I had the distinct pleasure of introducing Dr. Leslie Reid this morning, for her presentation “Creating Team Projects that Work in Large Classes: Redesigning a Large Science ‘Service’ Course” - part of the Teaching & Learning Centre’s 10th anniversary series of presentations. She talks about her experience in redesigning a large class (300 students with 13 weeks of lectures) into a format based on group projects (250 students with 6 weeks of lectures and 6 weeks of group work).
It sounds like there might be a critical mass of education-minded folk at Northern Voice 2009 (Vancouver, February 2009), and I’d be more than happy to coordinate a WordCamp gathering before or after the conference. So, of the folks that are going to NV, how many would be interested in attending a WordCamp Education shindig?
I did a test this morning to check out how well the video recording gear we have would work for recording a presentation tomorrow. The gear works great - it records directly to DVD so I can just walk away with a nice shiny disk after the presentation is over.
But that’s not what this post is about. This DVD, that I made, containing no DRM and no copyright, triggers the evil DRM software that’s baked into the operating system that I use. I had the DVD program running in the background, and went to take a screenshot of something else - and was rewarded with a warning dialog:
I got word back from Akismet that using it on UCalgaryBlogs.ca to protect all of the blogs hosted there falls under the free license, despite the wording on their website that suggests it’s an enterprise use. This means I’m now able to protect all blogs on the service with Akismet, without requiring a Captcha challenge.
The current version of the Akismet plugin for WordPress installs just fine in the mu-plugins directory, meaning each blog automatically gets protected, without any configuration or setup. The Akismet key can be hardcoded into the plugin file, and when that is done, all configuration interface magically disappears from the wp-admin interface. Easy peasy.
Yahoo! Mexico posted a photo I took last halloween on the front page of their site. That’s pretty cool. Almost 6,000 people have clicked through to view the photo page today alone, making it now my most viewed photo on Flickr.
The mummy was back again this year, and I got a shot of it with a wider angle lens.
I keep being surprised by how much fun I still have with photography, especially after almost 2 years of shooting every single day. Shooting silly things, not worrying about perfection or production quality. Experimenting. Having fun. Although sometimes it feels like I just keep shooting the same boring things over and over again, if I step back and look at the photographs, there is so much that I love about them. Sure, many people and things are recurring in many photographs. But that’s part of the fun. Seeing the same thing at different times, from different angles.
If we have to talk about PLE (Personal Learning Environments) (blech. why does every damned thing need a name and/or acronym?), can we at least not define it to death?
“PLE” is a verb, not a noun.
“PLE” is something you do, not something you have. It’s an action, not a thing. It’s a way of interacting with others, not a way of “getting personalized learning.”
You can’t go out and set up your PLE. You are part of your PLE. You have it already. You can’t seek to personalize your learning - if your learning isn’t already personalized, you’re not learning.
I was just invited to enter an entirely reputable “blog awards” contest, for the low, low entry fee of only $195 - but ACT NOW! The entry fee goes up to $275 in January!
I can’t wait to be invited to attend the Nigerian Dead Relatives Blog Directory Awards…
Cruz is a new webkit-based browser that supports Greasemonkey scripts, plugins, and stuff like integrated tinyurl creation and a full screen mode. It can generate thumbnails for search results on Google, and has a CoverFlow view of search results. Very cool stuff. I think I’ll be switching…
Hey! You got Firefox in my Safari! You got Safari in my Firefox! 2 great tastes…
Google Earth. On my iPod Touch. Seriously. This app is fracking amazing. Pinch to zoom or rotate. Tilt the iPod to tilt the view. The controls are so smooth and intuitive that I was actually disappointed when the view didn’t rotate as I spun my chair around. Maybe on a fancy schmancy iPhone 3G? Still - VERY cool app. Well done, Google Earth team!
D’Arcy’s bike commuter tip #32: Always, no matter how early it is on a Monday, and no matter how tired you are, always check your tire pressure before starting a ride.
D’Arcy’s bike commuter tip #33: It is actually possible to ride for 10km on a nearly flat front tire, after discovering that it was nearly flat after riding on it for 4km, by putting all of your weight on the rear tire and unlocking the front suspension fork. Surprisingly, once you get the hang of it, you can actually go nearly full speed on an almost flat front tire if you’re careful about braking and bumps.
