iTrade Accounts split US/CDN dollars
Scotia Exchange – 1.241800 ($8736.06)
USD Exchange – 1.283830 ($9031.74)
Summary – a “clean” exchange, i.e. no fees would have net $9031.74 – this is theoretical as there is no way to exchange USD to CAD without fees – the goal of Norbert’s Gambit is to reduce fees.
A straight transfer from USD to CAD in iTrade would have given me $8736.06, i.e. a difference of $295.68. On Scotia there is no “fee” per se – Scotia takes their fee in the difference between the actual exchange rate and their exchange rate which can fluctuate between 2.5% to 3.5% difference.
Norbert’s Gambit had the following costs:
Fees – $9.99 to buy the DLR.U shares and $9.99 to sell the DLR shares – Journaling (other than your time) is free.
Slippage – $40.75 – this is the difference between the exchange when I bought the shares and when I sold them – with fees and slippage the total cost was $60.73. Slippage could also work the other way, i.e. I could have made $40 on the trade if the dollar had moved in the other direction overnight.
You can see from the information above that if you have the time – it is worthwhile to use Norbert’s Gambit for any USD:CAD currency exchange over ~$800.
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Our first year we decided to roll out laptops to our primary teachers, K-3. We struck a focus group and developed a professional development (PD) plan. We implemented software that would allow us to track the usage of the laptops and determine if they were being used. We discovered that we had a small cohort of teachers who, even after their two days of PD, were still not using their laptop. We worked with the school principals to bring these teachers in for an additional PD day. We got our count of reluctant users down to a single teacher, which for a cohort of 230, I thought was pretty good.
When we started our 21st Century Library project in 2012 we developed a similar plan. We were rolling out netbooks and iPads, both devices we expected would last four years. In picking ¼ of the schools we changed things up. We only took volunteers and selected volunteer schools where there was a willingness in school administration and the library to transform the library into a technology embedded hub. We wanted the “Coalition of the Willing.” We had volunteers until our fourth and final year when all we had was a group of schools that for whatever reason had delayed. Some of this was a “Let’s wait and see” approach…In a few cases I think there was hope that the digital transformation of the library was a fad that would surely blow over. Whatever the reason, we had a tool in our arsenal that we did not have when we did our teacher laptop project..a cohort of librarians who had all volunteered, who were keen and had been involved with the project for over three years. This secret weapon helped to save the day in that fourth year.
One of the charts I saw often in my MBA is Gartner’s Hype Cycle. It shows how consumer’s attitudes towards technology evolve over time, starting with adoption/introduction of the technology, called “the trigger” and ending with the “plateau of productivity.”
Take notice of the peak, the trough and the plateau. While I find the Hype cycle interesting, I think it gets very interesting (and helpful) when I layer four of them over one another and shift each by one year, in effect showing where each cohort of a four year rollout is on their journey with a new technology.
Things to note about my “evergreen” version:
When the year 1 cohort (red) is in their trough of disillusionment, the year 2 cohort (blue) is in their peak. The positive energy from the new cohort helps the previous cohort through the trough. This happens each year.
When you are in the fourth and final year you may not have the same excitement as you did with the early adopters but this is offset by the fact that your year 1 and 2 cohorts are now in their plateau of productivity. What we noticed in our library project is these early cohorts were excellent troubleshooters and were able to share their success stories to help along their colleagues who came later to the project.
In year 5, or the first refresh of the technology, you will have your first cohort in the peak, your 2nd and 3rd cohort in the productivity plateau, all available and willing to help your 4th cohort through the trough.
An obvious drawback to this strategy is that it takes four years to fully implement but my experience has been that for large system level change it is best to go this slow. It stabilizes cost, allows for the organisation to adapt and gives time for new capabilities to be embedded in the culture. In conclusion, evergreen+hype cycle=success.
Originally posted June 26, 2017 to meet a course requirement for my MBA. Revised and republished 29 December 2021.
]]>BEP2 based AWC tokens can be staked in the wallet for a 17-23% return but a little googling will tell you that they are difficult to get out of Atomic Wallet, i.e. cash in.
