Blog-negligent...but busy

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, but it's not been because I haven't been doing anything. Au contraire. Last week I had a great trip to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. It was a fact-finding mission and a day-long series of meetings designed to give me information sufficient to design and then offer a workshop to the CIA faculty and staff about technology integration.

It was fascinating being on the campus and in the classrooms, many of which are kitchens with many of the faculty also chefs. Many of the students are on campus in their chef whites with their hats, carrying bags not of iPods or computers but of knives and whisks.

I only took a couple of pictures, and these from the outside of the main buidling. More to come later, as I am going back on June 13 to deliver twice the workshop that I put together.

Technorati Tags: tlt consulting culinary

A May training ride

eg_brynabike.JPG
Originally uploaded by egarofoli.

I didn't do any work this Sunday, but instead accompanied my stepdaughter Bryna, on a training ride. We rode 25 miles and did OK for early in the season (for us).

Bryna is training for the MS ride from Boston to Provincetown that will be held in June.

Technorati Tags: cycling bicycling

Adding Technorati Tags to Blogger Posts

Since I've been actively working with this blog, I have wondered how to integrate tags as part of each post. Whereas WP does this as a matter of course, Blogger does not. But fortunately Improbulus, London, UK in her blog, A Consuming Experience, has a bookmarklet for users of Firefox. You'll want to check out her blog post that details this nifty tool, but you can see what it looks like by looking at how the tags are listed below.



Technorati Tags: tags, blogs, Technorati, tagging, blogging, tools

Modifying WordPress templates

Once again CogDogBlog gives me information that is exactly what I need. I have playing, as of late, with a blog that I have created for a new course I will be teaching. I have used Blogger for about three years now, and wanted to try WordPress to experiment with something different. I found a template I like, but couldn't figure out how to get into the template to play around with the sidebar. So even though I liked WP, in the interest of time I abandoned it in favor of Blogger.

And so, here is Alan to the rescue, with timely information that will hopefully let me go back to playing with WP. Like Alan, I had also chosen the Blix template as the one that I liked the best and wanted to tinker with.



Hopefully once my class gets going (and I think I'm going to have more time then???) I can get back to it. More to come...

Welcome Session -- NMC Campus Grand Opening

Welcome Session -- NMC Campus Grand Opening
Originally uploaded by NMC Campus PR Office.

talk about a different paradigm. It's SecondLife (SL)

Useful Web 2.0 tools

I love Alan Levine...and we've never met. I have admired his work while he was at Maricopa Community College, and his CogDogBlog was, and is, one of my favorites. Today, I finally took advantage of his Multipost Bookmarklet Tool, and it's sitting up there in my toolbar.

And then when I realized that he is now workingwith Second Life, I was (am) surprised again, at the sometimes synchronicity of things. A long time ago I discovered Second Life but never did anything with it. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago when a student (thanks, Amy :-) told me of her activity in SL that I was prompted to go back in to SL and poke around.

Three hours after I first logged in I was still playing with my avatar's appearance, and my partner was beginning to feel just a bit slighted. Oooh, SL clearly has the possibility of sucking me in in a very time-consuming way. Anyway, the news about the NMC SL Campus Opening has caught my fancy. This is one topic that I want to put on a watch list. Stay tuned.

Playing Tag, 2 of 4

Playing Tag, 2 of 4
Originally uploaded by *CA*.

del.icio.us, furl, folksonomy...........

Tag, you're it!

BIG Ball Of Rope

BIG Ball Of Rope
Originally uploaded by Big-E-Mr-G.

sometimes tagging and social bookmarking feels like this ball of rope to me -- endless connections and loops and connections and....

A mashup by any other name

In an Educause article on using social software tools in academia is the following paragraph:

Some emerging trends in social software are worth keeping an eye on. The first is the addition of geographic information system (GIS) data that allows the social software sites to introduce an aspect of physical space. Plazes, for example, is a social networking site that adds another dimension by marking the GIS location of each user when they post and asking them to provide a picture and other information. This could expand the possibilities for education in social networking sites tremendously. Imagine, for example, instructing each student in a German class to explore a small part of Berlin. Students can peruse pictures and information about each public building, restaurant, bookstore, and other feature in their assigned areas as they move along the street. Furthermore, users can speak with people attached to these places, such as the owner of a bookstore or a frequent diner at a local restaurant. Before they leave home, students heading abroad can begin exploring the area surrounding the place where they will be living and the people who have provided the information.

This sounds like a useful activity; I think I'll try it and see how it goes.

Connected

Connected
Originally uploaded by leenadevi.

it's all about the connections.

wiki difficulties

Arghhh, I have been trying to figure out how to embed an image into a page in the ped2wiki, but so far have been stymied in my efforts. I am not clear about what an image page is, nor how to create one. I know I could just create an external link to the image, but I don't want that. I want the actual image on the wiki page. I've got to move on to other things at the moment, but it sure is frustrating to have to leave the problem unsolved.

I did get to discover a new site though called Wikimedia Commons which has images, sounds, and video for open access. I'll need to explore this more.

Convergence — where various media collide to synthesize and create expression.

Convergence — where various media collide to synthesize and create expression.
Originally uploaded by Sol Lang.

Convergence is what it seems that the Web 2.0 is about. What kind of visual image repersents the idea of the Read/Write web to you?