🙋♂️ ChromeOS 130, search by ChatGPT, The Oregon Trail movie, and more – Of bits and bytes for November 4, 2024
Internet Travels
Of bits and bytes is my weekly round up of interesting links and ideas I discovered on the internet. It is published on Mondays for the previous week
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Apps
ChromeOS 130 has just been released, bringing a variety of new features to the Chromebook. There is a new Recorder app with real-time transcription and Chromebook Plus users get a “Studio-style mic” that enhances the built in microphone when used for recording or conferencing. Also for Chromebook Plus users there is a Help me read feature lets you summarize text and ask questions directly from websites and PDFs.
Other new features include dockable Picture-in-Picture windows, multi-calendar support, file suggestions in Tote and Drive, and more accesible privacy controls.
Google Chrome has added new performance controls to give users more control over resource intensive tabs. The Performance Detection tool will alert you to tabs that are taking more than they should. Also, the Memory Saver feature now has three modes: Standard, Balanced, and Advanced.
Pedagogy
Ever had a lesson plan go south despite your best intentions? Sometimes there are successes to be had, even in those situations. While we promote the “growth mindset,” with our students, we should also do the same for ourselves.
For some reason a lot of what AI does reminds me of middle school students. During a coding demonstration, Anthropic’s latest AI model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, decided to ditch the task at hand and take a virtual stroll through Yellowstone National Park photos. So, not only does AI make up information (hallucinations) with the confidence of a middleschooler that just got caught cheating, it gets bored and off task. Good thing it doesn’t have hormones.
A recent article highlighted a parent’s struggle with the pressure of buying a smartphone for educational use for her 11-year-old daughter. Despite the Welsh policy allowing smartphones as educational tools, Celeste Lewis decided against it, worrying about potential impacts on her child’s mental health. The school does have an “acceptable use” policy and tries to accommodate by offering alternatives like laptops. What I want to know is why schools in the US are banning smartphones while UK schools are requiring them? If you are across the pond, please let me know what’s going on!
Technology
In a 2023 TEDx Talk, Dino Ambrosi, founder of Project Reboot, highlighted the alarming reality of how much screen time consumes the free hours of young people’s lives. With the average 18-year-old in the U.S. expected to spend 93% of their free time on screens, he emphasizes the importance of realizing the true value of time to combat this tendency. Ambrosi found that teens respond better to the idea of regaining their time than potential mental health impacts from screen use.
- How to tell if you’re going to lose your job to AI- Fast Company
- AI superusers have found the ultimate work hacks – The Washington Post
Tips
There is a new Google Chrome update that’s rolling out for Google Workspace users that overhauls the new tab page. Every time you open a new tab, there will be a handy widget showing your last six Google Drive files along with a Google Calendar widget. These chrome additions are called Chrome Cards, and I’m going to assume we’re going to see more in the future.
NearbyWiki.org allows you to pick a location on a map and be shown all nearby Wikipedia articles. Really cool tool for students to use when they are researching new places.
Google has revealed a new version of the ChromeOS Readiness Tool, a handy app designed to help organizations determine if they’re prepared to switch to ChromeOS. This tool, revamped to be more user-friendly, allows administrators to gather essential data by installing it on Windows devices, providing a clear picture of app usage and hardware compatibility without Google having access at the data. Bonus features include the ability to generate detailed readiness reports, including potential ChromeOS-compatible alternatives for legacy applications, helping organizations inch closer to a possible switch.
Pop Culture
Apple is bringing the MECC educational game The Oregon Trail to life as a comedy musical movie. Will Speck and Josh Gordon, known for Blades of Glory and Office Christmas Party will be directing. There is no information of a cast or release date, but the movie will be taking on the form of a comedy/musical and released on Apple TV+. Will it be good? As someone who enjoys watching Battleship, I’m probably not the one to ask because I think it sounds pretty cool.
The Infinite Monkey Theorem suggests that a monkey randomly typing on a keyboard for an infinite amount of time would eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare. However, a study by Stephen Woodcock and Jay Falletta from the University of Technology Sydney reveals that realistically, under the constraints of our finite universe’s lifespan, this would be virtually impossible. Even using the entire current global population of chimpanzees typing at one key per second, the chances are slim they’d come up with anything more complex than a single word like ‘bananas’ in their lifetimes.
Russell Marks humorously reflects on how he could have saved on therapy by reading the Baby-Sitters Club books as a child, which he recently read due to a decision he had to let a spreadsheet control his reading choices. As he navigated through 52 books in the Baby-Sitters Little Sister series, he found these stories offered a refreshing dive into themes of friendship and family dynamics—areas often missing from the books marketed to boys in his youth.
The short film “Pony Boys” is a 20-minute documentary about two boys, 9 & 11, took a 350 mile pony cart ride to attend the World’s Fair in 1967. With the support of their free-spirited mom, Tony and Jeff Whittemore reminisce about this extraordinary and formative adventure, raising some juicy questions about parenting and the value of unsupervised escapades. My favorite quote, “I started out wearing shoes, but somewhere along the way I lost them.”
Potpourri
Here’s a Buzzfeed quiz on several items from classrooms over the years. I got 20 out of 23, some of the things were too old even for me!
Extra Credit
Here are extra links that I found interesting that may or may not be education related or interesting to you and I didn’t want to lose them.
- The photography behind Earthrise
- ChromeOS 130 is rolling out, just not for Chromebook Plus
- Google Chrome adding ‘Performance issue alerts’ to desktop
- 3 Things You Can Do to Stay Relevant as AI Alters the Workplace
- Exploring Creative Uses of Generative AI for Employee Communication and Connections – HR Daily Advisor
Thank you!
Major props if you’ve made it this far, you are a rockstar! Feel free to contact me with questions, ideas, concerns, or your thoughts on the next Marvel movie. In fact, I love to discuss about any topic and then wonder how it intersects with education, so fire away!
“Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is a mystery, but Today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.” – Oogway, Kung Fu Panda
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