How to use technology to solve problems in our communities

I am an avid reader of Jet magazine. As I was reading the latest issue of Jet I noticed that it has been re-designed and it has a fresh new look. As part of their new format, each week they profile an iPhone app. This is great. It would be great if Black newspapers followed suit.

I have actually downloaded a couple of the apps they profiled. As I was reading I was wondering how many of these apps were developed by Black software engineers? How many of the apps that Jet is promoting (sending business) are developed by Black companies.

I went back and checked out a few of my previous issues. Admittedly, I did not do very much research, but it appears that the few I researched were not developed by Black-owned businesses. This is not a critique of Jet. The point I wish to make is that there are many opportunities for black software companies or a couple of brothers working out of their garage (how Apple started) to develop an app that speaks to the black community and solves a problem from our black perspective.

Yesterday I was listening to a local talk radio program in Austin. The topic of the day was supporting black business. Someone called in and said they would like to support black business but they don’t know what black businesses are out there. My initial thought was “Are you kidding me?”

The hosts of the show referred the caller to a local print version of a black business registry. Really? Is that the best we can do? We had those in the 80’s. Why don’t we teach some of your young people how to develop iPhone apps? Many of these problems that are relevant to our community can be solved by leveraging technology the same way that others are leveraging them to solve their problems.

Can you imagine an iPhone application that lists by category the black businesses based on your location. I would love something like that. When I roll into Dallas the app can tell me where to get my haircut, where to eat, what churches I might visit, what black museums are in the area, etc.

Or next week when I am speaking in Chicago the app can tell me where I can get a nice soul food meal or where the local black art galleries are. Every time you are in need of a business or service you can grab your trust iPhone app and immediately have a way to spend your hard earned money with a black business. This is just one idea. I have many. What I don’t have is time to develop them.

Those of you who have children, who are studying computers in college, suggest ideas such as these to them. Start them on the path to thinking about how can use the new skills they are learning to solve problems in their communities. Get their creative juices flowing. The minute one of you develops this app let me know, so I can call Jet.

Hotep Kai

5 Tips for Saving Money on College Textbooks

Addendum:  Today I just learned about Flat World Knowledge and their e-book textbook model so I had to add it to this post.  You can check out the story here.

The price of textbooks is one of the biggest expenses outside of tuition that college students face.

However if you are aware of all of your options you can purchase all of your textbooks without breaking the bank.  There are a many ways you can save money on textbooks.

As a student and scholar I am constantly buying books either for class or research. I am always looking at new ways to protect my cash flow. Here are a few of my favorite options.

FIND THE BEST PRICE
It used to be that the best way to find the cheapest price was to purchase a used book. While that may still be the case for some of your textbooks, one does not necessarily have to purchase a used book in order to secure the best price. If you do decide to go the used route you can conduct your search completely online. There are several sites you can use to compare prices for your text books. I usually look for used books on Amazon but here are a few other options:

• Half Price Books (half.com)
• Bookfinder (bookfinder.com)
• iChapters (iChapters.com)
• eFollet (eFollet.com)
• Craigslist (craigslist.com)


AUDIOBOOKS
Audiobooks is another great option. If you signup for a premium account you can purchase audiobooks for as little as $7.59. I paid monthly and earned credits. I will admit it is harder to find traditional textbooks in audiobook format but it is always improving. Some of the books I have on audiobook that I have used in class are 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and Good to Great by Jim Collins.

E-BOOKS
There is a Kindle reader for PC, Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, and iPad. The Kindle reader is free. Here is an example. As part of my doctoral studies, I took a leadership course. The textbook for the course was Leadership by Northouse. The list price of the book is $84.95.  It is listed on Amazon for $64.90 and the Kindle is even cheaper at $58.78. Not only is the Kindle version cheaper but you always have access to it.

RENTALS
Renting is another option these days. There are several sites that have come to my attention recently that allows you to rent textbooks. Sites such as Chegg.com, BookRenter.com, and College Book Renter now allow you to rent a book for a limited amount of time for free. The model works in the same way as most video rental services such as Netflix. The books are shipped to you via mail. Barnes and Noble (http://www.bn.com/) also rents textbooks.

