Google Global Science Fair Prize

It’s not too late! The Google Global Science Fair 2011 extended the deadline from April 4^th to 11:59PM tonight, April 7^th, 2011. So, if you know young ladies who thought they missed the deadline or who have a science concept ready to share, there are a few more hours left until closing!

Beyond this evening, there will be an open voting session, The People’s Choice Award, on selected projects during May 9^th – May 20^th.  Mark your calendars for next year to be ahead and ready for Google’s Global Science Fair in 2012.

Also, educators who would like to stay abreast of Google opportunities, keep an eye on the annual Google Teacher Academy training. This year’s event will take place in Australia on April 20, 2011—unfortunately, that deadline has passed, but there is always 2012 for that as well.

In the interim, Google for Educators and the Tech&Learning can keep you tuned for all the latest educational tech tools and news.

Tags: GIT, Google For Educators, Google Science Fair, National Geographic, Tech&Learning
Posted in Girls In Tech | No Comments »

Just a few day ago—in my ongoing futile “smuggling” efforts to introduce innovative concepts behind enemy lines—I attempted to give students a new platform from which to express themselves and show off their school. The platform was Prezi. In the United States it isn’t necessarily a new thing. Nonetheless, here in Greece it would have been—particularly at a school that espouses innovation. It would have been a leading change.

The idea was to model the prototype and open access to students who could then collaborate and compete to create the best Prezi from their perspective of what makes their school great. The winning presentations would become the new embeds on our homepage. Together, the students and I discussed the fact that the z-axis is visibly at work within Prezi design—it is not just a two dimensional plane like traditional slideshows (if I am not mistaken, I think such a discussion falls under a topic called mathematics). We went on to search for whether it was designed in HTML5 or Flash (I think that falls under technology)—but, of course, these conversations have nothing at all to do with education.

My release of this tool, was introduced to the backdrop of a parent (in an open meeting) stating that Facebook was an abomination, unnatural and that all students needed to take a week away from it during our Wellness Week. So, needless to say, as traditional school populations so often do, panic sets in with unrecognizable learning tools. The line is drawn and the walls go up. My Prezi idea that excited the students, well, it was targeted and shot down in less than three days of its release.

This battle over introducing innovative concepts brought to mind a blog I posted a year-and-a-half ago about the ‘virtual’ iron curtain and watching the ironic shutdown of online social media outlets during the 20-year commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. With a little creative thought, many of these modern technology tools could be used as great educational tools. Also, I was reminded why, just a few months ago, in December, I went on a quest to find an academic institution modeled on the Sili-Valley concept of innovation as opposed to the traditional paradigm of education (meaning that, ideally, to change the way innovation and education are delivered, education has to be a by-product of innovation rather than individual educators developing creative projects and attempting to “smuggle” innovation through enemy lines—aka educational institutions designed for mass training and memorization).

Dr. Beatrice Cameron

During my quest, I interviewed Dr. Beatrice Cameron, Regional Education Officer of the US State Department’s Office of Overseas Schools. Of the vast number of American Schools stationed throughout the world, she had not seen very many “innovative” models of education. It appears, by and large, that the students still face a board and the teacher is still at the front of the classroom. Her definition of innovation for our educational institutions is that schools must create a new paradigm that shows dedication to “systemic change” over time. The one school that fits her definition of a public school leading and maintaining an innovative direction was also a 2010 recipient of U.S. News’ Top Schools Gold Medal—the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, VA. This school offers students everything from Astronomy and CAD design to Neuroscience research. Not surprisingly, in 1985, this high school was developed specifically with private sector industry leaders and educators to form an innovative institution for research; thus, avoiding the need to fight a cold war battle, but rather, use its resources for the advancement of the students.

