Monthly Archives: January 2009

Jan 12 2009

links for 2009-01-11

Jan 11 2009

A Call for Unity

One of the problems with the plethora of bloggers out there is that we’re literally all over the place.  If you happen to stumble on one of our blog posts, you can become a subscriber.  That works out nicely.

Of course, there are utilities like Google’s Blog Search that lets you perform a search and happen upon a new blog to read in that fashion.  I suspect that most people don’t use features like that or places like Technorati to find new readings.

Instead, I think there’s probably a great deal of word of mouth exchange of links, or you might find a website which features an ongoing blog to support the cause of the website, or you might be intrigued by a post notice on Plurk or Twitter and wander over out of curiosity.  You might also stumble into new readings by checking out the blog roll of your favourite blog.  This is a location where your favourite author claims that she / he follows these other blogs.

Once identified, you’ll put them in your RSS Reader in the Flock browser or Google Reader or Netvibes or …  Right?

More and more I’m finding that the answer to this is not really.  Everyone has great plans to set up a reader and follow but then life gets in the way.

There are a couple of great websites that collect this information for you.  Two of them, PopUrls and Alltop are actually start tabs for my browsers.  These are collections that provide mass appeal to readers.  There’s even a “Canadian” collection on Alltop.

But, what about drilling down to something specific like “Ontario Educators’ Blogs”?  Perhaps too fine a drill for the big world, but still of interest to those of us in the province.  There is an alternative.  It’s hosted by ECOO and called Commun-it.

Commun-it is free for the joining and a place for educators to join special interest groups and you can even host your blog there.  There is an added benefit.  If you wish to keep your blog on your present host (like I do at WordPress), then you can ask to have your blog scraped regularly and posted on the Community page.  That gives you the freedom to maintain your identity but also to have your thoughts appear amidst those of other Ontario bloggers.

That is a good thing.  It allows us to create our own community of educational blog resources with hopefully a decided Ontario slant.  Lets make it easier for people to read quality Ontario postings.

I would call upon all Ontario educational bloggers to take advantage of this opportunity.

A screencast showing how to do this, created by Tim Hawes,  is located here.

Social Bookmarks:

Powered by ScribeFire.

Jan 11 2009

links for 2009-01-10

Jan 10 2009

Microsoft Windows and me

On my drive home yesterday, I heard on the radio about this being the big weekend to preview Microsoft Windows 7.  One reviewer’s first impressions are available here.

While still focused on driving, my mind did start to wander about my history with Windows.  Like everyone these days, the household does have a computer or two hanging around.  Like everyone, we keep looking forward to the day when these things truly become appliances and just work.  But, that hasn’t happened yet and so I continue to look for the closest thing.

Due to the nature of my work, I need to know about these things so that I can understand and assist folks who are working at home.  So, it should come as no surprise that I have Windows, Mac OS, and Ubuntu installed and working at various places. But, today, it’s all about Windows.

I foresaw the end of civilization when Windows, version 1, was released.  After all, real computer users worked with the command line.  We knew about switches and pathnames and attrib and the lot.  We actually knew where stuff was stored and how it worked.  We knew the difference between batch files, .com files, and .exe files.  A year earlier, I had attended the MACUL conference and saw a demonstration of the Lisa computer.  Pfffft.  It’s just a scam to get people who didn’t know about computers to buy one. Well… So, over the years, I was proved wrong over and over.

Windows 3 – it was here that I became convinced that I was wrong and perhaps this mouse stuff would catch on.  Windows 3.1 allowed for some interesting graphical displays and working with computers did become interesting for the masses.  Lots of breakthroughs.  There was even the concept of networking with Windows for Workgroups!

Windows 95 – just a glorified version of Windows 3, they say.  Well, there’s got to be more to it than that.  After all, revisions going from 3 to 95 had to mean something.  It really did.  Windows 95 was actually an OS in itself and you didn’t have to buy MS-DOS to sit under it.

Windows 98 – my biggest and fondest memory of Windows 98 was that it became mobile with USB support.  I still remember paying $128 for a 32MB memory key.  It was cutting edge and the concept of carrying your data from one computer to the next was really exciting.

Windows ME – somewhere around this time, we bought a new home computer and it came with this OS.  Had to install it, of course.  You couldn’t foresake the latest and greatest.  For my money, this was much to do about nothing.  Maybe I just didn’t install it properly.

Windows NT – How could you make life more confusing and complicated?  Why not take all of these machines and network them?  Delving into this field with NT and Windows 2000 added to the learning curve.  Properly configured, you could do some amazing things in terms of performance and also managing decent sized networks.

Windows XP – This still is the standard for our workstations in our schools.  It’s a real workhorse and most developers have written or re-written their code so that it runs under Windows XP without hassles.  For the first time, when you buy software, you really don’t have to ask the obligatory, “Will it run under…?” But, Windows XP is now eight years old!

Computer use has become so much more sophisticated and the hardware and software needs to take advantage of these changes and so we have Windows Vista.  Is this eye candy or what?  I seem to be one of the few people that actualy like and use it regularly.  Of course, the “experts” won’t run it until at least service pack 3, if at all, and are very vocal about it.  Heck, they even recommend taking a perfectly tuned new computer and putting Windows XP on it. They may not get a chance with Windows 7 on the horizon.  It looks interesting and I’ll be waiting to hear the reviews about it this weekend during the official preview launch.

