Triple A 2.0

We're all familiar with the American Automobile Association or more commonly AAA or triple A. Over the last 25 years, I've been an on and off Triple A member; usually letting my memberships lapse and renewing when I had a dead battery, needed a tow or some other type of road-side assistance. The proliferation of online mapping and small inexpensive GPS devices has made AAA and their Trip-Tik flip books an anachronism. In fact, it's been quite a while since I've even thought about Triple A - until today.

RCR Wireless news has a great story AAA launches mobile app detailing Triple A's efforts to re-invent themselves, or what I'm calling Triple A 2.0. According to the story, AAA Mobile (available only from Sprint) is a downloadable mobile phone application that offers drivers access to:

• audible turn-by-turn directions,
• GPS location information,
• AAA ratings (hotels, dining, etc), and
  
• AAA points of interest.

It's still unclear how widely-available this application will be (members versus non-members and Sprint versus other carriers) and how much the service will cost - early indications are $10 per month. Pricing and availability will be critical factors in determining the success of this application, especially in an already crowded and competitive market (Google Maps, Garmin, TomTom, etc).

It's great to see Triple A attempt to re-define themselves and their market, but you gotta wonder - is it too little, too late?

VMWare IPO

For the last year, I've been using the beta of VMWare Fusion on my Macbook. VMWare is also available for Windows XP and Vista and most versions of Linux. This is a great product - allowing me to run Windows XP and a wide-variety of Linux flavors on my Mac OS X machine. I use these "virtual machines" to teach and prepare for classes in networking, security and operating systems.

I currently use VMWare and Parallels and have used VirtualPC in the past. Briefly, you install VMWare, Parallels or VirtualPC on top of your primary or host operating system and then install virtual or guest operating systems that run inside or on top off the host OS. If you teach across multiple operating systems and haven't explored any of these applications, give them a try - they're really great tools for teaching and working with students.

If you have your doubts about the importance of virtualization, or it's impact on business take a look at the following graph.Yesterday (8/14) was the IPO or Initial Public Offering of VMWare stock - the largest technology IPO since 2004 (a little company named Google). The initial offering price (symbol VMW) was $29; the first day closing price was $51 (43% gain) and today's closing price $57.50 (13%). Wish I bought some! Read more here.

Esther Dyson on Charlie Rose 8/14/2007

Just available from Charlie Rose. The 8/14/2007 interview with Esther Dyson. The interview - A discussion about emerging technologies with Esther Dyson - covers a wide range of topics from the human genome and health care to Google and Facebook - even monetizing Charlie's site with PayPal. Great stuff - enjoy!

Esther Dyson and John Doerr on Charlie Rose

I was watching the Charlie Rose show last night (8/14/2007). He had a great interview with Esther Dyson, that covered a wide range of topics from the human genome and health care to Google and Facebook - even monetizing Charlie's site with PayPal. Unfortunately it's not available yet on his site, but I will post when it becomes available.

In the meantime, you can watch this January 2006 interview with John Doerr and Esther Dyson. I encourage you to have your colleagues and your students watch this 24-minute video - and let the discussion begin.

Classroom Blogging

In an interview Gordon Snyder and I did with Karl Kapp, we discussed the topic of blogging. Karl really hit the nail on the head, when he described the effect that blogging has had on him personally.

I love my blog, it really clarifies my thinking and is a great online "memory box" for me.

Karl's point begs the question - wouldn't students benefit from blogging? Does blogging have the potential to help students become better communicators, clarify their thinking, fine-tune their critical thinking skills and improve their memories?

A New Jersey K-8 Tech Teacher - Ann - is using Class Blogmeister to blog with her students. Blogmeister is well-suited for use in the class room because it,

...is explicitly designed with teachers and students in mind, where
the teacher can evaluate, comment on, and finally publish
students' blog articles in a controlled environment.

The key there - at least for me - is the controlled environment, especially for K-12 students. Gordon, Karl and I all use Blogger, Google's blog-hosting service, but maybe a tool like this is more appropriate for students. The flowchart on the left describes the workflow in Class Blogmeister.

An example for college students is Mark Viquesney who teaches at the Maricopa Community College District in Arizona. For a hybrid class Mark's teaching this fall he's using Google docs for student writing assignments and peer review. Mark is also using Elluminate to hold virtual office hours and encourage greater student-to-student to interaction.

Both great ideas! Different audiences; different tools - what do these two ideas share? Collaboration! Collaboration is the killer application!

UPDATE: Online Mindmapping

I received some great reader feedback on the Online Mindmapping post. Thanks everyone for the great comments - as always you can reach me at mqaissaunee@gmail.com or post your comment directly to the blog.

Readers loved the Civil Rights Movement mindmap, which I picked because I found it an engaging mindmap both visually and topically. It is not one of my maps - I teach technology courses - you can get the map for free at the Mindjet Map Gallery - under education/faculty. Sorry for the confusion.

Another reader pointed me to comapping a pretty slick online mindmapping application.Comapping, which offers a free 30-day trial, costs about $2 per month. This web app has a fairly rich interface, lots of bells and whistles and allows real-time collaboration - like Mindmeister. It's great to see so many options available and so much activity in this online space.

Web 2.0: Online Mindmapping

In an earlier post on Search Mash-Ups, I provided a link to Wikimindmap, which takes a Wikipedia search query and builds a Mindmap from it.

Mindmapping is a really great way to visualize information, whether working individually, or as part of a group. I've been using Mindjet's Mindmanager for about four years. More popular in the K-12 sector is the significantly cheaper Inspiration, which I find to be a bit more simplistic and "cartoony." A recent trend is online or web-based mindmapping, such as MindMeister and Mindomo. Each offers a free basic version and a subscription-based paid or premium service. MindMeister's focus is on providing a collaboration platform for mindmapping, while Mindomo is about building a mindmapping community - a sort of YouTube for mindmapping.
For some interesting uses of MindMapping, you can read A Beginner's Guide to Mind Mapping Meetings on the Lifehacker blog.