Last week we released Trackpad,  a todo list/ task list activity for Moodle.  This activity has a lot of potential and several ways in which it can be used.  Todo lists are useful in many different ways and education is definately one of them.

Trackpad is simple yet very flexible.  It can be set in the following modes:

• Single – each person gets a single todo list
• Personal – each person may set up as many lists as they like for themselves
• Team – teachers/ managers may create lists and assign people to them
• Course – a single list for the entire course or group
• Social – anyone may create a list and invite people to join

There are a variety of permisions levels and you may also set up preset tasks to populate new lists with.

This presents some nice opportunities for teachers to encourage planning and collaboration whilst also being able to keep an eye on how people are progressing.  Below are some ideas on how you could incorporate Trackpad into your class:

• Daily/ Weekly task list for each student
• Management for Projects
• Running a meeting – the agenda is the todo items and you can tick them off as you talk about them
• Checklist for an assignment – use presets to fill in the main items to be covered,  let the students expand the list with their own requirements (teacher can check up on students to make sure they are on track)
• Internet scavenger hunt – put a list of questions that must be answered in the list and people check them off as they find the answers.

This activity also works quite well in conjunction with other activities.  For instance in partnership with Focuspad and a forum you may set up the following:

• A Focuspad activity encouraging the students to plan how they are going to solve the task at hand.
• A forum for students to state their general approach.  Each student must start a discussion stating their general approach and must comment on atleast 3 other students.
• A Trackpad in which they must plan out their solution before tackling it.
• A Focuspad activity in which the students keep a journal while they are undertaking the activity.

The above layout is nice as it provides a solid framework for the students.  They start off having to think about how they are going to attack the problem.  A template could be used here to guide the students on aspects they should consider.  Then they must discuss it and consider alternatives.  Then they undertake planning.  All the while they are also reflecting on what they are doing.

Another feature of Trackpad which lends itself nicely to this scenario (but which is good in many others too) is that it places an emphasis on the task at hand.  It is often easy for students to lost sight of the goal they are heading for.  Trackpad has a large area for you to outline what the target or goal is.  You may also put a template in to encourage them to organise this nicely.  They will then see this every time they work with the task list and this will help keep them on track.

(This is so much better than the studio version, despite its faults.)

So, today has been interesting. Basically, I did nothing at school. Which was a welcome relief. I think I acted too sarcastic in French, though; the teacher does not seem to approve of my… How shall I put it. Laissez-faire approach? Not to be too punny or anything.

Nota bene: This post is bound to be rather random. My brain is feeling scattered, and surprisingly, a headache seems to be lurking.

Second block seemed shorter than normal. Since I’ve been sort of busy… I am finding it harder to enjoy free time. I just didn’t want to do anything today.

I ended up going to the band room. Jordan was there… I played him some jazz and wished I could just lock all the doors and cover the windows. Maybe sing a bit. Probably have a one-person rave party.

[I think what was missing might have been you.]

Now is the type of time in which I will begin to say ‘I don’t know…’ and not really mean it at all. The thing is… I really don’t know, but that’s not the message I’m trying to send at all. Please, anybody, help me interpret when you find me like this?

Chemistry was fun. We went to the computer lab and did an activity on elements. I cheated and had time to check my email.

What? It wasn’t like it was real cheating.

I don’t get headaches. Ever. Plus, I had some ice cream and a brownie after school. Almost a binge day, depending on whether or not I eat a lot at dinner.

Speaking of that. You’ve probably never heard me use that term. Binge day. Unless of course you are Sierra, in which case you have. I’m not bulimic… Somewhat due to the fact that my ‘bingeing’ involves me just indulging a bit, but mostly because I don’t really purge. Some days, I exercise a lot more than normal and get excited when I see a ‘good’ number on the scale. But weight alone – actually, I’m beginning to think at all – is not a good indicator of health or improvement. So anyway. Enough worrying. Stop.

Seriously. There actually is nothing to be worried about here. What are the statistics? Five to fifteen percent of people with bulimia are also male. What are the numbers for people who used to be male?

Also, I just had dinner. It was good. Turkey tetrazzini.

I didn’t know how to spell that. I need to learn Italian, and restart Esperanto for the third time, and kick my French teacher into sanity and action, and I also need to show her my old French book and see if we can bully the language department into giving us money for people to get them, because the book is really just an orgasm on paper. Practically a French erotica novel.

I’ve come to the conclusion that iTunes and ǝsǝǝɥɔ ǝbɐʇʇoɔ have a really bad shuffle choice when it comes to music. On the other hand, iTunes just pulled up The Message, which I have to say is some high-quality beat-juice.

Or maybe it’s just that I don’t like anything anymore.

