Nothing much to say

Skypecast with Clarence Fisher

danielcraig — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 13:28:03 +0000

I enjoyed hearing Clarence speak. He was really a motivating speaking on the use of Web 2.0 technologies with his students. I think that he eloquently stated the case of engaging the world with your students under the guidance of a seasoned professional.

Moving discussions from the classroom to the Internet are inherently risky in a number of ways. The comfort level of the teacher. The “safety” of the students. Amongst others. However, Clarence touched upon the very reasons why it’s worth these risks. Our students (we’re mostly talking about younger students here) need to be exposed to this environment and learn how to safely operate in it. They are not getting this education online and most aren’t getting it at home either. In these circumstances, it has always been the educational institution in charge of doing it. (think health education, home economics, ect.)

A joy to hear. Thanks for joining us.

You can find Clarence Fisher’s blog (Remote Access) at http://remoteaccess.typepad.com/

Skypecasts

danielcraig — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:43:39 +0000

Today was my first Skypecast and I can see that it might be quite difficult to do with a large group.

Even with a quite knowledgable group, the technology was sketchy at best. It took 30 minutes to get going and even then there were many individuals who were either having troubles with their technology or simply didn’t know how to participate properly (i.e., muting mics, moving to the “listening” section, etc.).

However, once it got going, it was great. This is a wonderful way to conference. While Skype 3.0 allows conference calls, these have to be know entities (in your contacts), while the Skypecast opens it up to larger (possibly nameless/faceless) people.

Week 1 Reflections

danielcraig — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 06:23:26 +0000

The platforms that we are working with are all means of providing and retreiving information about us and our enviroments. You can also say that they are meant to organize our lives to a certain extent, but this is an illusion. We are just disorganized in more places

They are have a common set of Web 2.0 tools including: syndication, sharing, grouping, categorizing, and so forth. However, they differ in many ways. In this, I’ll look at their primary purposes. Otherwise, this could get complicated. For example, Bloglines offers blog hosting, but it’s main purpose is to aggregate postings. I’ll go with the main purpose.

del.icio.us - Is a bookmark sharing (collecting, organizing, etc) service. The main purpose here is to collect, organize, and even disseminate those bookmarks that used to collect dust on your PC.
Flickr - Flickr does the same thing with pictures as del.icio.us does with bookmarks.
Bloglines - Collects postings from your favorite syndicated sources.
WordPress - Collect and disseminate (and then discuss) your ideas/observations.
43Things/People/Places – Still don’t really know what these are good for
Community Walk – Allows you to annotate a map. I don’t really like this one. I prefer something like Wikimapia (http://www.wikimapia.com) that lets you do more annotation and honestly has a better map. Community Walk wouldn’t even let me zoom in on Seoul (one of the biggest cities in the world). That frustrated me.

My perception of these types of open and participatory environments are overwhelmingly positive. I’m a big fan of both the technologies and the overarching concept and movement. The more we get students (and ourselves) involved in community events (live and virtual) the more we become part of a community. Being part of a community means interacting with the community and often getting involved in community projects. For our students this provides opportunity for practice that goes well beyond our classroom and is a step in the right direction for the development of autonomous learners.

OPML – does it really work

danielcraig — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 05:18:05 +0000

I could import my blogroll using OPML. Does it even work? I keep getting a message that there’s nothing at line 1. This has worked with Bloglines, Feedreader, Outlook, Google, and a number of other sites. Does WorkPress have a different (newer) standard?

A little difficulty posting my first message

danielcraig — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 05:16:31 +0000

I had a little difficulty posting my first message. I’m not sure way, but I make one previous to this one, it exists in my posts, but it does not appear on my site. Still trying to figure that out.

Dan

Getting Started

danielcraig — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:20:02 +0000

I really thought that I had a Word Press blog from ages ago, but I couldn’t find this time. No problem. I’m just happy that I got danielcraig.wordpress.com.

In the last couple years anything with “danielcraig” has been getting snatched up and I’ve had a hard time using my favorite username. The reason for this is simple. The actor, Daniel Craig, was named the new James Bond. While he was popular before that, his promotion to Bond made him a real commodity online.

So, now I’m ready to get moving in Open Web Publishing. Bring it on