NuVu Studio, Cambridge, MA

During my quest, I also stumbled-upon a jewel of an up-and-coming educational model: Nuvu Studio in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school was founded by MIT architects, Saeed Arida and Saba Ghole, who understand the need for: letting students collaborate, having open carpeted rooms where students can stretch-out and think, having large windows with natural light and having access to the greater world through social media and blogging. The founders also understand the positive subconscious effect of being housed in a professional office building with Sili-Valley-based companies like Google, and they understand that ‘experts’ with a passion can be educators who coach students through a learning process. Currently, this startup entity serves as an appendage of sorts to the local educational community. Again, it’s on the outside of the iron curtain and need not waste resources on internal battles. It is a great model to watch.

Finally, my experience from introducing Prezi’s technology tool reminded me of my immediate thoughts when hearing the news of young girls’ socially taboo activities at Memphis’ Frayser High School. My thoughts: Given years of hearing students’ dissatisfaction with design of content delivery, lack of real-time interaction with the world and the inability of districts to update technology at the pace of its change, it came as no surprise that as many as 90 young ladies would seek to fulfill the human need for self-validation and creativity by choosing pregnancy as the greatest form of individual expression and creation. The apex of creating is the creation of life. The quality of the product—no matter one’s social economic class—as of yet, still surpasses the quality and precision of a robot created in the world’s best robotics labs and graphically designed images created by tech grads.

The means of creating a unique little bundle of life are more easily accessible to many than obtaining a computer, a 4G phone, networking and gathering resources to create robots, apps, computer-aided and graphic designs and even easier than buying software to create a simple SIMS avatar. To top it off, girl-manufacturers can guarantee that their product will come out different and more unique than another’s every time—switching fathers is like switching phone covers. It’s that easy.

Thus, the need to “smuggle” new ideas and innovation into the hands of students behind enemy lines is much more critical than may appear to those who enjoy the liberties of daily technological access; and, innovative technologies often serve a much greater purpose for creativity, self-expression and validation than parents of old-school thoughts often realize.

Girls in Tech, by its very nature, represents a modern underground railroad allowing girls to peer out through a network of elongated tubes crossing waters and nationalities to see that there are successful technological creations on the other side of the iron curtain. Yet, until that reality becomes real and “systemic” for the majority of our nations’ students, we, smugglers of technology, will continue to pursue efforts towards change while we wait for our own escape or the crumbling of a virtual wall…

Signing out…from behind enemy lines…
Desiree Michael
School Web Administrator

Tags: Frayser High School, GIT, innovation, Memphis, Prezi, Thomas Jefferson High School
Posted in Girls In Tech | No Comments »

Acropolis

People are always asking me, “What’s going on in Athens?” Well, yes, there have been intentional fires to assist developers in building expensive mountainside homes (as building here is otherwise prohibited by forest growth and natural species). Yes, there have been postal strikes, taxi strikes, bus, rail, and the most recent 7-day truckers’ strike. Is Athens, Greece another Watts, California waiting to happen? It could be, but in the shadows of it all, technology and innovation prevail. In Athens—like Los Angeles—you just have to know where to go and when to go.

So, if you are planning on coming to Athens this fall, join GIT Athens in covering the following events: In September, the European Symposium on Research in Computer Security is holding its 15^th symposium. The symposium is meant to inform the IT community and encourage research in the areas of malicious tech-based intrusions. The symposium will run from September 20^th – 22^nd.

In October, Athens will host one of the largest energy exhibitions in Greece, the 5th International Exhibition Energy Photovoltaic ’10. The exhibit boasts products from over 160 enterprises representing 15 countries.  It will run from October 21^st – 24^th alongside Envirotech, which highlights the use of water, environment and green building technologies.

Those exhibitions will follow the 2^nd Sustainability Summit: The Green Agenda after Copenhagen, which will be held in Athens on October 20^th. This summit will cover everything from who is driving the “green” industry to job growth in green technologies.

And finally—the best for last, from October 14^th – 18^th at the Technopolis, Athens Digital Week will take place. Last year over 35,000 people visited the event. This year, it will cover the latest in Gaming, Social Networking, Robotics and more! It is free to the public, making it one of the best events to attend in Athens this fall!

Mark your calendars…that’s Athens in the News.