OTHER OPTIONS
Depending on how old the book is, in other words if the copyright has expired, you can gain access to the book at Google Books (http://books.google.com/). I have to admit I most use Google Books to look up references in books as part of my research. But you never know, the idea here is keep your options open.

There is also a site called PaperBackSwap (http://www.paperbackswap.com/). It is a book trading site. I just recently traded someone for What Makes the Great Great by Dennis Kimbro. Since this option is free I figured I would include it under the Find the best Price heading. Also do not forget to check your local library.

Hotep,
Kai

Making Technology Relevant

This morning I received an email from my nephew. His wife is a teacher. She has been charged with using a learning management system (LMS)  called Blackboard and he was trying to find information on using this new tool. In the message, he mentions that he went out to YouTube to find video instructions. Brilliant!

I have taught programming classes online and asked questions of the students, and they have the audacity to reply “I don’t know”.  Look it up! My mother used to tell me that all of the time. The only difference is that I was going to a bookshelf and pulling down an encyclopedia.

Now we have WikiPedia. My students were already online since we were conducting class online.  All they had to do is click over and query Google, Facebook, WikiPedia etc for the answer. Not only can you look it up, but also you can look up a video where you are being show a demonstration or perhaps an interview from a world-class expert on the subject.

This is a great way to use the web to seek out knowledge. Bill Gates recently mentioned that in 5 years the best education will come from the web.  I must say I agree. I think this is a great example. My nephew was also surprised by the many educational apps that are available for the iPod touch. My work is about us knowing what is available and taking advantage of it.  These apps have been available since the iPod Touch arrived.  Since he was surprised by the power of these apps, what are the chances that his daughter has been using and benefiting from this technology?

I read an article recently that touted the educational benefits of TV. Digital TV has made that case even more strongly, and after all Bill Cosby’s thesis (Fat Albert) was a study how television could be used to strengthen curriculum.  In 1976, Cosby earned a Doctor of Education degree from the University of Massachusetts. For his doctoral research, he wrote a dissertation entitled, "An Integration of the Visual Media Via 'Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids' Into the Elementary School Curriculum as a Teaching Aid and Vehicle to Achieve Increased Learning".

An iPod Touch is a more versatile, mobile medium and any quality content from a television can be ported to an iPod touch, not to mention the power of educational applications. We are only scratching the surface of what can be done in terms of educational technology. I gave a presentation a couple of years ago at Rust College. My topic was Making Technology Relevant.

It was a spin on what Gloria Ladson-Billings coined in term of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) in her brilliant book Dreamkeepers. Emerging Technologies have made it easier to make traditional content relevant, and it certainly can facilitate making technology itself more relevant from a cultural standpoint.

We need more African Americans, Latinos and women pursuing careers in STEM. We need to connect their culture with the technology. This is not a new concept. All learning is culture specific. It just so happens it is the culture of the majority group. If content were taught from a Latino cultural center perhaps we would see the majority groups struggle as well.

Why don't we engage everyone and do what is need so all groups thrive!

American Honda Foundation Awards $25,000 to BDPA Education and Technology Foundation

COLLEGE PARK MD (August 19, 2010) - American Honda Foundation awarded a $25,000 grant to the BDPA Education and Technology Foundation (BETF), a nonprofit organization led by racially diverse CEOs and executive level management who promote educational programs for students of color in the information technology industry.

The grant funds will be used for our Student Information Technology Education & Scholarship (SITES) program. It will assist in supporting the administrative operation of the National BDPA efforts to support its 45 chapters in preparing and bringing students to the National High School Computer Competition (HSCC) held at the national BDPA Technology Conference each year. A portion of the funding will go to BDPA Southern Minnesota chapter to support the exceptional work they are doing with the youth in Minnesota.

“The American Honda Foundations' Board of Directors has decided to partner with the BETF in its efforts to make a difference in the lives of our youth," said AHF senior program officer Donna Hammond-Cotton. "In fact, the SITES program ranked number one out of the top 15 finalists! Not to mention that there were over 500 other proposals that we had to review for consideration this quarter."

BDPA served over 800 young people in the 2010 SITES program. The program culminated last month with the 2010 national BDPA HSCC held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Five high schoolers from Rochester, Minnesota won the national championships with stiff competition by teams from Washington DC, Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis. The SITES program is poised for growth in all 45 chapters due to its ongoing success in raising students' performance in school.

