Author: jason

Categories
Haxe

Haxe3 Features: Variable Substitution in Haxe3 (aka String Interpolation)

One of my favourite features in the upcoming Haxe3 is also one of the simplest: String Interpolation (also called variable substitution).  If you were using Std.format() in Haxe2, you’ll recognise it.  It lets you do this:

var name = "Jason";
var age = 25;
trace ('My name is $name, I am $age years old.');
// My name is Jason, I am 25 years old

The first point to make is that it is triggered by using single quotation marks (‘), rather than double (“).  If you use double quotes, everything is treated as a plain string:

trace ("My name is $name, I am $age years old.");
// My name is $name, I am $age years old

The next point to make is that this all happens at compile time.  So the trace we made above, in Javascript, would output as:

console.log("My name is " + name + ", I am " + age + " years old");

So you can only do this with strings you have at compile time, as you’re writing the code.  If you want Strings that are given at runtime to have variable interpolation, you should use a templating library like erazor.

Now a few other things to note:

  1. If you want to put in a normal dollars sign, you can use two $, like this:
    trace ('The item costs $20');
// "20" is not a valid variable name, so it is ignored.
// Same as ("The " + item + " costs $20");

trace ('That price is in $USD');
// Error: Unknown Identifier "USD"
trace ('That price is in $$USD');
// Same as ("That price is in $" + "USD");

var cost = 25;
trace ('That item costs $$$cost');
// The first two "$" are for the literal sign, the third is part of the variable.
// Same as ("That item costs $" + cost);
  2. If you want to access anything more than a straight variable, use curly brackets: 
    // Property access
trace ('My name is ${user.name} and I am ${user.age} years old.');
// Same as: "My name is " + user.name + " and I am " + user.age + " years old.";
// Outputs: My name is jason and I am 25 years old.

// A simple haxe expression
trace ('$x + $y = ${x + y}');
// Same as: "" + x + " + " + y + " = " + (x + y);
// Outputs: 1 + 2 = 3

// A function call 
trace ('The closest Int to Pi is ${Math.round(3.14159)}');
// Same as: "The closest Int to Pi is " + Math.round(3.14159);
// Outputs: The closest Int to Pi is 3
  3. There is no HTML escaping, so be careful: 
    var bold = "<b>Bold</b>";
trace ('<i>Italic</i> $bold');
// <i>Italic</i> <b>Bold</b>

var safeBold = StringTools.htmlEscape("<b>Bold</b>");
trace ('<i>Italic</i> $safeBold');
// <i>Italic</i> &lt;b&gt;Bold&lt;/b&gt;

var safeEverything = StringTools.htmlEscape('<i>Italic</i> $bold');
trace (safeEverything);
// &lt;i&gt;Italic&lt;/i&gt; &lt;b&gt;Bold&lt;/b&gt;

There you have it: String Interpolation, one of the most helpful (and easy to comprehend) features of the upcoming Haxe3 release.

…

Categories
Faith Personal

Cloudy Mornings

I’ve been using a book called “Common Prayer“, which acts as a kind of guide to help me think of things to pray about and let my mind chew on each morning, lunch time and night.  (Example: when I usually get distracted by what I’ve got on for the day, it says “pray for others”.  Good idea!)

Anyway, each morning the prayers open with this line:

Lord, let me soul rise up to meet you

As the day rises to meet the sun

The last few weeks, I’ve mostly been reading this and praying this as I begin my walk to work, walking down the street, the morning is still cool, but the sun is shining, and I visualise it: the earth reorients itself once again, so my little corner is facing the sun.  Jason, your turn, reorient yourself, turn and face God.  Starting the day this way is good.

This morning however, it wasn’t sunny.  And I came to pray this line, and went to look up at the sun, to help visualise it, and I couldn’t see it.  It was gone.  The clouds had taken it away.

Now of course, the sun wasn’t gone.  It’s still there.  If it were not, it would be pitch black (not just a little grey), the temperature would be dropping so rapidly we would probably have frozen to death by now, and in general things would be falling apart.  I might not be able to see it, and I might be a little chilly, and a little wet with rain, but if the sun were not there, things would be far, far worse than they are.

