Google-able

One of the first things that people do when they are introduced to Google Earth is to check out their backyard.  It’s a human trait in ego-ism, I suppose.  It’s probably also one of the first digital footprints that you have whether you want it or not!

Close to checking out your house is checking yourself out with the Google Search engine.  Now, the digital footprint gets a little bit more serious.  It’s here where your content or content that others have created about you gets displayed.  Now, the good folks at Google aren’t screeners of content.  If it’s there and they find it, they’ll display it in search results.  Good, bad, ugly, mis-spelled, it’s all there and discoverable if it’s posted online.

There were a couple of articles that caught my eye this past week enough for me to blog about them.

The first article was about a British university that was going to offer a Master’s program in Social Media.  The second article dealt with the chance that British education would be revamped to include Social Media including Twitter.

The two seem to make a great deal of sense to me.  Undoubtedly, the university course would dig deeply into the many ways that Social Media shapes society and learning.  The K-12 approach should introduce students to the reach and power of the technology and the responsibility that comes from being a good digital citizen.  Friends, employers, and even the curious can fire up Google or any other search engine and find all that they need to know about you.

The digital identity needs to be created early and like any good resume or CV, updated and checked frequently.  Personally, there were too many important “Doug Peterson”s around to make that what I would use.  However, there were fewer “dougpete”s and so an identity was born.  I keep it updated here and here.  Nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary but if you want to know about me, there it is.  (or at least the part of me that I care to share…)

As the internet becomes increasingly social, students need to recognize the importance of the content that they publish.  After all, this may be the business card of the future.

Image from Pleaseenjoy

Visit the website above to download a template to create your own “Google Me” business card.

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links for 2009-03-30

• Nine great reasons why teachers should use Twitter | Laura Walker
  What’s the point of Twitter? Why should educators get involved? What difference does using Twitter make?

  Here are some answers that you might like to share.

  (tags: web2.0 twitter education teachers socialnetworking teaching resources tools)
• Teaching is not a Dirty Word – The Interactive Whiteboard Revolution
  I'm posting the slides and the audio of the presentation here for anyone interested in looking at it. The audio is synced to the slides… if you do actually watch the entire thing it goes for about 34 minutes.
  (tags: smartboard whiteboard presentation teaching learning)
• My Continuing Education: Blogging Works – We Proved It
  I've used blogs with my classes, especially juniors, for three years now. I have told them each year that it was a good idea. I have modeled blogging with my own blog here, but they have never bought in and really experienced the various advantages until now.
  (tags: blogging blog blogs assessment english web2.0 articles e-learning)
• How to become Twitter Teacher(TT) in 23 steps or less ? | Kapil Bhatia
  Twitter is becoming one of the important part of my digital life and personal learning network. Here is a basic introduction of twitter for teachers. The beauty of twitter is its ease of access ,you don’t have to learn menus and buttons to use this powerful tool
  (tags: web2.0 education twitter teaching tools collaboration teacher howto)
• google me business card by ji lee
  Design your own business cards to find yourself on Google
  (tags: google)
• Top 20 Ways to Share a Great Blog Post
  One of the best things about the web and social media is how much great information is written and produced every single day. If you’re a regular reader of blogs, you probably come across great articles that you just want everyone to know about. But what’s the best way to share these posts?
  (tags: tools blogs twitter tips sharing socialmedia blog blogging)
• Flowplayer – Flash Video Player for the Web
  Flowplayer is a GPL licensed video player for Web sites. Use it to embed video streams into your HTML pages.
  (tags: flash video player flv opensource streaming web tools)
• tweecious
  It's a simple browser add-on – we go through your tweets, find those with links and post them to your delicious account.
  (tags: web2.0 del.icio.us plugin bookmarking delicious firefox browser twitter)

Higher Education

While we struggle with it, and many block it, news from the British is that they recognize social networking at an entirely different level.

From the Telegraph comes this story.

A degree in social networking?  It seems like the next logical step.  Earlier this week came word that there was at least speculation that social networking would be incorporated in the K-12 curriculum.

I found the quote at the bottom of the article very interesting.  The quote indicated that the curriculum could be self-taught.  Isn’t that the point?  We’re learning how to use Facebook, Twitter, and Bebo on our own.  How much more effectively could they be used if we apply academic rigor to them?

There is a global reach to these things.  There’s a great deal of potential and potential wealth to the successful.

Image via Wikipedia

Imagine what could be taught academically to learn skills above and beyond posting a picture of yourself out on the town with the lads having a yard of ale.

• strategic advertisement in marketing to get potential readers driven to your product;
• designing online games and collaboration spaces at the highest level in computer science;
• how to teach and imploy ethical online behaviour in the social studies;
• how to design and write for an entirely different audience in language classes;
• how to determine pricing and manage the flow of income and expenses in business;
• how to scale server farms to ensure uninterrupted flow of data in your technology courses;
• how to ensure that your presence and applications appeal to users of all races and languages in second language and social science courses;
• how to incorporate mapping and GPS concepts in your geography course;
• designing collaborative environments that work – if you’ve joined, you’ve seen best of breed and worst of breed – what works?
• and so much more.