Here are steps that worked for me:
Once the tokens are in BNB you can exchange them, send them back to Atomic, cash them out on Binance, stake them or whatever your heart desires.
]]>Step 1: Install Dropbox and Autohotkey. Might I suggest another timesaver, http://ninite.com to do so.
Step 2: Create a folder called AHK in your Dropbox
Step 3: Use Notepad to create a blank script file called myscripts.ahk in your new AHK folder
Step 4: Run Autohotkey, right click on the H in your task tray and select “Edit this Script”
Step 5: Add this line into your default Autohotkey Script, it will “include” your dropbox script in the default script (Check the path for the correct name and location..yours may be different depending on where you keep your Dropbox folder):
#INCLUDE C:\Users\YOURNAME\Desktop\Dropbox\AHK\myscripts.ahk
Repeat Step 4 and 5 on any computer on which you are using AutoHotkey and your “MyScripts” file will be loaded for you…text expansion goodness anywhere.
Advanced note: My work computer has a user name of sheuchert and my home computer has a username of sean so to keep the script the same across all computers you can use the SYMLINK command to create virtual folders with the right name but which point to the right location depending on my computer.
Here is another reason I love Autohotkey:
Keyboard Shortcut to display file extensions:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/keyboard-ninja-toggle-file-extension-display-with-a-shortcut-key-in-windows/
And of course, typing this “Peterborough, Victoria, Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board” by only typing this: “#pvnc” is golden.
]]>Upon hearing that I was a pilot I was quickly put to work as navigator. The Captain knew our route with eyes closed but had me taking bearings every few minutes. This involved shooting a bearing using a gyro compass similar to the one shown below.
I would line up the compass with a known feature identified on our map and draw a line on that angle from that feature. I would repeat the process twice more with different landmarks. The three bearings had to be taken quickly as there was no way the Captain was going to slow down for an airplane pilot to take a bearing on board his ship. After this process I would end up with three intersecting lines on the map:
If I had taken the bearings quickly and accurately the lines would intersect in a tiny triangle and we could be confident the ship was located within that triangle. Sometimes I was taking a bearing on a land mass that was close beside us and the bearing changed quickly as we steamed by, sometimes I was just too slow and the Captain would look at my huge triangulation, shrug and say “Do it again.”
I had not thought about this experience for a long time but was reminded a few years ago when our Ministry of Education in Ontario rolled out a new Assessment policy.
There are three keys to making a triangulation successfully, good landmarks, taking accurate bearings and taking the bearings quickly.
Good landmarks in this context are your own observations as a teacher, conversations between student and teacher and student product. As in navigation, “Using multiple sources of evidence increases the reliability and validity of the evaluation of student learning.” (Ontario, 2010)
Taking accurate bearings speaks for itself in one way, you want to make sure that you are fairly and accurately assessing student work. I would take this metaphor a step further and come back to one of the fundamental principles of the Ministry’s assessment policy, teachers are to use practices that are carefully planned and as much as possible relate to the interests, learning styles, needs and experiences of all students (Ontario, 2010). We can be accurate if we remember our “landmarks” of conversations, observations and product.
The final point is taking a quick bearing. In the numerous student and parent surveys we have completed over the last three years we often heard that timeliness of feedback needs to be improved. This is another of the principles in our province’s assessment policy, “provide ongoing descriptive feedback that is clear, specific, meaningful, and timely to support improved learning and achievement.” The key to remember here is that when you are on board a moving ship, the bearing you take is only valuable for a moment….it is used to make a slight course correction and then you must take another. If you are not doing it quickly and often, you could get lost or run aground. That is the last thing we want for our students.
Reference:
Government of Ontario. (2010). Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario Schools. Ministry of Education. Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/growSuccess.pdf
OTA Antenna – I like the RCA Multidrectional Indoor Antenna, it is available at Canadian Tire (Product #045-2815-4) for $90. It mounts in the window and is fairly inobtrusive. It also has an amplifier which helped bring in an additional channel for me.