This is helpful on the days that I feel a little uncomfortable spiritually, can’t see God and struggle to believe he’s there.  Or maybe I’m not struggling with his existence, but just wondering why he’s not doing anything helpful for me with everything I’m struggling with.  On those days, it’s not that God is gone.  He’s still there, and he’s still keeping the general universe running, even if it’s a little obscured, and even if I’m not as comfortable as I want to be.  If he was genuinely not there, or genuinely had ceased taking any interest in me, things would probably be far worse than they are*.

 

* footnote: I’m lucky enough to be healthy and live in a first world country.  My idea of struggles of course aren’t worth even mentioning when compared to what people in different circumstances.  Something else this prayer book is teaching me to be mindful of.  Is God still there for those people?  I hope so…

Categories
Faith Personal Reading & Inspiration

An old article, but a sad one

This post left me sad:

Pastor supporter of gay marriage out in the cold.

After affirming same sex marriage in an online post, his church met together (without telling him) and decided they didn’t want him any more.  They didn’t even give him the chance to talk over his view point.  Because his house was tied to the job with the church, him and his family were faced with having to find new accommodation on such short notice.

Rodney Croome, whose Australian Marriage Equality website ran Mr Glover’s statement affirming same-sex marriage, said two gay groups would try to provide financial support.

When a church can’t love their own, and the community they condemn as “sinful” steps in with love… I get sad at what the church is supposed to be and the ugly reality of what it sometimes is instead.

Note to self: act the way I think the church should.  If our love isn’t the most extravagant going around, we’re not doing enough.  If we’re too concerned about the purity of our doctrine, and forget to love, we’re not so different from those Jesus was so infuriated by.  I wonder what would have happened if he rocked up at this impromptu meeting.

Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.  He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.

Sad…

 

Categories
Faith

O to grace how great a debtor

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing (Lyrics, Video)

Categories
Personal

The Heist

Make the money, don’t let the money make you
Change the game, don’t let the game change you
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

I’m listening to “The Heist” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. Loving the album… I’ve been laughing hard at Thrift Shop for a month or so now (it’s on the radio all the time at the moment), but I’m now listening to the rest of the album – really good stuff. They definitely follow the Mumford and Sons Theory:

MumfordAndSonsTheory: drop a few F-bombs & u can get away with more Christian imagery that a Billy Graham revival.
@jarrodmckenna

The quote above was from their song “Make the Money”. The song below, “Same Love” is a scathing look at homophobia. Reminds me of the stories of some of my friends… Take a minute to listen to it. Lyrics here.

Categories
Personal

The best leaders aren’t afraid to serve

image

Categories
Faith Personal

The story of the millions of dollars

Matthew 25 contains one of Jesus’ most well known stories, and it goes like this:

There was a rich man who was about to go out on a long journey.  He called 3 of his workers to him, and entrusted them with his wealth.  He gave each of them a different amount depending on what he knew they were up for – the first he gave $5,000,000, the second he gave $2,000,000, the third he gave $1,000,000.  (A “talent” in the bible was 20 years wages.  20 years * average Perth salary of $50,000 = $1,000,000). Certainly a lot of money – even for the guy who got the least.  And apparently the rich man trusted each of their abilities enough that he thought it safe to leave it with them while he went away.

The first two went out, and put the money to work.  Whether they invested it, or started a business, or just did clever trading, I don’t know.  But whatever they did, worked – they doubled the money their boss had entrusted to them.

The third guy though was scared of screwing up.  In the story he says “I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground.”  It seemed like this guy felt that no matter what he did, he couldn’t live up to the (in his mind) unrealistic expectations of his boss.

Needless to say, the rich man came back, and was pretty stoked with the results of the first two – and promised them bigger and better opportunities.  The third guy however he was angry with.  He didn’t challenge the accusation that he expects a lot – but he challenged the guys response.

