Our schools are using abacuses to teach math and fountain pens to teach writing. My opening sentence is a gross exaggeration but the fact is most schools are using the tools of yesterday in order to teach the workforce of tomorrow. Specifically the way we teach higher mathematics is poor because the most useful tool ever invented for doing math is being almost completely ignored, Programming.

When I was in elementary school our computer class consisted of playing Oregon Trail and typing. By the time I got to high school they did offer a computer programming class as an elective. We did the basics, printing things to the screen, using control logic and loops, a great way to introduce somebody to computer programming. I consider that class to be a success but the entire methodology used to teach me mathematics in high school a failure. An intro to computer programming class such as the one I had in high school should have really been given to elementary school students. In high school where students are learning mathematics like algebra, geometry and trigonometry there is no excuse not to have a computer as a major part of that study. Specifically by writing programs that use the skills students are learning.

When you program on any non trivial problem you exercise your abstract thinking ability, your problem solving skills and have the opportunity to put mathematics that may otherwise seem useless, to action. You learn to develop methodologies to come up to solutions to problems. Geometry and trigonometry, 2D and 3D graphics offer a play ground where abstract problems can be visualized and there can be direct interaction. Algebra and pre-calculus are used all the time in non trivial problems, the concept of functions, recursion, set theory, algorithm development, all used when programming. The most important single benefit of programming for the math student is the application of his work to a problem who’s solution can be a lot more exciting then a number on a piece of paper.

Many students are using programmable calculators in the high schools but I feel even that is insufficient. If students were writing programs on desktop computers with an actual programming language that is used for more then just molding math then they could get the sense that they are learning a skill that may have use in their every day lives. Even if they don’t intend to be programmers they may have a web site in which they can use their new found programming skills to enhance their content.

Computers answer the question that is heard throughout high school math classes, “When will we ever user this stuff in the real world?”. Students are all too often expected to take it on faith that they will need math for some magical purpose later on in life. Many of them will not, there are numerous jobs some of which pay quite well in which knowing anything but basic arithmetic is not required. Many doctors and lawyers can probably go their whole careers without using any kind of higher mathematics and we generally consider those two professions as among the more educated amongst the population. The problem is of course it is not knowable in high school what career a student may end up perusing. All too often students in higher education do not peruse a degree in the field they really desire because they are afraid of the mathematics involved. I was one of those students who asked “when will I ever use this math in real life”. I wish now that I had seen that in the future I would need mathematics to do what I love doing. I paid for that lack of fore site in college where I had to play catch-up on the math front. I am lucky that I had enough background to get me though, I wonder how many students never even tried to peruse their dreams because lack of confidence in mathematics.

* Abacuses or abaci, I choice the less used abacuses because the word is Arabic and abaci is a Latin pluralisation of an Arabic word, see here.

This is the last of a three part series on the impact of Web 2.0 for businesses who have an online presence.  “Web 2.0″ is a term coined for the next generation of development in interactive design and development.

Our last issue discussed the impact of social media and user-generated content on your branding efforts.  Now, we’ll be covering the visual style of the next generation of interactive development collectively known as “web 2.0.”

It’s not about visual presentation! It’s all about visual presentation! Which is it, anyway?

As the next phase of interactive media marches on, leaving table tags and browser-based hacks in its wake, what is coming next for designers? What new methods are worth learning and implementing, and which ones are going to be outdated before they even make it through the “early adopter” stage?

This is made additionally complex by the very nebulous and somewhat ill-defined nature of Web 2.0 itself. When even Wikipedia can’t decide whether the visual elements are relevant to Web 2.0, it’s no wonder others find it confusing.

Semantic Markup and CSS
As the web becomes more and more about content, and less and less about presentation, clean, semantic markup is no longer optional: it’s critical.

As Richard McManus and Joshua Porter write in their article for Digital Web magazine, “Because content flows across the web in RSS feeds and can be remixed along the way, Web designers must now think beyond sites and figure out how to brand the content itself.” Part of branding the content is offering it in a reliable, semantic format, such as XML or RSS.

Meaningful tags and semantic markup allow you to position the content itself for maximum relevance and increase the odds that interested users will find it through whatever web services they are using. The advances made in standards-compliance by the major browsers in the last year are rapidly removing any remaining excuses for not switching to CSS-based design.

So if presentation is dead, then what’s left to design?

Web 2.0 puts the emphasis on content, but with so many outlets for the same content and APIs, presentation is far from dead.

Without the content exclusivity of earlier stages of the Web, today’s presentation focus needs to be on creating a superior user experience, so your interface becomes the preferred source of many for that content. Open APIs, tagged and shared content, and user-generated content can create a level playing field on the backend. The UI is still important, and may be the last place your particular site gets the opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

By using semantic markup to effectively brand the content itself and developing a rich user experience on the front-end, you capture users from both directions.