- want to scream to the world something, anything-only worry-only-only w-worr-onl-onlywor-only worry -

It is like a jungle, sometimes. I try not to wonder how I keep from goin’ under.

Makes me wonder how strings attached to wrists stay on without providing a constant pain to the owner’s little lines, associations with dissimilar topics in fabric turns- makes me wonder about the lines themselves → makes me remember wanting a closeness, takes me back to a silliness-innocence I’ve since lost, synapses to mush, because it is that time of year again, soon it’ll all start all over → seasonal ups, makes me wish I had a beat to my life → love the repetitive nature of feet slapping the pavement, jarring every now and then extending to the same synapses, hardened, diamond-crystal → wish I could be all that I want you to want me to be, makes me wonder

How I switch this off.

I have try some pieces of codes that come with great tutorial by Haim Waisman, Rensselaer. Here’s the screenshot:

Pictures 1. Finite Element Programming with Matlab.

I run that code by Octave program, but it seems had a little problem. It stop at Element No.1, and not to forward to others element (2, 3, 4, …, 16). Octave also doesn’t capable to visualize the graph with well. However, actually I do not need the graph. The important thing that I need is the result of approximation of numerical method of finite element.

My ‘homework’ is set the input in every node of boundary condition for preprocessing, change the case of heat conduction 2D, test it on laboratory with some sensor, and the last thing: REPORT!

agung.ridwan.sn

attachment

Pouring onto a white board has always been one of my greatest abilities.

I’ve mentioned before that I use a cut down version of GTD to manage my work and personal tasks, and after trying out several free list options (with nods to Todoist and Gina Trapani’s brilliant Todo.txt ) I ended up settling on Remember The Milk (RTM) largely on the basis of simplicity and integration with my iPod Touch.

Just as I’m approaching the  point when I need to decide if I should renew my pro account, the RTM team have enticed me further with a major interface upgrade which, amongst other things, provides the ability to create a new task by entering all of the details in a single line. I was already pretty happy with RTM and combined with keyboard shortcuts this makes task entry much faster and adds a lot of value to the tool.

And hey, it moos. There’s no bad here.

Alright, with only 20 days until I’m getting on a plane and flying out of Australia (that’s LESS than 3 weeks!!!) it’s time for me to go list crazy. I’ll post the first list here, my List Of Lists To Write! Otherwise I’m sure to forget something. Then I’ll write the lists tonight, and type them up tomorrow. I will probably end up posting them on here, just so that I can get to them easily. But there are a few to write. Starting now!

List Of Lists To Write.

1. List Of Things To Pack In:
A. Suitcase
B. Carry-on Luggage
C. Bathroom Bag
D. First Aid Kit
E. Other
2. List Of Things To Buy:
A. For Uganda
B. Other
3. ToDo List (daily/weekly).
4. List Of Important Documents.
5. List Of Important Dates To Keep Track Of.
6. Contacts.

I think that’s all of them. If I think of any others, I’ll write them I suppose! Oh and I have to do up a rough budget, but that’s not really a list and I’m not going to write it tonight. Actually, I probably won’t end up writing any of these tonight, I have to work tomorrow (5.30am wake up) so I want a good night’s sleep. And I’m tired now because I’ve spent all weekend cleaning my room. Not just tidying, but going through drawers and chucking stuff out. I even organised under my bed. Pics tomorrow then

Aussie flag apron!

I was shopping at Big W today for some more face washers to embroider as gifts for the families we will be having lunch with one day while over in Uganda and I saw these. I remembered a conversation I had with Pete (our team manager/leader/organiser) and his wife about the possibility of taking some aprons over for the mums of the homes. We were considering the Mission Watoto aprons that we had, which had a lovely African design and a Lion in the middle. However, it would have become an awkward gift to give. Imagine someone coming to Australia and bringing a Kangaroo print shirt or something. So we scrapped the idea. But when I saw the Aussie flag apron, my first thought was “Wow” followed by “Or maybe tacky…” followed by “Nope, I’m going with wow and buying them”. More pics?

Full view

Right side view

Left side view

They all need to be washed before they get work though. So guess who’s washing four new aprons tomorrow? Me! (In case you weren’t sure).

I can’t believe there are only 22 days until I go! And if you are sick of me counting down… too bad! Every day until I go, that number is going to change! So I will get excited about it! Every time! ! ! ! Wh-hoo!

Ok, so what did I tick off my ToDo list today? Let’s see, I bought the face washers (plan on embroidering them tomorrow), I organised lunch with my grandparents (grandma, grandpa, step grandfather and step step grandmother. That’s 4 of my 10 grandparents. Wow, I have 10 grandparents!), I’m making my friend’s present (after dinner), and… oh. Ok. That’s it. Well, I did a lot of other important things too! They just weren’t on my list. And I bought another punnet of raspberries today… but I didn’t eat them all! I had about half, with some pikelets and cream. I would have taken a photo, but they didn’t last long. And I’m not 100% sure where my camera is. Haven’t you noticed all the webcam pics lately? Hmmm, should probably find it soon though… another thing to add to my ToDo list. I think I’m going to have to make an online ToDo list.