The third man saw the high expectations, considered them unrealistic, panicked, and went with what he considered the least risky option.  Another possibility is that he was just lazy – and this whole thing was his excuse for not doing anything.

I’ve spent a bit of time tonight pondering this expectation from God.  In the Hebrew Bible harvesting what someone else planted was a form of oppression – you were getting rich from someone else’s hard work.  Is that what this man is accusing his boss of?  Is that what God does, comes in to profit from our hard work?

Well not quite, the boss did invest.  He didn’t come asking for money when he did nothing in the first place.  He gave the guy a million dollars, and entrusted it to him – presumably so that he would work with it and increase it.  From what I can tell, wealth is something we can generate, and it doesn’t have to be generated by stealing from other people.  And the boss gave him money because he knew this guy was capable of generating wealth, to the same capacity as the other two – he could get a 100% return on investment too.

God wasn’t selfishly coming to collect what he had no right to – he gave this guy something to work with, and the man did no work.

Whether he didn’t because he was honestly scared, and the fear of failure seized him, or whether it was laziness and the fear was merely an excuse – this man was capable of generating a return, but he didn’t. He was capable of doing equally great work with what he was entrusted with, but he didn’t.  And so he was shown the door.

We know from other parables that God isn’t concerned about financial return on investment.  Rather, he wants to see us doing good work, and wants to see us working faithfully with what he’s entrusted to us.

Think about an investor.  Some are out there to make a quick buck, but some are people who already have a lot of money, and they invest not to get more, (they already have enough), but instead they invest to set other people up for success. The money they give out is to help other people get off the ground and do amazing work.  But if the person they invest in squander the money, do you think they will continue to invest?  No, they’ll pull their money out.

I think that’s what’s happening here.  God wants to set us up for success.  He’s not in this to profit from us, rather, he’s in this to see us succeed. The first two guys in the story saw what God entrusted them with, and did amazing work.  The third guy was also entrusted with a lot, but he did nothing with it.  He ignored what the boss had entrusted to him, and so in a way, rejected the vote of confidence.  The boss gave him money because he knew he was good enough, but the man rejected that, and did nothing anyway.  When the time came to show where the money had gone, the boss saw it wasn’t getting used, he withdrew the investment – and put the money somewhere where he was confident it would be put to good use.

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”
Luke 12:48

Categories
Faith Personal

Divided

“Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.”

Matthew 12:25 NIV

The reality is the 6 Billion people on earth are so interconnected that this truth applies to us as an entire race.

We can no longer ignore the way our actions impact those in distant lands – because they’re not so distant anymore. Their future is tied to our future and if we’re divided against each other we will be ruined.

If our actions, attitudes, business plans and lifestyles achieve our gain at another person’s loss, then what we’re doing is not sustainable, healthy or honouring the humanity of those we live with. As the human community we’re divided against ourselves, and like that we cannot stand.

Categories
Faith Personal

When you do good things and others see it

In the same address, Jesus is talking to the crowd and seems to offer two contradictory pieces of wisdom:

You are the light of the world.  A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.  Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:14-16

 

Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ in front of others, to be seen by them.  If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.  So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by others.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

Matthew 6:1-2

There are plenty of people in the world who want to do good.  But often if someone asks you for a favour, or you see an opportunity to help, your response is “what’s in this for me?”  You might not ask it out loud, but your mind is scouting out potential benefits for doing this: this person now owes you a favour, while you’re doing it that girl you think is cute might see you and be impressed, doing this might be able to go on your résumé when you begin your job search later this month, your company could really use a PR boost and this donation could be just the thing…  You wouldn’t be so rude to ask it, but secretly, you’re weighing up if it’s worth your time, effort or money to help out in this situation.

Jesus says that if you’re just helping out for the reward you can imagine just around the corner, then when you get that reward, you’re paid in full.  Even though the work you’re doing is good, you’ve done it more as a business transaction than as an act of love.  I’ll help you with this… and I’ll get this (from you or someone else) in return.