Tablo Tuner and PVR – This can be ordered direct from Tablo at https://www.tablotv.com/store/ or online at various retailers like Best Buy and New Egg. I picked the two tuner model because I don’t watch that much TV.Tablo
Subscription – I opted for the lifetime subscription for $179.99, after 3 years you break even when compared to the yearly subscription.
Set top box of your choice – We purchase our movies from iTunes so Apple TV was the choice for us. It has to be a new Apple TV (the one with the black remote). I tried a Roku box and it was excellent but the movie rentals and purchases on my Apple ID brought me back to Apple TV (Update – some Roku support Airplay and Apple Channel now). Check the Tablo site for other options, some TV’s have Tablo capability already.
I also subscribe to Netflix, Crave TV and FonGo (~$25/month) and changed my internet provider to one that had an unlimited plan ($45).
So, my monthly fees are down to $70/month from $180/month for cable (including internet and home phone). I spent about $600 on everything, including a new Apple TV. At that rate I will break even in under six months.
“Dad, what will your next vehicle be…a truck?”
Me: “A truck would be nice, it sure would make towing the camper trailer easier.”
“If you buy a truck, you should buy a Dodge.”
Me: “Why is that?”
“They can tow anything!”
Me: “Thanks, buddy…how do you know that?”
Cue Dodge Ram advertisement…
This discussion leads me to the first reason I believe schools (and school districts) should buy apps for their students, children are extremely susceptible to advertising. This should not be news to anyone. In fact, in Canada, advertisers have been governed by the “Canadian Code of Advertising Standards” since 1963. The code states “advertising that is directed to children must not exploit their credulity, lack of experience or their sense of loyalty, and must not present information or illustrations that might result in their physical, emotional or moral harm.” This is good in theory, and we can see these standards play out in broadcast media, but I would challenge anyone using a “free” children’s app to look discerningly at the in-app ads and maintain that they meet this standard, and in a world of rotating push advertising, that they meet this standard all the time. The response I hear most often to this concern is “we just ignore them.” I refer back to the Code and highlight the “lack of experience” children have. As adults, we recognise the almost coercive power of advertising, all the hooks that are specifically designed to get us to click through. Children have not yet developed this “muscle” but if anything, it would be an excellent topic for class discussion. According to the Ontario Ministry of Education’s “Paying Attention to Literacy“. Literacy involves the capacity to access, manage, create and evaluate information. This could lead to some fascinating and helpful discussions around advertising and its role in the new digital media.
Let me be clear, I do not have anything against content creators getting paid. In fact, it is the opposite. Have you ever tried to program an app? It is hard work, even harder to make all the visual elements of the app appealing. An article in “Venture Beat” reported that app store superstar Supercell, makers of Clash of Clans, Boom Beach and Hay Day, made profits of $964 million on revenue of $2326 million in 2015. To put that another way, Supercell had expenses of $1 362 million to create and support just three apps. That is an oversimplified view of their operations to be sure but it gives an idea of the cost and effort it takes to create compelling apps. A Business Insider report pegged the cost to produce Grand Theft Auto V at $266 million. Again, an extreme example but the point is, developing an app is challenging and the people doing it deserve to be compensated. I think the best model for allowing that to happen in a mobile app store is the in-app purchase of advertising removal. In a school, this would allow the teacher to try the app at no cost and if deemed appropriate for the classroom, remove the advertising with an in app purchase. Unfortunately this method does not work well on a school district level where Apple’s Volume Purchase Program (VPP) is typically used to purchase apps. Recommendations for a work around are described on Jamf Nation
Finally, app advertising can create security risks. This will get a little bit technical but some of the new attack vectors related to app advertising are worth noting. Cloudflare details on their blog how an ad network can be leveraged to kick off a distributed denial of service attack. While one of the appeals of the iOS App Store is that it is curated and secured, there is a much lower level of security and curation on the ads that are served. In fact, iOS 10.3 rolled out with support for 3rd party advertising. This opens the door for exploits similar to Stegano which targeted website banner advertising. This attack vector could be used to exploit a future vulnerability in iOS or Android.
In summary, there are three reasons to purchase apps for our students (free apps are not free):
What do you think of ad supported apps in the classroom?
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