This article is currently on the WordPress admin dashboard, so people who obsessively check their WordPress admin page will have seen it already. But, it’s worth pointing to the article again as it outlines some things to consider when using WordPress as a CMS. I’m still a pretty hardcore Drupal guy - I use it for dozens of website projects, and it’s the Officially Supported Web Content Management System on campus (YAY!) - but there’s just something so nice, clean, and elegant about the WordPress UI.
I thought the MS Surface table computer prototype was pretty laughable, but they’ve managed to take the awkwardness up a notch with the Sphere prototype. All of the wonderful distortion of a spherical projection, combined with the limited shared visible space around the sphere to impede collaboration. Wonderful. So now I can view a distorted photograph, but the person next to me sees an oblique partially obscured view of the same photograph - unless they’re on the other side of the sphere, then they see nothing. And vice versa.
I’m turning twitter into a read-only medium (for me). I’m not deleting anything. I’m not going anywhere. I just need to cut down on the noise and shallow superficial connections that just aren’t real. Twitter’s just a website. It’s not like it’s real, or important.
If anyone needs me, I’m really easy to get in touch with. And I’ll periodically monitor summize to see if anyone is sending stuff to my now-silent (but still active) account…
Now that I’ve updated ucalgaryblogs.ca to WordPress MultiUser 2.6, the cool new native iPhone and iPod Touch blogging app will work. Just point it to your blog(s), give it login credentials, and you’re off and running!
What’s cool is that now all of my blogs can be managed via my iPod Touch using a native application!
For example, I used dlnorman.ucalgaryblogs.ca as the blog address, and gave it my login info. It will work with multiple blogs, too - but each blog needs to be configured separately.
[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Real keyboard, connected to iPod Touch via USB through iPod Camera Connector accessory.”][/caption]
I want this. Well, maybe with a slimmer keyboard. Possibly a foldable version of something the size of the Apple Wireless Keyboard (pictured below). Doesn’t have to actually BE wireless, though. I’d be FINE with a USB cable, and even with slapping rechargeable batteries in the keyboard to prevent an additional power draw from the iPod Touch…
I’m going to rethink the sessions a bit. Maybe they’ll evolve into more of a storytelling thing - picking a shot and talking about the story behind it, and how the shot was composed, taken and processed… Something like that might be more interesting for everyone, rather than just duplicating a set of screencasts.
Well THIS is the best mobile blog posting interface I’ve used. Thanks to Automattic for the app!
It also supports offline writing of new posts (but not of editing existing posts without an active connection). Very cool. I’ll be using this app a LOT!
Here’s a screenshot of the blog post/edit interface:
I’ll keep this rant short. I don’t know what the future of education is, or will be, but I do know that it’s not “web 2.0” despite the hype.
Education is, always has been, and always will be, about the acts of teaching and learning. It is not, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, a form of technology. It is not a suite of distributed online tools, no matter how buzzword compliant they might be.
We held our first gathering of the “Blogging and Student Publishing” learning community last week. It was a small, informal gathering - only a handful of profs were able to make it due to summer schedules, and another handful of staff. I think the small group was actually a very good thing for a first gathering, though, as the conversation was extremely engaging and dynamic - something that may have been lost in a larger group. What I loved about this gathering, is that we were able to reproduce much of the vibe from the Social Software Salon event held a couple of years ago at UBC. I’m hoping to to much more of this kind of thing, to get faculty members together and properly caffeinated in order to get the conversations flowing.
Twitter has been bugging me for some time now. No, not the single-digit uptime. No, not the constant “Down for Updates” notices. No, not the slow unresponsive website and throttled API.
I just realized that Twitter is actually dangerous. Harmful. Damaging.
It has changed the way that I think, but not for the better. I find I am thinking more superficially when I’m active in Twitter. I think in shorter 140 character bursts. With little to no depth.
First, I need to clarify something. I’m not going to call this “mobile learning” or even the more web2.0 friendly “mLearning.” (although I’ve tagged this post with both monikers, because that’s what everyone else seems to call it). What I’m describing is simply the application of small, portable, personal devices with various features that can be leveraged in interesting ways to support and enhance the activities of teaching and learning. By calling it “mLearning” there is an inordinate emphasis on the shiny technology, and less so on their appropriate pedagogical applications.
We hit the half way mark on Sunday night. 366/2. That’s a lot of photos. It’s been amazing to see so many people take up the project, and watching them learn and grow as photographers and artists.
To commemorate the passing of the halfway mark, I whipped up a mosaic of a globe (using MacOSaiX, this photo by ToastyKen as the source - which was appropriate since he took it as part of a 2007/365 project) and then used all photos on Flickr tagged with “366photos” to generate tiles for the mosaic.