Tags: Athens, Digital Week, Energy, European Symposium, fires, girls in tech, GIT, Green technologies, Photovoltaic, strikes, technology, truckers
Posted in Athens Greece | 1 Comment »

JB

J. Briganti

Thanks to advanced technology, you know longer need to be a professional photographer to capture a unique moment in time.  Although it is true that photography is an art, even those of us just snapping away as a hobby can achieve exceptional photographs with the right camera in hand.

The Olympus SP-59OUZ will provide you with photographic pleasure.  It is an affordable camera appropriate for someone taking up photography as a hobby and can also be easily enjoyed by all members of the family.  It comes complete with lots of valuable shooting features such as optical zoom, shadow ADJ for brightening the subject against backlight, exposure compensation for adjusting the brightness and macro shooting for taking great close ups.   And let’s not forget the self timer so that all of your family or friends can be in the picture.

Taking a good photo is not really as difficult as you may think.  You don’t need years of experience or the most expensive camera.  What you do need is inspiration.  Where to find it?  It’s all around.  Take time out to notice your natural surroundings including your own garden, local parks or distant landscapes.  Family pets or small animals like birds, squirrels and rabbits make wonderful photos too.   Zoom in on your own family members when they’re not looking for photos with a natural complexion.

Here are some simple steps that you can follow and you’ll be on your way to photographic bliss.

• Get up close and personal to your subject, when possible.
• When shooting animals get down low on their level.
• Hold your camera in a vertical position for a change.
• Look for a simple, uncluttered background.
• Shoot with the sun behind you.
• If your outdoor subject is in the shade, turn on the flash.
• Use a tripod for extra steadiness.
• Make use of macro shooting for great close ups.

In addition to these simple tips, take the time to read your camera’s manual; by doing so you will learn how to operate the different camera modes available.

Have fun and enjoy your photographic journey!

Tags: Athens, camera, digital, GIT, Olympus SP-590
Posted in Girls In Tech | No Comments »

Dr. Regina Dugan, Director of DARPA

Just two months ago, DARPA, headed by Dr. Regina Dugan, conducted an interesting challenge to find ten red balloons strategically “hidden” throughout the United States. Seekers had a time frame of nine days to correctly map-out the whereabouts of those balloons. In nine hours, an MIT team had located all of the balloons—that was just with real-time social networking technologies—no augmented-reality mapping involved.

Microsoft's augmented-reality mapping at TED Talks 2010

Two months later, social networking has new pal. At the annual TED Talks gathering, Microsoft unveiled its latest augmented-reality mapping. This technology will take social networking and seeking & find projects to a new level.

For education, all I can say is that if school districts don’t take this summer to get their teachers up to snuff with technology skills, there will be more of us teachers retiring as parents can create national and global networks of real-time information exchange (For educators: check out Natasha’s post below). Students no longer have to wait until gets dark to experience Orion or wait until their parents can take them to a famous landmark in a foreign country, with an iphone, internet, and augmented-reality mapping, they will be well on their way.

Though I have my hesitations about safety and privacy issues, the potential advantages to rescue missions, law enforcement, education and network publications could far outweigh the cons of such a technology. I just wonder if Dr. Dugan is willing to create another $40K DARPA Balloon challenge using augmented-reality mapping—maybe the nine hour search will become nine minutes!

Nevertheless, Microsoft has taken social networking to a new level, and it’s quite impressive!

Tags: augmented-reality mapping, DARPA, Dr. Regina Dugan, education, GIT, IBM, microsoft, MIT, Orion, social networking, TED Talks
Posted in Athens Greece | 1 Comment »

J.B.

I’d like to introduce Jane, GIT Athens’ latest blogger. We are happy to have another brave soul come on board here in Athens.  One by one we are getting women into tech!

Technology Trekking by J. Briganti

It doesn’t require special clothing or special shoes but if you’re 40 something and haven’t been doing much technology trekking then it can be a bit perplexing.  I recently was invited to preview Google Wave.  Interesting I thought, so I clicked whereas instructed and hoped for the best.