"We're excited to work with American Honda Foundation to expand our SITES program, said BETF executive director Wayne Hicks. "We strongly believe that BDPA can advance the careers of these students from the classroom to the boardroom."

The SITES program effectively uses technology to stimulate and sustain the interest of young people in science and technology. BDPA seeks an increased interest from parents and students alike on basic science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) knowledge and integration of science, technology and math in their lives. BDPA is building a strong relationship with public school systems around the nation to entice high school students to participate in our program.

The Web Academy

Last week I did a presentation at The Educational Challenge Conference in Houston. As often happens when I speak at one of these conferences many of the attendees come up to me after the session and ask me about getting training in computer or web skills.

As I have written in other posts here, there are several paths one can take to become a technology professional. I have NOT ever outlined a path that does not require any money on the part of the learner. In most scenarios, the learners are responsible for paying for college courses, buying books, or self paced learning software.

Today I am writing about one the free options. If you are interesting in learning web programming skills but you can’t afford to take classes or buy the learning materials you may be interested in The Web Academy. The Web Academy was born out of the desire to serve, according to their website.

I first learned of the The Web Academy from a mutual friend via Twitter. I immediately connected with the founder Eric Hamilton, on Facebook to learn what I could do to help him accomplish his mission of exposing more young people to web technology. The Web Academy provides FREE web design courses to the community and low cost web development services to non profit organizations and low income businesses.

100% of their course work is distance learning taught by live instructors in real time. In exchange for offering FREE web classes to their students, they require our students to take on at least 3 web development projects. Working on these real life web projects with real web clients gives their students actual work experience in the web industry.

During class time, students are able to interact with their instructors and ask questions, just like being in an actual classroom. All you need is a computer, and a broadband connection and you are able to take these classes and learn a marketable skill free of charge.

What are you waiting for?

Five tips for becoming a computer programmer

1.  Determine what kind of programming you are interested in:

When I first became a computer programmer  there were only 2 types of programming jobs to choose from.    You either had to write code for a mainframe computer or what was then called a personal computer (PC).  I did not have any interest in programming on a mainframe.  Although I learned how to use languages such as FORTRAN and COBOL, this kind of software development did not interest me.  Today, there are a few more choices for the new programmer.  Before you get too far down the path on learning your craft, take a step back and decide whether you want to develop software for the web, mobile devices, or the desktop.

2.  Learn the fundamentals of programming:

Do not equate learning a language with learning the craft of programming.  These are 2 different skills.  To be a good developer, there are at least 2 skills that you must master.  You must learn how to program and you must learn how to use a programming language.  I have seen many people make this mistake when transitioning from other careers into programming.  In some ways, programming is problem solving.  Learning a language will not help you to problem solve, and the problem solving is the essence of computer programming.

3.  Choose a Programming Language:

Earlier I mentioned 2 programming languages that I learned in college for programming mainframe computers (FORTRAN & COBOL).  Today there are many more languages to choose from.  Over the years I have used many languages.  I have never used COBOL or FORTRAN professionally, but I have used languages such as Clipper, PowerBuilder, C++, C# and Delphi.  There are many languages such as Java and Python that I have never used.  Some I care for, some I do not.  Take your time and explore some of these languages and determine if you like one more than the others.  Solve a problem using one of these languages.  You might also do a search on Monster to see which languages are most in demand.  For years Visual Basic was THE most popular programming language.  I read recently in an article that there are over 14,0000 jobs available for PHP.  

4.  Determine the best way for you to learn the craft of programmng:

There are multiple ways to learn the art of programming.   I wrote a recent post here regarding several ways you can go about becoming a computer programmer.  No one way is better than the other, the key is to find what works for you.  I actually went to college and earned a degree in computer science.  This worked for me.  But in my professional career I have met many colleagues who have taken very different paths to arrive at the same destination.  Choose the path that best fits your situation.  I am also a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT).  In order to become certified you must pass a series of exams.  For this credential I was able to used the MS self-paced training kit and I was very successful.  Figure out what works for you.