Hey dad, does Google have ToDo lists? Probably in docs right? I’ll have a look.

Je viens de développer une application AIR en une journée pour gérer mes TODO listes. Je souhaitais reprendre l’expérience que propose DestroyTwitter, mon client AIR pour Twitter qui est omniprésent sur mon bureau et très discret. J’ai vraiment eu très peu de temps pour le développer donc il y a le minimum de fonctionnalités. Les rubriques correspondent à mon activité d’avant-vente chez Adobe, elles ne sont pas personnalisables mais certains d’entre vous les trouveront peut-être pertinentes. Il y a une fonctionnalité marrante: le one-click copy que je montre dans la vidéo ci-dessous. Il y a encore de nombreux bugs, j’espère trouver du temps cette année pour finaliser une version stable.

Cliquez-ici pour télécharger l’application AIR Destroy Todo

As part of Wicked’s blogging features, each blog you add has its own todo list. Sometimes, when blogging inspiration strikes, you don’t have time to write up a complete blog post because you are in the middle of something. Instead of forgetting the idea because you can’t get to your blog, you can preserve these moments of inspiration in a todo item until you’re ready to write your post.

It is super easy to capture your tasks and todos for your blog and check them off when you are done. Todos are integrated into the post editor and can turn into posts so you never have to re-type your ideas.

NOTE:Todo lists are not saved on your blog server and can’t be viewed from WP-ADMIN, they are saved in your user profile, which is sync’d with the cloud.

You can add todo items, edit them, delete them, sort then by proximity, or view a to do item on a map.

These are some task management utilities.

1. orchestratehq
2. todalist
3. remember the milk
4. rough underbelly

Some more information can be get here.

I’ve had a great week… I’m not far off of Dragoon 48, I’ve gotten several missions done for Bastok, and yet the more I get done the more that gets added to my list of things to do…

Because I’ve leveled so fast and mostly in level-sync parties my skill level on Polearm is something that of a level 42/43, which isn’t too bad but the extra acc from being capped would really help in those parties where I’m the sync target…

I’ve been soloing most of my missions, with some help on 2-3 and a raise from Talym/Fumo durring 4-1.
Just need one more NM in Beadeaux and I can get the key items to get the Magicite and my Airship Pass.

And finaly my ToDo list… it keeps expanding… To easily solo on Dragoon, a mage subjob is necessary. This presents a problem in that I have no mage jobs leveled and to properly level a mage job, you need a mage subjob. My soultion to this has been to try to level both White Mage and Scholar to 10 and leap frog them in levels while recycling the gear. While economical, this proved rather borring and around level 6/7 on whm(sch still not unlocked) I gave in and when back to Drg to do more entertaining things…
Also it seems that Samurai would also be a fitting subjob, and while it is a job I’d enjoy, I just don’t think I can handle another melee job at the moment for various reasons…

And finaly I still need abit more Gil if I’m to continue Drg…
Sniper/Woodsman’s Rings 120k… /cry
Life Belt … 30k?! They’re 10k where I come from… -.-
Jaguar Mantle, that I can do a quest for… but I need some help… other wise it’s 60k…

Well after I finish Whm up I can probably do some BCNMs and make some money that way….

ANYWAY…. It’s 7am and I need to get some sleep so that I can wake up. ^^;

Sleepy Galka is sleepy...

Alhamdulillah, hingga tadi siang menjelang sore sudah bisa membuat grafik empat temperatur dan gabungan dari keempat temperatur tersebut. Namun sayang gambar yang dihasilkan masih kurang bagus, dikarenakan temperatur yang dibuat/berada pada kondisi yang statik alias keadaan ruang. Dan grafik yang dihasilkan masih bersifat diskrit, bukan kontinu per menit atau lebih kecil dari itu. Saat ini yang didapat hanyalah nilai temperatur per 10 menit. Waktu 10 menit tersebut (saya perkirakan) didapat dari pemrograman dari bahasa Javanya (.tini) yang mengambil nilai Web Server dari tini hasil proses dari nilai XML yang didapat dari sensor. Jika hal tersebut benar, maka perlu adanya perombakan dari sisi bahasa Javanya.
Beberapa todolist yang baru antara lain:
- Mengurangi fungsi yang tidak diperlukan seperti kelembaban (humidity), angin, intensitas cahaya, dll sehingga bisa didapat kode pemrograman yang lebih kecil ukurannya.
- Mengetahui dan menambah MAC Address sensor DS18b20 yang baru dan menambahkannya pada 4 sensor yang telah ada sehingga jumlah semuanya adalah 8 buah.
- Mengubah response time dari suhu yang diberikan. Jika ternyata tini memang benar2 tidak bisa menampung data tersebut, pikirkan cara lain agar bisa mengirim data tersebut ke device lain (komputer server).
- Membuat chart scattering for the nodes of finite element with open flash chart.
- Belajar memahami konsep finite element 2D, dan belajar untuk memahaminya dalam bahasa tingkat tinggi Matlab. Kemudian cobalah menggunakan Octave!