A truly transformed life, the kind of “kingdom” life Jesus is encouraging people to step into, will sooner or later result in the person wanting to do good… and not just as part of a business transaction.  When a life is transformed by receiving grace, it goes on to want to give grace – you want to give to people who don’t deserve it, people who’ll never be able to pay you back.

Once this grace overtakes you and motivates you, it’s no longer about what you will get out of it.  And you’ll start doing things and helping people where “the deal” clearly isn’t worth it for you – you’re giving a lot more than you’re getting.  Perhaps you’re getting nothing, no one will even know.  Jesus is saying that God loves it when we do this.  When we give with no expectation of reward – at least not in any way we can imagine.  When we do this – God promises to reward us generously later.

Ironically enough, it’s the person that cares least about public approval (and doesn’t give for that reason at all) that God wants to show off to the world.  You see, people doing good is nothing to write home about.  People do good all the time – most business deals are essentially someone helping someone else and being rewarded in return.

It’s the people who give and give with no expectation of repayment or reward – whose lives have been transformed by grace – that God wants to show off to the world.  Their lives Jesus calls “light”, it contrasts the give/take nature of the world, and forces people to see that these people live life differently: they are no longer driven by what they get out of something, they are driven by love and by grace.

When people see this, they can’t help but glorify God in Heaven, whose undeserved love changes a life so radically that the person lives, gives and works because it’s right and because it’s good, not because of expected returns.

If most of the good you do will pay off, in recognition, in returned favours, in some round-a-bout way, then maybe you haven’t let your life be transformed enough yet.  This is me at the moment.  The cure then, is to deliberately try to do good, but in secret – not thinking about how you will be repaid for this, but focusing on the grace you’ve already received.  And as you do this (and as I do), hopefully our attitude will change and the grace we’ve received will overflow into grace we give out.

And most things will remain under the surface – no one but you and God need to know about them.  But a few will float to the top – like an iceberg, the majority of what you do will be unseen, but a small fraction pokes out above the water.  When people see these, they’ll see that it’s different.  These are not good things done for an expected return, these are good things done as an act of love – and that realisation will help them see God’s grace at work in your life, and lead them to glorify him.

 

Categories
Faith Personal

Reflections on a changing faith (or, “make the tree healthy”)

I’ve been thinking a lot about my faith the last couple of weeks.  It’s been an important part of who I am, and has shaped so much of my life so far.  But as my life changes, it needs to change too.

My faith to this point has been wonderful, personal and relatively stable.  I have believed a few things:

  • There is a personable God who created everything, very intentionally
  • He’s the one described – and shown to us – by Jesus of Nazareth
  • For every hurting person, God can offer hope and restoration
  • God is deeply relational, and does not offer this hope and restoration as a generic service to all, but rather, as a deeply personal gift, in the hope to draw us into a loving relationship with him.
  • Out of this loving relationship, (and not out of guilt or coercion), we are drawn to want what he wants – and to see the world the way he sees it, and to join him in the work of helping other people – each with their own lives and most with their own hurts – find the same hope and restoration and loving relationship with God.

Writing this down, I know I still believe all of this.  But my conviction of it’s truth, and of it’s necessity, has dropped way down.  See up until last year I was so involved volunteering in my church (trying to help on that last dot point – helping people find God), that I would be at a church meeting three maybe even four times per week, often leading and having to stay grounded in what I believe.

This year, I’ve pulled back significantly, and next year, I’ll pull back more.

And what I’ve found so far, is that without being in the church environment constantly – my faith is quickly forgotten.  It quickly becomes a side issue, and I am no longer convinced of the truth or the relevance of it – everything else seems more pressing, more concrete, more appealing.

