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Kobe Bryant (24) of the Los Angeles Lakers, is the NBA All-Star MVP with 36 points, 6 assists, and 6 steals. He is the greatest player in the game right now and will continue to "AWE" those who think that he is not a "GREAT PLAYER", NOT by just skill but by his personality. GO LAKERS!

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Great food, lousy customer experience - thy name is Windjammer.

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So far this flight is becoming an exercise in people observation. The woman across the aisle from me, an older woman who has obviously flown before, quickly devoured the complimentary peanut butter crackers (a fact that was not lost on my wife due to our peanut allergic son). While the consumption of the crackers was not surprising, the half pound of sliced American cheese and half box of Saltine crackers she then produced and dug into was, to say the least, rather amusing. Next thing I'll be watching for is the passenger that produces the deli tray from overhead storage.

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The cruise trip is off and running after an hour delay on the ground before boarding. Normally that would be rather irksome but it's been rendered almost humorous by the announcement by our "new captain" that our regularly scheduled pilot was unavailable due to a "legality issue." What the issue was we may never know, but as long as it wasn't for tailgating I think we can let it slide.

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The flight's been smooth with only very minor turbulence. Since the kids looked like bubble eyed goldfish on take-off I can only be thankful for that.

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Took off without incident, although the woman next to me crossing herself as we left the ground made me wonder.

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The cruise is almost upon me and I'm finally starting to get geared up for it. This is just a test post to see if my handheld blogging tool is working the way it is supposed to.

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Bluehost has had my sites out of commission for 30 minutes now with no signs of them coming back. I tried to contact them via LiveChat...but nobody was home.

C'mon Bluehost! You've been great so far...let's get it together!

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It's not often that an educational technology writer hits the issue square on the head with the fire and passion necessary to burn through the administrative and educational doubletalk and cut to the heart of the matter.  To you Mr. Thornburg...bravo!

David Thornburg : A Time to Chill Out?

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In listening to Teachers Teaching Teachers #27 the question was raised is there a difference between writing for an online audience and writing for an offline one?  I have to think there is if for no other reason that online you have the ability to "illustrate" your writing with multimedia files, photos, and links in a way that's virtually impossible offline.  There are some basic skills that are common across both medium but writing for the online world is to me more similar to Writing 2.0.  Comments?

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In a mirror of the battles going on in the real world over content protection and copywriting, the world of Second Life has encountered it's first real batch of "piracy".  The open source tool CopyBot, identified by it's creators to be a testing and development tool, has been turned into a virtual Xerox machine for in-world objects including those that are supposedly protected.

My observation on this is that the Second Life world now gets to be a microcosim of the content protection/piracy argument that has been raging for years.  The key difference here is that the deity of the world (Linden Labs) has a financial stake in the outcome.

I made the comment before that Second Life jumped the shark when they jacked the prices in world for land to capture additional revenue.  Seems the shark's been jumped again.

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I was a little disappointed last night in the interaction between Skype and WebHuddle. The WebHuddle application seems nice enough but it also seems to be significantly behind the curve as compared to other systems such as Vyew or Webex. I need to do some more investigating into solutions that either:

1. Piggy back on Skype for collaboration


2. Run in a P2P (peer to peer) configuration to minimize the load on the applications and not require a central server to pass the traffic through

We'll see what the research brings.

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Derek Powazek over at A List Apart put together a good article on the importance of good writing on the web.  What I find insightful about it is that there's little in the way of writing structure or technical advice.  In summary his advice is targeted to designers but I think we should all take heed.  Write for humans... instill some passion in the words...think about each letter.

It’s time we designers stop thinking of ourselves as merely pixel people, and start thinking of ourselves as the creators of experiences. And when it comes to experience on the web, there’s no better way to create it than to write, and write well.

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Amber Simmons over at A List Apart talks about writing a blog (or online writing in general) in a way that captures and keeps your audience and gets them to come back for more.  As you will see from the article, there are some significant differences between writing for paper and writing for an online viewer.

I know my reader could be doing any number of other things, but he is choosing to spend his time with me, and this is another reason I don’t write for an audience. Audiences don’t have “time” to respect. It’s easy to think of an audience as a captive and to abuse our time together; it is more difficult to think of a single reader that way. The single reader is much more likely to flee and he is therefore more demanding of my attention and respect.I know my reader could be doing any number of other things, but he is choosing to spend his time with me, and this is another reason I don’t write for an audience. Audiences don’t have “time” to respect. It’s easy to think of an audience as a captive and to abuse our time together; it is more difficult to think of a single reader that way. The single reader is much more likely to flee and he is therefore more demanding of my attention and respect.