Yes, I could see exactly how this could generate a higher level course with so much planning on the part of the university.

Social networking isn’t a passing fad.  I’m pleased to see that at least one university is planning to treat it as an academic endeavour.

The potential for better and more immersive environments could be the result.  At the bare minimum, a generation of graduates who go beyond drinking pictures could emerge.

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links for 2009-03-29

• Django | The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines
  Developed four years ago by a fast-moving online-news operation, Django was designed to handle two challenges: the intensive deadlines of a newsroom and the stringent requirements of the experienced Web developers who wrote it. It lets you build high-performing, elegant Web applications quickly.
  (tags: framework python web programming development webdev webdesign opensource django)
• twt of the day
  We feature one very special twitter tweet each day
  (tags: funny socialmedia tweet twitter twittertools)
• How To Make Copies of DVDs
  As most of us only have one DVD drive in our Macs, this will be a two step process. First we will need to copy the information from the DVD to our hard drive and eject the original DVD. When we copy the original DVD, we will make a 'disc image' (.dmg) of it on our hard drive. A disc image is an exact and perfect clone of the original. Then we will insert a blank DVD and burn the DVD disc image to the blank DVD.
  (tags: dvd mac howto OSX tutorial backup video software copy)
• » twidroid – the twitter & identi.ca client application for android mobile phones
  the leading full-featured twitter & identi.ca app for android mobile phones
  (tags: web2.0 twitter mobile software phone google apps design g1)
• Role Models in Educational Technology on Ada Lovelace Day | Janet Clarey
  Suw Charman-Anderson is the catalyst behind Ada Lovelace Day, “an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.”
  (tags: blogs education technology women)
• How to Chroma Key in Windows Movie Maker: 9 steps – wikiHow
  Chroma Keying or bluescreening is very easy to do and is very common. Every time you watch the weather, a bluescreen is used. This tutorial will go over how to chroma key using a free but useful program called "Windows Movie Maker". (we'll call it WMM for short)
  (tags: video tutorials multimedia movie tutorial howto web2.0 digitalstorytelling movie_maker greenscreen moviemaker chromakey)
• 6 Twitter Games To Make Tweeting Fun
  Although many of the Twitter-based games listed here are quiz or trivia-based Twitter accounts, they are still fun distractions, and sometimes a good brain exercise. Here are some of the top games based on the microblogging site:
  (tags: web2.0 twitter games fun socialmedia socialnetworking gaming list)
• Earth Hour g1and2v .wmv (video/x-ms-wmv Object)
  Mrs. Vreman's three words about earth hour
  (tags: earthhour sciene)
• Internet – How-To Help and Videos – For Dummies
  The Internet for Dummies – based on popular books
  (tags: internet tips)
• CaribTweet.com
  Here you can communicate with your friends and family in the Caribbean or any other country by exchanging short status messages.
  Just say "Wah gwan" ( what you are doing ) right now
  (tags: web2.0 twitter carribean communicate microblogging)
• Wikirank
  Find out what's popular and trending on The Wikipedia
  (tags: web2.0 wikipedia statistics visualization wiki trends stats analytics mashup)
• Hunch
  Hunch helps you make decisions
  and gets smarter the more you use it.
  (tags: web2.0 startup socialnetworking social flickr Business search crowdsourcing decision hunch)

How Immediacy Spoiled my Sunday

Warning – contains a spoiler for Formula 1 fans.

If you check the history, I’ve commented many times on the power of Twitter to bring information to you immediately.

Classic examples are the landing in the Hudson River, the incident in Mumbai, and the earthquake in Australia.  By having Twitter open, you see a stream of the social network and its messages that eminate from those who you follow.

In addition to people, I also follow some news and sports services.  It’s a fantastic way to get news and information first hand.

Until the Formula 1 race in Australia.  It seems to me that I blogged about this a year ago and sure enough here and here.  It appears that I’m a slow learner.  The same thing happened to me a year ago.  I wake excited to see the kickoff to the 2009 Formula 1 season as it’s rebroadcast locally on TSN at 8:00am.

The other habit that I have is to skim the overnight content from Twitter.  I’ve always had the ability to speedread and so quickly ruined the suspense with a couple of posts.

and

So, apparently, I’m a slow learner.  But, even I will not go further and read the details.  Some things need to be discovered.  It will be nice to discover “how” this happened and what happened to Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton.

While the immediacy of the information and the power to see the future due to time shifts can be an incredible tool at times, it’s put a damper on my Formula 1 ritual.  Shortly, they’ll be racing in Europe and we’ll be back to watching it live.  Then, Twitter can assume its powerful role as a real-time blogging tool.

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