Will I be switching to Windows 7?  Quite probably to stay on top of the latest and most current. So, it’s been an interesting haul.  With all that I’ve messed with, there were even more versions of Windows that I missed.  See the complete timeline here.

Along this timeline, the concept of numbers sure has gone astray.  By my count, we’re beyond version 7 of this GUI interface, aren’t we? Oh, man….  just a quick review of the above reminds me that I forgot about Windows BOB and CE.

Thank goodness I am a lifelong learner!

Social Bookmarks:

Powered by ScribeFire.

Jan 10 2009

links for 2009-01-09

Jan 9 2009

You know why

you became a teacher when you have moments like this.

I was out to one of our elementary schools this afternoon more or less on business.  There was a presentation being given to a small group of teachers about a particular reading program.  We’ve got a number of licenses for this software program and, recently, one of our outstanding educators had given a presentation at the Symposium 2008 conference where the principal of this school was first introduced to the program.  He wanted to expose his staff to the possibilities.

So, we’re down there and do our thing and folks are talking about the possibilities.  We’re feeling pretty good about delivering a motivating session and decide to let the moment sink in with the group and make our departure.  Now, it’s after the afternoon recess on a Friday afternoon and I stick my head into the classroom of a friend to say goodbye and wish him a good weekend.

What I see is his class on the carpet around the room’s SMART Board, ready to do a number of things.  I figure — what the hey and ask if I could take the kids for the balance. 

With the assistance of volunteers, we get the board oriented and we go online to the program above.  34 eyes and 170 fingers were immediately engaged and we did some immersive language activities.  Not a class management issue in sight and the discussions and comments that we had were at the very high level for this class.

It doesn’t get much better than this when the bell rings and none of these youngsters want to leave.  It was a happy drive home for me and a great way to start the weekend.

Social Bookmarks:

Powered by ScribeFire.

Jan 9 2009

links for 2009-01-08

Jan 8 2009

Found on the internet

I have made the most incredible find recently.

It comes in the form of my new favourite musical artist.  I can’t recall now how I found Georgia Wonder‘s website but wow.  What talents.

Independent artists, I would encourage you to visit their website, listen to their music, and watch their video on YouTube.  Then, consider heading over to iTunes and purchase some music to support the cause.  You’ll be glad that you did.

They describe their music as The Carpenters driving Tom Petty to an R.E.M. gig but getting crushed under the wheels of Pink Floyd’s tour bus while arguing over whether to listen to ‘Love Shack’ by the B52′s or ‘Go your own way’ by Fleetwood Mac.

Please check them out and share your thoughts.

Social Bookmarks:

Powered by ScribeFire.

Jan 8 2009

links for 2009-01-07

Jan 7 2009

Abusive Commons

I was looking forward to an academic discussion about the use of Creative Commons today but other things got in the road.  So, I’m going to blog my thoughts and I’m sure that I’ll hear back, based upon my opinions.

For a while now, I’ve been really concerned about a number of things and one could be described as the “low hanging fruit”.

There are a number of free applications that seem to becoming viral in the education space, for no particular reason.  I keep waiting for the “Wordle Across the Curriculum” document, for example.  Not to pick on Wordle; it’s a fine application and its concepts used to be one of the higher end assignments that I could give to a computer science class.  It was easy to differentiate with the students and they would motivate each other by their efforts.  In a pre-buzzword era, we might even get into a discussion about scaffolding.

Now, I’m seeing people using these easy tools for some of the simplest reasons.  Unfortunately, many of them tend to be cosmetic.  Recently, I ran into an assignment that had so many marks for inclusion of video, so many for graphics, so many for transitions, … and there was no mention that I saw of content!  It was an English class and this was the culmination of a novel study.

Creative Commons is a terrific concept.  It a way for innovators, creators, producers of great through to share their gift with others.

What I’m seeing happening more though is an abuse of that.  Certain permissions under the Creative Commons allow you to remix, display, or otherwise make things your own, or make it look like it’s your own with proper attribution.  If you’re a web grazer, you see it all the time.  In a blog, there will be a photo or image to go with an entry.  Then, if you look really closely in the fine print at the bottom, an attribution to the fact that someone else created it and place it on Flickr or elsewhere.

This is hardly fair to the original creator of the work.  If their content is good enough to display, it’s good enough to display with pride and proper credit.  But, I wonder why at all.  So often, you see photos or clipart added after the fact as if the entry is unfinished without a picture.

Now we get to the low hanging fruit.  Whatever happened to taking your own cell phone or camera or copy of CorelDRAW! and creating your own original production.  Doing that impresses me.  It’s your work; it’s now a complete package.  There may well be a time when you don’t have the appropriate image and properly including a Creative Commons entry or leaving it blank might be the way to go.

Whilst on this tirade, I would encourage people to learn, read, and truly understand what you’re doing when you put a Creative Commons license on your work.  Think through the implications and be prepared when someone does something with your work that you’re not going to like.  And, for goodness sakes, take a look at the Creative Commons for your own country when you’re going to attach this to your work.  Just like there are differences between Fair Use and Fair Dealing (really?), you need to look and understand what the Creative Commons license that you’re applying means in your country and the limitations and benefits that it provides.

I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one concerned about this.  Read from WindsorDi‘s blog as well.

So, I would implore you to reach higher.  Let’s get back to creating, innovating and producing.

Social Bookmarks:

Powered by ScribeFire.