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Keywords: web edtech

Posted by Art Gelwicks | 3 comment(s)

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John Gladding at A List Apart penned this article about how to start an online forum and keep it going successfully.  This falls into the listing of Web 2.0 skills that we should be working into the curriculums of our computer classes.  There's no question that these skills, whether they're applied to a public discussion area or a private one, can keep the virtual communications space alive and beneficial.

A List Apart: Articles: How to Be a Great Host

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The Bionic Teacher blog (I love that title) has a nice, level headed write up about using Google Earth in the classroom in various subjects.  This is a great example of an application that at first glance has a high coolness factor but then the struggle begins with how to effectively implement it as part of classes.

BionicTeacher :: A Google Earth for All Subjects

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The plugin called Unyte 2.0 allows you to share your desktop applications with up to four Skype contacts at one time.  Why is this important?  Because I'm still in search of the best, free alternative to Webex that supports VoIP as well as desktop sharing for use in distance learning.  That's why.

Webdialogs :: Download Unyte 2.0

technorati tags:Skype

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This is just a logical outgrowth of the acceptance of read/write web technologies and leveraging of the productivity benefits derived from said tech.  In summary...about freakin' time.

Dare to dream- Classroom technology: Scholarly Research goes Web 2.0

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Barbara, an administrator from Sylmar, California posted this bit of wisdom on her blog:

Dare to dream- Classroom technology: The Dream and the Gap

I suddenly had an insight into the work smarter concept. Teachers turn in lesson plans every Monday and we all know that even in an ideal world, many times they are an empty exercise to complete a requirement. Several of my teachers are currently establishing blogs so what if I said no more lesson plans on Mondays I will just subscribe to your blog.

This is a great way to get teachers incented to use a new technology to their benefit while developing the skills necessary to teach the students a new technology.

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An article on TechDirt finally talks about something I've thought for a long time.  Maybe the internet isn't breeding predators...it's just shining the light on these cockroaches like never before.

Techdirt: Blaming Technology For Exposing Problems That Were Already There

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Whenever the federal government decides they have a good idea on how to educate kids on being safe my radar goes up.  When it happens to be a branch with no logical connection to the issue, such as the Federal Trade Commission, the little voice in my head starts to sound like the robot from Lost in Space.  While I'm all for teaching kids how to recognize predators online this approach has the likelihood of success of Snakes on a Plane getting the Best Picture Oscar.  Nice try, meant well, no dice.

ITworld.com - U.S. FTC's Buddy Builder game teaches social-

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The ongoing saga of pda versus paper in my organizational quest has finally come to a conclusion...I think. For the umpteenth time I tried to transition back to a pda from my paper notebook. I thought that if I transferred my newly developed and refined techniques for tracking information and managing tasks to the pda I would have the best of both worlds. Alas, nothing is ever as simple as it seems. When I returned to the pda world the nagging concerns about battery life, backups, and the speed of capturing data all came back. It was at that moment I realized I had truly left the world of the pda.

My system has evolved into a two book system. The primary book is a large Miquelrius bound notebook, graph paper layout, purchased rather inexpensively from Barnes and Noble (inexpensive for the number of pages and the quality of the paper in my subjective estimation.) The second book is a pocket sized Moleskine notebook (I'm having some questions about the quality of the notebook, but that's for another posting.)

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eCollege(R) Comments on Blackboard eLearning Technology Patent: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

eCollege doesn't look like they're going to take this lying down and well they shouldn't.  The only way this patent mess is going to get resolved is for bad patents to be overturned on a regular basis (since it doesn't look like we can prevent them from being filed in the first place) so companies realize that to get a patent they actually have to have a basis for it.

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Just if you're interested...here's the link to the patent application from Blackboard on "Content and portal systems and associated methods"

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The ownership of Blackboard and the the money trail associated with it reads like a John Grisham novel.  Is it possible that the motivation behind these actions and filings is more than just greed and intellectual property-mongering?  Could it be there is a concerted effort to control the information tools being used with our students?  I'll admit reading these posts raises the specter of something insidious afoot.  Then again...I'm not convinced that the level of capability to coordinate something so nefarious exists.  Only time will tell...

rWorld: Does it matter who "owns" Blackboard?