Here’s what I suspect:

  • Like any friendship, a relationship with God requires upkeep – you need to spend time together.
  • I am particularly bad at “making time” for my real friends, and unless they happen to be where I happen to be (work, parties, sport, church etc), we often don’t make time to catch up.  Same with God – unless I’ve got something in my pre-defined schedule where I’m expecting to meet him, I’m less likely to.
  • Even though God is everywhere, I still was dependent on church events to help me focus on him, and so the vast majority of my time spent building my relationship with God was because I was at church and that’s what you do there.
  • Now that I’ve withdrawn and may only be at church once a week (or less!) I’ve lost pretty much all the time I would spend with God.
  • With that relationship not getting nurtured, of course all the other parts of my faith are going to go stale too.  Phil Baker talks about the tree and the branches (he probably got that one off Jesus).  If the tree is healthy, so are the branches.  If the branches are unhealthy, it’s probably because of the tree.  If the other areas of my faith – volunteering, reaching out to others, serving the poor and hurting – are not feeling very alive, it’s probably because the tree on which those branches grow is struggling.  Make the tree good, and the branches will be good.

Years ago I wrote myself a personal mission statement:

  • To love YHWH, my God, with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.
  • To love my family and be loved by them.
  • To help build the church.

I think the last few years have been dominated by that 3rd dot point.  And that 3rd dot point took up so much of my time, that the first two have been neglected.

Categories
Edtech

Win when your customers win

In announcing several new tablets yesterday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos dropped some wonderful quotes. One was, “Above all else, align with customers. Win when they win. Win only when they win.”

…

Bezos went on to say, “We want to make money when people use our devices, not when they buy our devices. If someone buys one of our devices and puts it in a desk drawer and never uses it, we don’t deserve to make any money.”

Amen. I think the lesson is exactly the same for open educational resources. If we’re really trying to help learners “win,” an OER provider hasn’t finished their job when they’ve published content. They’re succeeding when someone benefits from what they’ve done – and only then. We need to think harder about how to make this happen, and how to do it sustainably.

David on the Open Content Blog

I love this sentiment.

How can you set up your business so that the better it is for your customers the better it is for you.

Examples of people doing this:

  • Amazon, mentioned above – sells their hardware at low profits, expecting to generate further money as the user benefits from getting more content. The more content they get, the more they use it.
  • Dropbox lowers the price for you the more friends you send invites. You get more customers, they get cheaper prices and more convenience sharing with friends.
  • Some restaraunts have a “pay what you think the meal was worth” policy, some software follows the same model. The better you perform, the higher your pay. Another variant is an “unlimited trial” on software, that gives you as long as you need to see if the software is “worth it” to you.

Examples of people who do it wrong:

  • Phone companies use “cap plans” which give average users a cheap price, but the biggest users – who could be your biggest fans – get charged exorbitantly more, punished for using your product the most.
  • Gym memberships – here you pay a large fee no matter how often you use it. This may be viewed as motivation – go lots to get your moneys worth – but the reality is that it can make for a business model which separates the interests of the gym from the interests of the patron. The gym may avoid encouraging patrons to come regularly, because it means they can have more people enrolled and still not reach capacity. To take it differently however, there is no extra cost (no punishment) for using the gym as much as you desire.

Further possible examples:

  • A service such as Vimeo or Flickr, but if you achieve a certain level of popularity, they give you your account for free – for bringing so many new people to the site.
  • On signup, your client sets a target (to lose 10kg, to post a blog everyday, to finish a course). You only get paid as they achieve milestones on their way to this target. You are now motivated to help them achieve.

Of course, one problem with that last strategy is that it provides a financial disincentive to not finish – the further you get the more you have to pay.  In a way, this is then becoming similar again to the phone companies – you are charging people more for successfully engaging with you.

A different strategy again might be that of Fog Creek Software – your money back for any reason.  You pay full price up front, so you’ve already overcome the difficulty of paying money for something.  However, as a business you remain committed to making the whole experience worthwhile, or you risk them asking for their money back – and you’ve committed to give it to them, no questions asked.

It looks like a tricky balance, but one well worth pursuing.

Categories
Haxe

Mapping any SSH Server to a Network Drive in Ubuntu

My friend Justin showed me a cool trick this week – mapping any SSH server as a network drive in Ubuntu.  This is really useful for web development, where you have a whole bunch of servers that you have to connect to, transfer files to and from, and make small edits.