Design Trends Worth Noting
The social web and the new paradigm of Web 2.0 has been pushing certain design trends. Larger fonts and simpler, centered, fixed-width layouts create more white space, putting the focus on the content. These techniques are also much easier on the eyes of the users, compared to the crammed-full, busy designs of the past. Rounded shapes and softer, neutral background colors also carry forward this concept of being easier on the eye.

Today’s users also seem to be less concerned than in the past with scrolling, at least to a point. The benefits of a more comfortable line height and font size can overrule the “keep it above the fold” rule.

Subtle use of 3-dimensional effects can be very effective in creating a sense of depth on these simpler layouts, avoiding a “flat” look. However, it’s easy to get heavy-handed with the use of gradients, drop shadows, and “wet floor” effects. There are unfortunately plenty of examples of 3-d effects being overused on the Web right now.

Ben Hunt has a fairly comprehensive breakdown of these recent design trends and others on webdesignfromscratch.com

Want to get next month’s LFI University?  Sign up now on the homepage.

This is the last of a three part series on the impact of Web 2.0 for businesses who have an online presence.  “Web 2.0″ is a term coined for the next generation of development in interactive design and development.

Our last issue discussed the impact of social media and user-generated content on your branding efforts.  Now, we’ll be covering the visual style of the next generation of interactive development collectively known as “web 2.0.”

It’s not about visual presentation! It’s all about visual presentation! Which is it, anyway?

As the next phase of interactive media marches on, leaving table tags and browser-based hacks in its wake, what is coming next for designers? What new methods are worth learning and implementing, and which ones are going to be outdated before they even make it through the “early adopter” stage?

This is made additionally complex by the very nebulous and somewhat ill-defined nature of Web 2.0 itself. When even Wikipedia can’t decide whether the visual elements are relevant to Web 2.0, it’s no wonder others find it confusing.

Semantic Markup and CSS
As the web becomes more and more about content, and less and less about presentation, clean, semantic markup is no longer optional: it’s critical.

As Richard McManus and Joshua Porter write in their article for Digital Web magazine, “Because content flows across the web in RSS feeds and can be remixed along the way, Web designers must now think beyond sites and figure out how to brand the content itself.” Part of branding the content is offering it in a reliable, semantic format, such as XML or RSS.

Meaningful tags and semantic markup allow you to position the content itself for maximum relevance and increase the odds that interested users will find it through whatever web services they are using. The advances made in standards-compliance by the major browsers in the last year are rapidly removing any remaining excuses for not switching to CSS-based design.

So if presentation is dead, then what’s left to design?

Web 2.0 puts the emphasis on content, but with so many outlets for the same content and APIs, presentation is far from dead.

Without the content exclusivity of earlier stages of the Web, today’s presentation focus needs to be on creating a superior user experience, so your interface becomes the preferred source of many for that content. Open APIs, tagged and shared content, and user-generated content can create a level playing field on the backend. The UI is still important, and may be the last place your particular site gets the opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

By using semantic markup to effectively brand the content itself and developing a rich user experience on the front-end, you capture users from both directions.

Design Trends Worth Noting
The social web and the new paradigm of Web 2.0 has been pushing certain design trends. Larger fonts and simpler, centered, fixed-width layouts create more white space, putting the focus on the content. These techniques are also much easier on the eyes of the users, compared to the crammed-full, busy designs of the past. Rounded shapes and softer, neutral background colors also carry forward this concept of being easier on the eye.

Today’s users also seem to be less concerned than in the past with scrolling, at least to a point. The benefits of a more comfortable line height and font size can overrule the “keep it above the fold” rule.

Subtle use of 3-dimensional effects can be very effective in creating a sense of depth on these simpler layouts, avoiding a “flat” look. However, it’s easy to get heavy-handed with the use of gradients, drop shadows, and “wet floor” effects. There are unfortunately plenty of examples of 3-d effects being overused on the Web right now.

Ben Hunt has a fairly comprehensive breakdown of these recent design trends and others on webdesignfromscratch.com

Want to get next month’s LFI University?  Sign up now on the homepage.

This is the last of a three part series on the impact of Web 2.0 for businesses who have an online presence.  “Web 2.0″ is a term coined for the next generation of development in interactive design and development.

Our last issue discussed the impact of social media and user-generated content on your branding efforts.  Now, we’ll be covering the visual style of the next generation of interactive development collectively known as “web 2.0.”

It’s not about visual presentation! It’s all about visual presentation! Which is it, anyway?

As the next phase of interactive media marches on, leaving table tags and browser-based hacks in its wake, what is coming next for designers? What new methods are worth learning and implementing, and which ones are going to be outdated before they even make it through the “early adopter” stage?

This is made additionally complex by the very nebulous and somewhat ill-defined nature of Web 2.0 itself. When even Wikipedia can’t decide whether the visual elements are relevant to Web 2.0, it’s no wonder others find it confusing.

