 2006
    Survey, n=798 for internet users.

    • How to be uncool

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    Giles Smith was lent a fancy wagon to review.

    Uncool things to do in a Porsche 911, number 27: sweep confidently on to the forecourt of a busy petrol station, casually, even rakishly, aligning the rear end of the car with a vacant pump. Emerge from Porsche. Unholster pump nozzle with exaggerated air of detachment and move nonchalantly to back of car. Find no petrol cap at back of car. In company of unwieldy length of petrol hose, explore possibility that petrol cap is on other side of car. Fail to find it there, either. Begin to wonder whether car is so furiously exclusive that petrol can only be fitted at registered dealerships by qualified Porsche engineers.

    Belatedly discover petrol cap embedded in driver’s side front wing. (What’s it doing there?) Also discover nozzle won’t reach it, on account of aforementioned rakish parking position. Sheepishly replace nozzle, re-enter Porsche, re-fire its noisy, attention-seeking engine and back up. Re-emerge and fill Porsche, with unusual concentration. Enact long walk of shame to petrol station kiosk.

    But, hey, who wants to be cool, anyway? In any case, it’s a bit late for that as far as the driver of a Porsche 911 is concerned. What, after all, could be less cool than owning and driving a Porsche? Even in 2007, fairly or otherwise, the “nine-eleven” labours under the image of being the default toy of cashed-up City boys and over-motivated advertising executives. The very word “Porsche” has become a portfolio term for unpalatable behaviour in many of its guises. Or, to put it another way, the car has “wanker” written all over it – sometimes literally, if you allow it to become dirty enough.

    It’s a lovely essay, written with verve and wit. Smith observes the way that

    the car can produce two distinct and entirely contradictory states of mind. Call those states of mind pre- and post-911. Before driving one, you are happy to join the rest of the world in its glorious, frequently hand-signalled contempt for the brand and all who sail in it. A couple of hours at the wheel, with all that power and responsiveness at your command and with the engine burbling in your ears, and you are just about ready to sell your mother’s house from under her in order to become a card-carrying member of the community, and to hell with what anyone else thinks.

    I once drove a 911, many years ago, when it was less environmentally incorrect (or at any rate when we knew nothing about global warming), and know just what he means.

    BTW, fuel consumption for the latest 911 is 11.8 mpg. And as for the CO2 emissions, well, don’t even ask.