The integration is pretty seamless – it shows up in my file browser (just like a local USB drive), I can open files in any app I want, and every time I save the changes are synced back.  Pretty cool.

Here’s how:

  1. Open your Home Folder
  2. In the menu, choose “File -> Connect to Server”
  3. Change the type to “SSH”
  4. Enter the address of your server.
    eg. myvps.mydomain.com or 192.168.1.5
  5. Enter your username and password.
    (Note: If you have public / private keys set up, just enter the username.)
  6. Click Connect

This all comes built in with Ubuntu 12.04.

This is me browsing files on an Amazon EC2 instance, opening a few of them and editing them. Sweet!

Categories
Edtech

Long Term Thinking

Here’s another thought provoking quote from Peter Thiel’s Lectures (or Blake Master’s notes on Peter’s lectures):

But there’s an alternative math metaphor we might use: calculus. The calculus metaphor asks whether and how we can figure out exactly what’s going to happen. Take NASA and the Apollo missions, for instance. You have to figure out where the moon is going to be, exactly. You have to plan whether a rocket has enough fuel to reach it. And so on. The point is that no one would want to ride in a statistically, probabilistically-informed spaceship.

Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup – Class 1 Notes Essay

It’s been a long time since I did Calculus in high school, but I remember the task of taking multiple points and applying a gradient or a curve to them: you looked for a pattern, developed an equation and you used that to guess at where future points might show up.

While at the moment I have two projects I’m working on (Enthral.us, and OurSchoolDiary), long term, there’s so much room for expansion. Seth Godin in his book Purple cow talks about how after a product has been developed and reach critical success, it’s crucial for the inventors to move on, and leave maintaining and “milking” the product for a team that’s better at maintainance. An inventor will just keep trying to break stuff – better to get them developing the next big hit.

Trends and Opportunities

So if I try to think long term, till after these projects, what trends do I see? And what opportunities do these open?

  • Decreasing price of technology (trend) -> Availability in developing world (opportunity)
  • Digital connectedness is increasing (trend) -> not being in the same physical space (or even the same point in time) as your teacher will seem less weird (opportunity)
  • Availability of stored content approaches infinite (trend) -> Every niche in content, and every variety in learning styles (or media types) can be catered to. (opportunity)
  • Computer profiling approaches scarily accurate (trend) -> Career / Interest prediction, based on passion, not assessment grades. (opportunity)
  • Ability to track behaviour, A/B testing procedures get really powerful (trend) -> Get statistics on the actual best practices for teaching – which way of teaching content is the most accurate? Improve the pedagogical effectiveness of your materials through data analysis. (opportunity)
  • IT specialist tools become more user friendly, accepted by other industries (trend) -> The incredible power of Git, and Github in particular, to co-ordinate teams of creators could be utilised in the creation (and modification) of educational media.

Planning to be “ahead of the game”

Given these trends, and the likely opportunities that will develop, can I position my products to be embracing these trends just as they hit critical mass?

Just a few thoughts:

  • Be working on a “normal person friendly” interface to GIT – possibly changing mental models / system models to match.
  • Don’t tie to a single platform – with the rise of the developing world, there is a high chance that the current big players (Apple, Samsung, Microsoft etc) will not carry over. New markets = new giants. So plan software and media that can adapt.
  • Get as much experience with A/B testing as possible, so that I can transfer those skills to educational media later.
  • Find teachers who are willing to experiment with out-of-class teaching, and work with them to pioneer online lessons.
  • etc…

Admittedly, these trends/predictions are not very long term. Most will probably be well underway within 5 years, some will be underway even sooner. Still, it’s a useful exercise, and thinking 5 years ahead of the competition is still better than chasing the competition. A good exercise to revisit.

Categories
Edtech

Most people believe in X. But the truth is (something other than X)

Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, runs a unit at Stanford on business start-ups.  Blake Masters was in the class, and took a whole bunch of notes, which he then re-wrote as essays and shared with the world.  Reading them feels like I’m back at uni – lots of learning, lots of new ideas, and a whole bunch of things to think about.  I’ll probably have a few posts that come out of reading these.