Get More Focus!
agung.ridwan.sn

My position was recently re-evaluated, because it was realized that I didn’t really fit under any current policies. I went from a 12 month appointment where I worked 940 hours per year, with full benefits except vacation, personal days and sick leave…to a 10 month appointment where I work 930 hours per year, with full benefits. Since I have two months off in the summer, no vacation or personal days. This is all at the same pay rate, so I don’t lose anything.

This happened two days before before I left for “vacation.” I had asked for a week and a half, it was actually comp time, but was told to take 2 and a half weeks, to use all of the comp time. The new contract will start July 1st, so I’ll work the month of June, then be off from July 1st until August 15th.

Now anyone in their right mind would say whoopee!! But not being in my right mind, I was thrown completely off balance. I haven’t had this much time off since around 1978, and I’m not that all that great at using time off well. I’ve been keeping busy and using my time fairly well, but still spend a lot of time thinking about work. Perhaps if I write down what I need to do when I get back, I’ll be able stop running it over in my mind constantly.

• Get the Vail photos up on CONTENTdm.
• Figure out how to set up a new finding aid style sheet in Archivist’s Toolkit.
• Inventory the vault.
• Work on a BI for Primary Resources using ideas I’ve been picking up from the book “Made to Stick”.
• Get a list going of projects for student workers in the fall.
• Set up staff training for care of rare books an archives in the event of water or other damage due to an emergency.

I’ll probably be adding to this when I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t sleep, because I’m thinking about work. That may be more than I can do in the month of June anyway. I’ll start working on my August list.

Today, I am going to start using a Real-Time Todo list.

Well, at least for me, I am going to figure-out which ones work like I do.

I just happen to be one of those geeks, who hates technology. Or, maybe technology just hates me. I am one of those guys who built computers when transistors were the new thing. And, I was programming before 10MB harddrives were a common commodity.

I like paper and pencil, but I love my iPhone.  These days, laptops are just to big to carry around to track things todo, and why use paper and pencil (excepte for cases of power outages when you have a nice iPhone in your pocket.

So, I am going to look at using to iPhone aware products, so that I can move away from being tied to Outlook, Yahoo, and iTunes sync pyridine cycle.

I am going to look at  Vitalist (http://www.vitalist.com/signup/) and  Toodledo (http://www.toodledo.com/info/details.php) of which both appear to have the ability to grab things from my Outlook tasks.

Also, I like to get reminder email (or alarms) on my iPhone without allot of syncing and re-editing.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been using Yahoo and iTunes for almost two years to get reminders of events. And, in the last several months, because of iTunes software upgrades, I have been using Outlook on Vista to fully sync calender and to mange my contacts in a more controlled fashion.

So, today I get the new accounts, and setup my first Todo’s.

Wish me Good Tech Karma!

Well so much for keeping up with the blog.  To my defense it has been a rough year.  I took a 400 level Spanish class (as a sophomore) that royally wooped my ass, but I aced my final and the class!  So I’m really happy about that, and I passed my computer science with a B!  I really hated that class. 

Game plan for today:

1.) Go to town to register for summer classes at the local community college.

2.) Look for a summer job.

3.) Scrapbook, if I have time and space

4.) Listen to some Mraz!

I went to Jason Mraz’s concert on May 2nd at U of I’s Assembly Hall in Champaign/Urbana Illinois.  It was basically the best concert I have been to in my life.  I leave you with a picture:

<3 my Mr. A-Z

The checklist on the official site has been updated, with more items being crossed off.

To-Do:

* Get the final Prototype case
* Build a test device and check if everything is okay
* Create the keymat mould (takes 20 – 25 days)
* Design the final keyboard layout (needs to be finished when the mould is ready)
* Create mould of final case (can be done once the case fits, takes 30 – 35 days)
* CE / FCC testing (can be done once the prototype case is here)
* Mass Production testrun for the final boards
* Stability testing (this will be fun)
* Wait for the last remaining pieces for mass production (LATEST deadline is second week of March)
* Mass Production
* Test the boards
* SHIP THEM!

Also, dates have been added to the official blog posts!

Looking forward to more updates in the coming week.