5.  Determine if you enjoy the work:

After completing steps 1 through 4, take a step back and evaluate what you have learned.  Take a moment to reflect and determine if you are enjoying the work and knowledge you have obtained.  There is nothing worse than being locked into a career or job that does not energize you.  At this point, you should have some feel about whether or not you enjoy what programming is.  Do you see the kinds of opportunities you had envisioned before started out on the journey.  Is the work as challenging as you thought?  Are the problems you are solving interesting?  If you have reached this point and you feel good about it, then you are well on your way.  Now you just need to gain experience.   Practice makes perfect.  From this point you simply need to do what programmers do, program!

The Educational Challenge Conference in Houston

On Friday I spoke at The Educational Challenge Conference in Houston. The conference was organized by Muhammad University of The Nation of Islam. My topic was 7 Strategies to Engage African American Males in Technology. The session was scheduled for 1 hour and 15 minutes, but you know how passionate black folks can be when we are discussing the future of our children. Our conversation lasted for nearly 2 hours.

I shared with the group how important I believe it is that we get our young boys involved in technology. Technology is no longer an area that we can simply choose not to participate. We must participate. Technology is a new literacy. This is why President Obama has created initiatives around the idea of getting more American students to participate in the STEM areas (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math).

American students in general have turned away from these areas; some say for good reason, but young black males are the most under represented group of them all. The reason why I decided to host this talk is two fold.

First, I wanted to make our people are aware of some of the reasons why young black males are not pursuing careers in technology. I gave 7 reasons that are evidenced based.  I also gave 7 corrective measures.  Our under representation is a systemic issue and I gave many examples of the structural and institutional challenges our boys face.

Secondly, I wanted to make attendees aware that this is an issue of economic access now and into the future. The National Alliance of Black School Educators has termed education a civil right. I agree. But we need to be sure that when we think of education, we include technology as part of the required curriculum.

The participants responded well. Many of them were unaware of the opportunities that are out there for our children. Moreover, several attendees remarked to me that they may have been aware of the opportunities but did not have a roadmap of how to get to those opportunities.

This is precisely why I wanted to have the conversation. It has been reported that unemployment among black males is the highest of any group in the country, and the country is experiencing record unemployment. 70% of all new jobs in the future will be the STEM fields and 80% of those jobs are yet to be defined.

Translation: If you do not become adept at understanding technology and keeping up with the changing pace of the global economy you will remain in the ranks of the unemployed and the locked out. There is no reason why we can not prosper in these fields like everyone else in the country and indeed in the world.

Yet we are severely under represented. We need more conferences like the The Educational Challenge. And we need to come out in force and learn from those in our communities who have the expertise, passion and familiarity with the problems in our communities and take these messages back to our families to implement.

Hotep,
Brother Kai

How to Download Professional Microsoft Software Tools without Paying

Have you ever heard of Microsoft DreamSpark? DreamSpark is a website from Microsoft that provides students with Microsoft Professional Tools at no charge. This would have certainly been helpful when I was in college. I can vividly remember suffering through one of my programming courses because I did not have the software required for the course.

I had to copy the software from one of my classmates. However, I was still at a disadvantage because I did not have the guide that came with the software. I was reduced to using the help files on the software disk. On the DreamSpark site, you can get access to Microsoft software in 3 easy steps. First, you have to sign in.

The only catch here is that you must have a Windows Live Id. The second step is student verification. The site offers a few ways you can provide verification and they are outlined on the site. After you are verified you are ready to download free software.

Here are a few of software titles that were available when I visited the site last week:

• Visual Studio 2010 Professional
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 
• Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition 
•  Microsoft Expression Studio 4 Ultimate 
• Visual Studio 2010 Express 
• Windows Server 2008 Standard 
• SQL Server 2008 Developer

 The site also provides links to valuable training resources. There are links to virtual labs, articles, and videos on everything from ASP.net to Visual Studio. You can also signup for the Microsoft Student Newsletter. 

As an instructor at Kaplan University, often times I would instruct my students to utilize this site when they had not received their books for class or if they had other problems with accessing the materials they needed to be successful in the course.

DreamSpark is a great resource. Students from all around the country are taking advantage of it. Maybe you were aware of it, but if not, now you can take advantage of it too.

Hotep,
Kai