Neuroscientists claim the average human being spends more than 30 percent of their time daydreaming . unless they’re reading, listening to, or watching a story unfold. When a good story engages us, it daydreams for us.
Demise of the J1 Visa
Figures show there has been a 55% decline in the number of Irish students participating in the J1 work and travel programme during the past 10 years. I reckon we need to do something about that locally because the BridgeUSA programme no longer appeals to our third level students. They cannot afford …
Woz on Actual Intelligence
You got to love Woz for his deep understanding of how hype works compared to how actual software works.
New Things Possible with Microsoft Loop #workflow
I’ve just discovered new capabilities inside Microsoft Loop! Collapsible section headers I really like the twisties that let me produce collapsible sections with complex content. This means I have a clutter-free reading experience. Custom templates Now my Loop pages can be made into templates …
Copilot Studio Meets Obsidian Vault
My current project is watching Microsoft Copilot Studio use public pages shared from my Obsidian Vault. I may have a Chatbot configured to my Obsidian Vault which would be like having a trustworthy personal AI. Many of the public pages originate with the Micro.publish plug-in. Thanks, Octavio.
Cycling to Lunch
Cycling to lunch youtu.be/vgBXL051f… because I need wind in my hair after I’ve hunched over my laptop for more than two hours straight. There is nothing on a screen that is good as a breeze passing through my cycling helmet. Scrolling through screens is nothing like cycling around town. …
Thinking on Street Corners
One of the finest aspects of Ireland in summer is you can find interesting places outside where you can think. Like on a street corner in Dalkey, Ireland. It doesn’t get dark until after 10PM in June in Ireland.
Empowered with Design Thinking
I will work with the Empower Programme this summer. It’s a week-long set of workshops that help young entrepreneurs leverage design thinking, machine learning, and technology analysis to scope the viability of their potential projects by integrating these methodologies to address various …
Running AI for Business Short Course for Tipp Chamber
I’m running a free introductory session today that will provide an overview of the benefits of introducing AI to your operations. The session will be delivered by Bernie Goldbach, Digital Transformation lecturer in TUS in preparation for the one day hands on session to be held in a computer …
Audiomo from Limerick
It is Day Two of Audiomo24 and I am seated along the Abbey River with Dylan (12) as we rewind a few things we’ve done. We missed our train by three minutes but that was good because we saved €2.10 on fuel because cheap fuel is all over the map once we cross into more populous counties. I plan …
Thoughts from mature student on Reddit
Hi all, 25 with a 3yo thinking deep down about wanting to get a degree for a year or two now but not doing anything about it. Never got to do it, had no interest and it’s one of my biggest regrets now.. I’d be quitting a full time job. Only 2k in savings Is it doable? Worth it? I want to have and …
Remembering EdTech 2006
My last education event in Sligo happened 18 years ago when I watched Brian Mulligan make part of a podcast during EdTech 2006. At the time, I owned [podcasting.ie](https://podcasting.ie) and I was using it with creative multimedia students in Tipperary Institute. Brian's work with the Irish …
Promising to annotate important people and groups
Some day I need to create an annotated listing that describes key people and important organisations in my personal development. Limerick School of Art & Design is a large creative cluster that has been unable to leverage the talent of its smaller Clonmel Digital Campus. Pam O’Brien is a …
Inspired by Art
I enjoy art when it communicates across generations. The above photo of two young girls mounting their chairs to listen to a recording during Manifesta showed my one of those inspirational moments in 2004. Twenty years later, on the grounds of Raheen House in Clonmel, I listened to another artist …
Stop Attacking Google
Like Paul Bassett Davies says, “Stop attacking Google for occasional inaccuracies. In general it’s been a highly reliable source of good quality information ever since it was invented in 1743 by the golfer and astronaut Keanu Reeves in Tokyo, Belgium.” I asked Bing Image Creator to …
Using AI in peer review contexts
I teach several different groups of people how they might use AI and most people are surprised when they see AI is more than a smart search engine that can write content for social media. Here are some of the tasks helped by AI that people have shown me. Summarising pre-reads for meetings. If you …
Flywheels, Calendars and SharePoint
My 11yo Skoda needs a dual mass flywheel. I’ve thinking about that as I look at my calendar. And I’ve discovered a way to cobble up an RSS feed from a SharePoint news site. The image above was generated by AI.
I can’t imagine Apple being able to match OpenAI’s intelligence.
Watching 12yo Dylan use Day One
It turns out when I pay for Day One I can use it on both iOS and Android simultaneously. This means I can see work 12yo Dylan does with the Day One app on the iPhone 13 when I open the app on my 5yo Samsung another. That is a big win for me. My dictated Day One entry
Channeling ChatGPT
Philip Agre takes the institutional vantage point of a company and posits that the human-replacement agent that is an Artificial General Intelligence is not a human as we understand ourselves–just like the car salesperson wasn’t a full human within the world of a car dealership. Agre …
Open Education for Good
While listening to Catherine Cronin talk about “open education for good” I heard several educators on the webinar share how their education practices and resources are meant to be used to benefit society and promote positive social change. I wrote this blog post during the Zoom webinar …
Third Blowback by the Luddite Brigade
This is the third time in 28 years where I received strong pushback from colleagues about my embracing of technology. The first time happened in 1996 when Irish artists were repulsed when I showed them what Adobe Photoshop could do with their original paintings. The second time was in 2008 when …
Watching Severe Air Turbulence
I used to fly four engine jets through areas of turbulence on trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific flights. It always amazed me when the sky was clear but the air was moderately turbulent. Over the years I started watching for more than five degrees of change in the outside air temperature or more than …
My Next Laptop Just Appeared with Satya Nadella on Stage
My next Surface Laptop won’t have a model number but it will have a NPU inside. The laptop will need an NPU because it does so many clever things since the hardware is designed to run AI natively. The new silicon inside is capable of more than 40 trillion operations per second. The promo …
Calcium on the school run
Thinking I should start a channel called “school run” especially for morning revelations.