Not having a Google account I was prompted to create one.  I paused for a few seconds and then thought to myself, why not.  I proceeded to follow the step by step instructions, clicking away here and there and before I knew it, I had myself a Google account.  Hurray, so far so good, I thought.   Feeling inspired, I then decided to download something called Google Chrome, which I would later learn is a web browser aiming to improve security, speed and stability.  What a great tool to have, I thought.

The idea of having real-time communication and collaboration is very exciting and I was eager to send a wave.  So, without further hesitation I clicked on contacts, choosing the only name which was in my box, proceeded to write a brief message in the window provided and then finally clicked on done, located at the bottom of the text window.  I was pretty sure that my wave went but was not totally convinced.  The absence of a confirmation in the form of sent left me with a little uncertainty.

Randomly clicking away at the various options available in the navigation, inbox and text windows, I soon realized how important it is to be able to utilize all of these different tools in order to endure all that Google Wave has to offer.  So, I decided to browse through the Google Wave Help and am I glad I did.  It was very user friendly and I found a “how to” explanation for every transaction that I would soon be interested in using.  Needless to say, I am ardently waiting to fill my contact box with fellow wavers.

My accomplishments may seem trivial to some, I’m sure, but for me it was exhilarating.  Technology and I are still a union in the making and I am excited about venturing into new territories.  I personally plan to hike over one small hill at a time, enjoying the scenery as I go.  Many thanks to Google Wave Help for supplying the answers to questions that I hadn’t yet thought to ask.

Tags: Athens, GIT, Google, Wave, women in technology
Posted in Athens Greece | No Comments »

With $110 million in revenue last year and selling for only $40, the YMax Corporation’s Gen2 MagicJack allows cell phone users to bypass their carriers’ charges for long-distant calls. The product plugs into a computer which then communicates with recognizable cell phones in range (even locked phones); enter a code and then your long-distance calls are ready for routing over the internet!

In running a startup, every penny counts and since most of us have been ripped off by huge cell phone charges at some time or another, MagicJack sounds cool and like a new paradigm that companies will begin following. Though femtocells preceded this Gen2 MagicJack, the cell phone companies were still charging big bucks for this technology as much as $250 per unit. By allowing callers to circumvent big company charges, the YMax product is more like the Napster of the cell phone industry.

Let’s just hope that its engineer, Dan Borislow, won’t face the same fate that programmers Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker had to face after being featured on the cover of Wired ten years ago.  For the time being, Borislow’s forty-dollar-a-unit technology is legal. So, enjoy free long distance calls as long as you can—move over Skpye!

Posted in Athens Greece | 2 Comments »

Just before the Christmas holiday commenced, I attended a monthly event called Open Coffee. Open Coffee was started in England and now has several global chapters, but having a chapter in Athens is particularly noteworthy as there seems to be relatively few gatherings of tech entrepreneurs and potential investors.

In the packed Benaki Museum hall, attendees were able to listen to the processes and milestones of recent startups and garner advice from the most senior successful of businesses in Greece, such as Liberis Publications.  However, the most impressive in the area of technology was AthensBook.

AthensBook was started by two young entrepreneurs who have a vision of bringing Greeks online via mobile devices. Greece, as an emerging market economy, finds itself in an advantageous position in that much of the hardware infrastructure that often hinders technological changes is not engrained here. Therefore, getting the masses to depend on information dissemination and retrieval via wireless hand-held devices will not be hard to achieve. Therefore, AthensBook has positioned itself well for future success in the area of monetization via mobile advertising. So, when coming to Greece, download the AthensBook app to keep abreast of latest exchange rates, best gas station prices, local shop hours of operation and much more.

Another company to keep an eye on is Niobium Labs.  They are an R&D company that specializes in creating innovative solutions for mobile and geolocation technologies.

The format of Open Coffee was well organized, the presentations were professional and the speakers held the audience’s attention quite well. See the Open Coffee link to attend their next event or if you have a start up in the Athens’ area, get yourself out there and present your products!