In the first essay, he says:

You know you’re on the right track when your answer takes the following form:

“Most people believe in X. But the truth is !X.”

For OurSchoolDiary, my tag line might be:

Most people are trying to get technology into the classroom.  Meanwhile, we’re using technology to get parents into the classroom.

Categories
Edtech

Copying the Best Ideas (from other industries)

I’m reading a classic for inventors and entrepreneurs: Purple Cow

One of his suggestions is:

Copy. Not from your industry, but from any other industry. Find an industry more dull than yours, discover who’s remarkable (it won’t take long), and do what they did.

I’m going to do just that.  The applications are for education.  Not any specific product, just ideas to upset everything in general.

Fast Food: Subway

What they did: made their main marketing campaign about an obese guy who ate only Subway and lost a huge amount of weight.

What education could do: get a struggling student to use your textbooks / media to catch up, and document their success story.  It doesn’t just show that your product works as advertised, it also provides hope to those who need it – they too can catch up.

Music Industry: iTunes

What they did: They made it possible to get pretty much any song, ever, at a moments notice.  If you wanted to hear a song, you could buy it.  Right now.

What education could do: When someone has a moment of curiosity – satisfy it.  No matter what the topic, have a quick explanation (with links to more in depth reading / watching) available at a moments notice.  Like Wikipedia, but more teaching oriented.  Possibly even have multiple versions of the same article (a 9th Grade student will want a very different summary of Newton’s laws to a Physics Major).

ISP: iiNet

What they did: Organised their entire branding around a persona (the friendly nerd), and hired an actor who played it perfectly.  Even when he’s not on screen, their communication follows the personality of the (lovable) persona.

What education could do: It’s known that students respond better to some teachers than others.  It’s also known that if a student feels the teacher “likes” them, they will work harder.  With education materials, the “narrator”, rather than adopting a dry persona, could adopt the persona of a teacher that will actually motivate students to study diligently.

Computers: Apple

What they did: They mastered the art of emotional design: approaching the design of everyday objects and optimising for positive emotions.  This massively increased loyalty to their product range.  See Donald Norman’s book Emotional Design for an exploration of this.

What education could do: Hire an interior designer to deck out every aspect of the classroom – walls, seats, lighting, decoration.  Plan lessons to appeal to each of the levels of design: visceral (Sight, sound, touch, smell, taste), behavioural (Is the content relevant?  Is it well structured and well presented?  Am I learning?) and reflective (Is this experience challenging me personally?  Am I creating memories? Does it make me feel good about myself and my choices? Does it have special emotional attachment?

Blogging Software: WordPress

What they did: Created some software which web designers could utilise for their clients – adding a huge diversity and richness to the ecosystem.  Meanwhile they offered a hosted service that anyone could use without the help of a web designer, and could be set up in minutes – giving them an income stream and a wide range of content (blog posts on all sorts of topics).

What education could do: Have a system that acts as a great base for Instructional Designers.  Take some of the grunt work out of the way, so they can focus on great learning experiences.  Meanwhile have a hosted service for a teacher with no budget to hire an instructional designer.  They can still add their content and benefit from some of the same tools, even if their usage is a little more limited.

Photography: Instagram

What they did: Encouraged people to see (and share!) the beauty in the world.

What education could do: Encourage people to apply their learning all around the world.  Imagine a website called “in-the-wild.com”, where people try to post a scientific phenomena they see in their day-to-day life (“in the wild”) and link it to a topic they are learning, with a brief explanation.  For example, a student could post about their car windscreen which fogs up when it’s cold, and give a simple explanation based on what they’ve been learning in class.

As many students do this, you build up a library of great examples.  (There may be some not great examples, but you could let a “like” or “rate” button raise the good ones to the top).

More importantly, it will encourage students to approach their everyday life on the lookout for how the things they have been learning about play out in the real world.  It will hopefully encourage them to approach life more thoughtfully and inquisitively.