Semantic Markup and CSS
As the web becomes more and more about content, and less and less about presentation, clean, semantic markup is no longer optional: it’s critical.

As Richard McManus and Joshua Porter write in their article for Digital Web magazine, “Because content flows across the web in RSS feeds and can be remixed along the way, Web designers must now think beyond sites and figure out how to brand the content itself.” Part of branding the content is offering it in a reliable, semantic format, such as XML or RSS.

Meaningful tags and semantic markup allow you to position the content itself for maximum relevance and increase the odds that interested users will find it through whatever web services they are using. The advances made in standards-compliance by the major browsers in the last year are rapidly removing any remaining excuses for not switching to CSS-based design.

So if presentation is dead, then what’s left to design?

Web 2.0 puts the emphasis on content, but with so many outlets for the same content and APIs, presentation is far from dead.

Without the content exclusivity of earlier stages of the Web, today’s presentation focus needs to be on creating a superior user experience, so your interface becomes the preferred source of many for that content. Open APIs, tagged and shared content, and user-generated content can create a level playing field on the backend. The UI is still important, and may be the last place your particular site gets the opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

By using semantic markup to effectively brand the content itself and developing a rich user experience on the front-end, you capture users from both directions.

Design Trends Worth Noting
The social web and the new paradigm of Web 2.0 has been pushing certain design trends. Larger fonts and simpler, centered, fixed-width layouts create more white space, putting the focus on the content. These techniques are also much easier on the eyes of the users, compared to the crammed-full, busy designs of the past. Rounded shapes and softer, neutral background colors also carry forward this concept of being easier on the eye.

Today’s users also seem to be less concerned than in the past with scrolling, at least to a point. The benefits of a more comfortable line height and font size can overrule the “keep it above the fold” rule.

Subtle use of 3-dimensional effects can be very effective in creating a sense of depth on these simpler layouts, avoiding a “flat” look. However, it’s easy to get heavy-handed with the use of gradients, drop shadows, and “wet floor” effects. There are unfortunately plenty of examples of 3-d effects being overused on the Web right now.

Ben Hunt has a fairly comprehensive breakdown of these recent design trends and others on webdesignfromscratch.com

Want to get next month’s LFI University?  Sign up now on the homepage.

Remember the first time you went to a public library? Probably not, ok…Remember last year when you went to the library to check out The Pocket Zen Reader? Well, maybe that’s just me…

In Louisville, the main branch of the public library is on 3^rd and York, roughly taking up the entire block. It’s a cool place, once when I was leaving, a homeless man gave me a well-worn BET t-shirt, 3 pictures of Jesus, and a T-mobile lunch bag. I still have the pictures of Jesus. In any case, no matter how many times I get hit up for money or am scared to get out of my car I will continue to go to the public library downtown. The foyer of the building is gorgeous, by the way, and there is always a fresh rotation of art.

One thing that remains the same each time I go to the public library is that the computers with the internet seem to be the most popular attraction. Reading books is boring anyway, unless it’s Pocket Zen Reader. Anyhow – my point is this: if people aren’t looking at the internet, they want to be. It’s more engaging than television because we get to interact and communicate, and it’s more productive than a video game, unless you count spending two days straight playing Final Fantasy XXVII as productive. Pretty soon the library will be a book cemetery full of computers.

The average public library internet user is not the ideal consumer, I know. I recently saw a PBS special on the hippies that invaded San Francisco in the 60s. I was fascinated by their “no work, buy nothing” mentality. I bet those hippies hung out all day at the public library, and nothing against a hippie, if anyone is a tree-hugger it’s me. Personally, I like to work and I like buying stuff, a lot. Treehugger.com, anyone?

“Living beings have no absolute self; they are all influenced by conditions and actions” Thank you, Zen Reader. As seedy as facilities at public libraries may be sometimes, it’s nice to have those public spaces with internet resources for those who normally have no access to a metal box with a fan on it. Communal internet: the trickle down effect at it’s finest.

Steve Kelly joins Mike today on the LeapCast. Mr. Kelly is the Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing for Central Bank. Join us as we discuss how Central Bank is taking on the Internet to provide an extended conversation and continue their growth on and offline.

 LeapCast: 4.23.07 - Special Guest Steve Kelly / Central Bank: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Mike and Ryan discuss Google’s recent DoubleClick move as well some recent bid preference changes in AdWords.

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This week I’ve been working on updating our communications plan, confronting the eternal question of lead generation – how to create a message that appeals to as many as possible without losing the individuality of the message.

While I’ll probably never be accused of leading a perfectly balanced life, I do believe that most things work out best when a balance is found between the extremes.  While I would love to deliver a message that is entirely personalized to every recipient, such messaging would make it impossible to reach enough people to provide benefit.  At the same time a generic message, while providing a much greater reach, will likely fall on deaf ears 99.9% of the time.