Tags: Athens, Benaki, GIT, Liberis Publications, Niobium Labs, Open Coffee
Posted in Girls In Tech | No Comments »

Associate Dean Magda El Zarki of UC Irvine's Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences is now the Executive Director of the newly established Center for Computer Games & Virtual Worlds.

It’s a Far Cry (pun intended) from digital circuitry design and electromagnetics, but Dr. Magda El Zarki, professor of Information and Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, will head up UC Irvine’s Center for Computer Games & Virtual Worlds.

By next fall, UC Irvine will open admission to 50-100 eager students who will be able to declare a four-year major in Game Science. With access to a 4,000 sq.ft. cyber-interaction observatory, students will study everything from anthropology in virtual worlds to brain-computer interface sciences. If you are not a student, don’t fret, the Center will open its doors to visiting scholars, offer workshops, and partner with other virtual world and computer game science centers worldwide.

Though the Center for Computer Games and Virtual Worlds will focus on research and development, companies like Irvine-based Blizzard and French-based Ubisoft, creators of the Far Cry series, will eventually have access to employees with degrees in game science giving the gaming world a bit of needed legitimacy.

Since the UC system just closed its application process for Fall 2010 on November 30^th, be ready for the following year when the cyber observatory will open its doors!

Tags: game science, gaming, GIT, Magda El Zarki, UC Irvine, Virtual Worlds
Posted in Athens Greece | No Comments »

What an irony: With the 20th year milestone celebration of the Berlin Wall’s fall, the building of virtual walls and putting employees behind an iron curtain appears to be gaining ground. The Iron Fist approach to monitoring and removing communication rights seems to be a bit ironic in pro-capitalistic settings.

A recent study by the Morse Consulting firm reveals that UK employees spend about 4O minutes a week Tweeting. The firm concluded that this lost time is the equivalent of $2.39-billion of lost productivity. Not only do reports like this support the idea of enterprises shutting down access to information, they can potentially kill creative marketing opportunities. I imagine that similar data was the catalyst behind McCain’s support of the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009.

So how about using the free market and simply changing with the times? John Sviokla of Diamond Management Consultants pointed out at Net Week’s Fourth Annual IT Directors’ Forum that getting rid of social networking could be a huge mistake for companies. To use his words, “incredible opportunities” may be overlooked. Instead of building walls via proxy blockers, citing Metcalfe’s Law, enterprises can use social networking not only to build their value, but for learning and experimenting.

So, how can enterprises capitalize on their Tweeting twits?

• As the Brits once practiced “teatime,” maybe it is time to change that to a more relevant slogan: Twitter Time (TT). TT could replace the American lunchtime. There is profit to be made—not walls to be built.

• Businesses could revamp their cafeterias with netbook docks and give a new meaning to “Internet cafes”. Employees might opt to stay onsite—saving time lost travelling to various eateries. In the long run, this may save a company money.

• From the learning aspect, I know firsthand that I had the most successful interaction from my middle and high school IT students when I decided to meet them where they congregate—Facebook. Instead of choosing to reprimand them for being engaged in social networking, I chose to meet them in their territory and teach them there. In terms of engagement and learning, I had over an 80% performance towards product completion. Not surprisingly, my stats didn’t stop the proxy wall from going up!

• Give employees something to talk about—content, content, content.

• Create a new IT position that specializes in providing interesting information that can draw the attention of your company employees and their followers—good test to see who is reading what.
• Post new content at the time of day that coincides with lunch.

• Build that database!

• Increase the company database by pulling in friends of employees to an informative company community that provides compelling content. Companies never know when a particular type of talent may be needed, so having a ready pool of individuals with similar interest can build brand awareness and improved image management for a company.

Hmmm. In the end, I have to wonder what former President Reagan would have said to businesses that seek to build walls to communication: Mrs. CIO, tear down this firewall!

Tags: Berlin Wall, GIT, IT Directors' Forum, Netweek, Reagan, social networks, tear down this wall, Twits, twitter
Posted in Athens Greece | No Comments »