This could also be used for other subjects:

  • English – examples persuasive writing / speaking (link to websites & videos)
  • English – examples of bad grammar and spelling
  • Science – experiments you can conduct at home
  • History – examples of history repeating itself
  • Geography – urban morphology patterns & google maps
  • Maths – everyday problems where maths proved useful (with or without a calculator/computer)
  • etc…

Coffee Shops: Greens and Co.

What they did: Greens and Co. is a coffee shop in Leederville near where I work.  They bought the biggest building on the strip, filled it with couches, music and cool decorations.  It’s big enough, open enough, and casual enough that it’s become the default hangout place for many people.  They sometimes even buy coffee.

What education could do: Set up the coolest hangout around.  Make the environment sweet, and convince them to come to this place.  Then while they’re there, have something beneficial for them to do. They come for the cool vibe, but while they’re there, they might get some coffee (or some education).  This could be more tutoring oriented (cool place to do homework, hey, we have some tutors around!).  It could be more exploring oriented (like Sci-Tech, with hands on learning environments.  Completely optional, of course).  Or it could be more to do with extra-curricular activities: leadership training, music shows (bands the kids are in!), drama productions, or even a chance for chaplains to catch up with students and encourage them in their holistic development.

Conclusions

I have no idea if any of these ideas will come to fruition.  Or if they do, if it’ll be me or someone else. But what I’m realising is that this piece of advice from Godin is priceless.  Copy the best ideas from other industries, and apply them to your own.  Great thinking.

(If you want to use any of these, go right ahead! Would love to see any implemented.  Let me know how it goes!)

Categories
Software Engineering

We could have had a great time together

We could have had a great time together.
Instead, you tried to sell me something.

Comment by “Gulliver” on “Creating Passionate Users” blog.

Categories
Edtech Personal Reading & Inspiration

Optimize for Happiness (Tom Preston-Werner of Github)

Optimize for Happiness (Tom Preston-Werner of Github)

Categories
Edtech Haxe

A new project: OurSchoolDiary

A screenshot of some of the first code for the project.

So I’m working on a new project that has been brewing in my mind for a while. I’m going to aim to have a working prototype by the end of August, have users beta testing through till December and hopefully have my first paying clients by next year.

A screenshot of some of the first code for the project.

What is it?

The App is called “OurSchoolDiary”. It lets each school create their own School Diary app, where students can sign up and keep track of their homework, assignments and tests. The big win over competing solutions is that here, when the teacher adds an assessment or task, it automatically shows up in the students diary. We’re helping even unorganised students stay on top of their work.

On top of that, we’ll let parents receive emails informing them of their child’s progress. This way parents and teachers can work together to make sure they support their child’s education as much as possible.

And the final advantage, the school gets to show off how cutting-edge they are because they get their own “app”.  Logo and everything!

A Blog

As I go, I hope to keep track of my progress on this blog. (I’ll post to this category specifically, so you can subscribe by RSS).

Why keep a blog?

  • For the history, in case it is ever significant
  • For my own reflection and understanding, regardless of if it is a success.
  • To show off some cool technologies I’m using:
    • Web Apps – I’m not aiming for distribution through the App Store, I’m going a full HTML stack. Not even a hybrid using PhoneGap. This is a page you can view in a browser, and use offline, and the experience will be identical.
    • Haxe – this is a sweet programming language that lets you target Flash, Javascript, PHP, Java, C#, C++ and a platform called Neko. Up until now it’s main success has been in the indie-games market, but I believe it is mature enough to work for a full web-based productivity app.  Client and server. We’ll find out how that goes!
  • To look back on my decision making processes after we’ve launched, and see if my thinking was accurate.
  • To raise interest in the project
  • To explore some of the topics I find fascinating:
    • Usability
    • Design
    • New Marketing
    • Business Strategy
    • Contribution to the community
    • And a few more…

That’s all for now. I’ll try submit a couple of posts a week (at least) until I get this thing off the ground.