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After all these years, I still write academic research. I also work with MSIS students on their professional papers.

So today’s entry in Piled Higher and Deeper comics made me giggle. By the time I got to the F’d ratio, I was LOL.

Wired ran an article a few days ago about pecha kucha, an art-house event that turns PowerPoint on its ear and makes presentations bearable.

The rules are simple:

1. 20 slides per presenter
2. 20 seconds maximum per slide
3. The presenter talks as the slides whiz across the screen.
4. No questions may be asked during the presentation.
5. When the show’s done, the presenter is done.
6. Next presenter, please.

I checked Pecha-Kucha.org to see if there were any events posted for Honolulu. After all, there have been pecha kucha events in over 80 cities around the world since 2003.

No luck.

Pecha kucha in Honolulu?

But this seems like a natural for First Fridays. Pecha kucha was first developed for architects and designers, to keep their pitches reasonable. A typical pecha kucha event has 14 slide shows in a single evening. That’s 280 slides.

There are reports of businesses who use pecha kucha as a presentation format for internal meetings. Perhaps this works better when no one else in the room is using a laptop. This article in the New York Times and this Microsoft web page discuss how Microsoft managers deal with laptops in meetings.

Personal computer use in a meeting can be helpful, but a computer is often a distraction, especially when they’re connected to the Internet. Mobile devices are almost as bad, too.

Now I’m wondering if pecha kucha is a useful tool for teaching. While the format doesn’t leave much time for questions, it does provide a quick pace.

Could pecha kucha help in the classroom?

Over the years, I’ve given student presenters rules that are similar to pecha kucha. I hadn’t made the connection until today, though. One common issue was that students tend to have problem with time limits and slide counts, possibly because this type of presentation format takes some practice to do well.

This format might be very useful for presentations given in online courses, though.

It’s been a year since Google started offering free WiFi in Mountain View, California. Their mesh network uses 400 access points scattered around the city to support 15000 users each month. There’s more details in Google’s blog post.

Meanwhile, there isn’t much news about Earthlink’s WiFi project in Chinatown, just a few steps away from my office. I discussed this effort on May 26. The project was announced last summer in several articles, and Hawaiian Electric was a partner. HECO was considering WiFi as one medium for smart electric meters, which I discussed on June 11.

If Anaheim can build out a wireless network for its residents, as discussed in this Wired article, Honolulu could do the same. In the meantime, Road Runner has been adding WiFi Speed Zones for its customers, and is allowing residential users to hook La Fonera mesh routers to their existing cable modem connections.

Meanwhile, Clearwire and the mobile telcos are still marketing their laptop data cards. These devices tap the mobile phone network to deliver a connection in the 50-300 mbps range. It’s not as fast as WiFi, but these connections tend to be more secure than a WiFi connection through an unknown router.

This is all leading up to a reallocation of the wireless spectrum in the US, as mentioned in GoingWiMax. Rumors are popping up again that Google is developing its own mobile device or gPhone.

Given Google’s net-centric business model, a gPhone might need a fast wireless connection. Judging from the photos, it might also need some design work.

I’ve decided to use TurnItIn.com for my Fall 2007 IS 6100-EO and IS 7010-EO courses.  I considered using WebCT, as I mentioned on July 20. However, the setup time for WebCT is more than I can handle.

Also, the new installation of WebCT is asking users the usual set of questions about Java.

I’m finishing the syllabi today, and should have those posted the IS 6100 and IS 7010 course pages by Tuesday.

I have set up the TurnItIn.com sections for each course. Students must sign themselves into their section to turn in assignments and see their grades.  The appropriate course page link above has more information about the signin process.

According to Reuters, paper airline tickets will be phased out by June 1, 2008. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has placed its last order for blank paper tickets. Almost every airline uses IATA tickets when an international traveller requests paper tickets. I still have a few paper ticket stubs that I’ve saved. They’re in a box, with some old postage stamps and punch cards.

The airlines have been preparing for a full conversion to e-tickets, so this news was not a big surprise. Even so, there will always be some travelers who will be shocked when their airline or travel agent doesn’t given them a paper ticket.