Commentary on the state of Chrome OS by David Ruddock

(Full article link)

David Ruddock, writing for Android Police, has an excellent summary of Chrome’s failings titled “Chrome OS has stalled out.” I’ve highlighted some of his points and provided some thoughts of my own.

Finally beat KOTOR II after three years of Christmas holidays

Every time I visit my parents, I play a little bit of Knights of the Old Republic II on my original Xbox console. I picked up the game used many years ago and it sat idle after I went to university.

After 53 hours and 23 minutes of gameplay I finally beat it this Christmas holiday.

A few thoughts. While it’s very much like the first game, the level design isn’t as good. This could have been called Star Wars Backtrack. Lots of dead ends and empty rooms. The end of the game is also very tedious as it forces you to save every two minutes. I wouldn’t want to do it twice. Also the game just… ends. After defeating the final enemy (a Dark/Fallen Jedi) you take off in your ship – which got miraculously fixed after a devastating crash landing – just as the planet you were on explodes in the background. Overall the story was well done, if not piggybacking off the original.

No major revelations here. Just excited to have beaten it after all these years. In the game archive it goes…

New direction for Tech Bytes blog in 2020

This year I’m changing the direction and scope of my blog Tech Bytes. This is the blog where I talk about technology and productivity (not academics), and I plan on expanding my scope for 2020.

Full post: https://tech-bytes.net/posts/2019/12/27/new-direction-for-tech-bytes-in-2020

Bane, blessing, or just something different? iPadOS for multitasking and productivity (Tech Bytes post)

With the introduction of iPadOS, the iPad is now a viable productivity machine. But, its approach to multitasking and gesture controls are starkly different from the Mac. In this article I examine two things. iPadOS has been characterized as considerably more complicated than previous iPad versions of iOS. I compared iOS 12 and iPadOS to see how much gesture complexity has been added to the iPad platform. I also broadly compare the iPad and Mac’s multitasking gestures, number of keyboard shortcuts, and overall approach to app windowing to answer the following question. Is the iPad (and iPadOS) a capable productivity platform when compared to traditional desktop operating systems (OS), or is it simply a different take on how work should be done?
Read on tech-bytes.net/posts/2019/7/31/2ioz56z74ljae69ic3qs6ubxjugra5

Alberta OER Summit 2019 presentation: #aboerjc

#aboerjc 7 Elements of Digital Literacies #ABOERJC touches on all seven from digital perspective. Media literacy & Career & Identify management are strongest link for us to #CDL and #OEP 1/3 pic.twitter.com/PXNs2CDW8C
— Rosemarri Klamn (@KlamnJam) June 21, 2019

The Alberta OER Summit took place on June 21st, 2019 at NorQuest College, Edmonton, AB. It was a wonderful meeting, and I’d like to thank Robert Lawson at NorQuest for organizing the event and for inviting me to speak about our provincial journal club project. We have a great OER community in Alberta and it’s events like this that keep the momentum going.

Below is a link to the presentation slides from Mount Royal University’s Institutional Repository.

http://hdl.handle.net/11205/434

New publication in First Monday: “Open Enough?”

My colleague Michael McNally (University of Alberta SLIS) and I have published a new paper in First Monday titled “Open enough? Eight factors to consider when transitioning from closed to open resources and courses: A conceptual framework.” Having worked on this paper over the past year, I’m very glad to see it in print.

Abstract: Transitioning from closed courses and educational resources to open educational resources (OER) and open courseware (OCW) requires considerations of many factors beyond simply the use of an open licence. This paper examines the pedagogical choices and trade-offs involved in creating OER and OCW. Eight factors are identified that influence openness (open licensing, accessibility and usability standards, language, cultural considerations, support costs, digital distribution, and file formats). These factors are examined under closed, mixed and most open scenarios to relatively compare the amount of effort, willingness, skill and knowledge required. The paper concludes by suggesting that maximizing openness is not practical and argues that open educators should strive for ‘open enough’ rather than maximal openness.
McNally & Christiansen, First Monday

Article link: https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/9180/7808

‘Pro’ in name only? How the term has changed in the post-pc era

Excerpt: “Devices labeled with the term “pro” come with a lot of expectations. The idea of a pro user is well defined in the desktop and laptop computing space. But, pro mobile devices (such as phones and tablets) are less well defined. This is problematic because devices that support the pro moniker cannot separate themselves from consumer grade options except in price – making the term a meaningless standard. Unlike their PC counterparts, they mobile devices are held back by the limitations of their respective app software and operating systems.”

Article link: http://bit.ly/2JhWQa7

OER19 Conference Presentation Slides

My colleague Connie Blomgren led and presented our conference presentation at OER19, in Galway, Ireland, on April 11. My colleague Rosemarri and I were remote presenters/”Twitter engagers.”

While is wasn’t as well attended as we had hoped, it was an interesting experience having folks in different time zones contribute to the (brief) discussion.

The slides for the presentation can be found below:

http://bit.ly/2uWscd9