We’ve all encountered both extremes in communications – from the bland generic mass mailings sent to every mailbox in the country to the direct sales call from someone that seems to know my every move from the last two years. 

The good news is that technology is rapidly advancing the ability to find the balance by delivering personalized, targeted messages to a broad audience of people.  While this may not be the middle path to enlightenment, it does provide some exciting opportunities for creating and delivering your message.    

Imagine a marketing world where your message is screened by a panel of judges who impact the visibility of your brand. Follow that by a voting process where the consumer determines whether or not your message is kicked out of the competition. Sound like a far-fetched marketer’s nightmare? In reality, it’s just everyday interactive marketing!

Whether you like it or not, your online brand is in a contest. It is part of a judging and voting process that controls the visibility and longevity of your message. Search engines place a great many well-conceived rules and regulations around your message, and then judge your site to determine how well or poorly you did.

Beyond that, search engines respond to the voting public. With each search conducted, the search engines count the votes. Sites that receive the highest vote tallies (i.e. clicks) are granted higher scores in the competition for that search term. Over time those sites with relatively fewer votes are “kicked off” the top five, then off the first page, and so on.

So how do you ensure your site is the Kelly Clarkson of internet marketing?

Build it right. This isn’t hard and the rules are established. Find an interactive agency with the credentials and experience you can trust to build your website in a manner the ‘judges’ will like. (And don’t try tricks – the search engines are smarter than you!)

Stay relevant. If you abandon your website once it’s built, consumers will do exactly the same. Everything from content to imagery to site features and tools need constant updating, indexing, and growth. Search engines reward activity and so do users.

Get talked about. We may root for the underdog and empathize with the wallflower, but in online marketing, it’s the brand socialites who get all the votes. If you haven’t yet gotten serious about getting talked about…now’s the time. Coordinated, measured, and consistent activity in blogs, podcasts, video sites, and social media communities will start and sustain excitement about your brand that turns into votes.

And remember, the most savvy American Idol contestants don’t let the judging and voting scare them. They make an impact, mold opinion, and drive their own result. With a little hard work and the right partner, your online brand can do the same.

A while back, I was assigned the task of writing a new user’s manual for the most recent update of the Leapfrog Editing and Publishing Framework (L.E.A.P. Framework), built on the Drupal Content Management framework. (Which, by the way, rocks. Great job to all the guys who worked on it!) The first place I turned to for ideas and best practices was Creating Passionate Users, the blog of tech author and speaker Kathy Sierra.

I adored her “Creating Passionate Users” blog, and printed and highlighted some of her articles on writing butt-kicking users manuals. And her “Head First” books are fantastic examples of well-written computer manuals.

So I was profoundly disturbed when I checked back at CPU, and saw that Kathy had canceled her speech at O’Reilly Media’s ETech conference. What was more disturbing was the reason why.

Apparently, she started getting several threatening, hate-based comments on her blog. Then a couple of prominent bloggers started up two sites where the whole point was to say hateful things about other bloggers. There were some extremely disturbing, graphic words and images posted on those blogs about Sierra. Eventually, she canceled her speaking engagements, involved the police, and opened up about it on CPU.

It became a huge deal in the blogging community, and it sparked a lot of discussion about misogyny on the web. Many of the men were shocked at the things that were posted to and about Kathy. Most of the women who commented in response had experienced similar things.

This is a very present, personal issue for me. I truly believe in the internet as a powerful communication tool. As a writer, I honestly believe it’s the publishing outlet of the future. The internet and blogging make global conversation possible and personal. The public forum of the ancient Greeks, where important ideas can receive passionate and thoughtful debate by the best minds of the culture, has become the message board forum and the blog in the twenty-first century.

Unless those best minds are held within a woman’s body.

I’ve been writing on the internet for a long time. Long enough to know that it’s a given that if I participated in that global conversation at the level I would prefer, I’d be painting a giant target on myself that says “Hey, misogynistic freaks! Fresh meat!” I’ve had enough experiences on message boards to know that on the internet, just being a smart woman who expresses herself is incomprehensibly infuriating to a small but vocal group of men, to a near-pathological degree.

I hate that. Because I’ve struggled with some of the same questions Kathy is currently struggling with (albeit in a “prior to getting death threats” way, rather than post-death-threat). What I do best is write. That’s the best thing I have to offer and contribute to the world, and my employer, LeapFrog. So do I write anonymously? Write as “K.L. French” and pretend to be a faceless, genderless ghost for as long as possible? Just “suck it up” and accept that receiving vile, hideous comments and emails are just part of doing what I love? Granted, there are no by-lines on much of the web copy I write.

I just wonder how many smart women are not contributing to the global conversation because we’re letting emotionally-stunted freaks win…