Celebrating 10 Years

A lot can happen in ten years. One decade. Yesterday, I was getting in the car with my Mom and Dad wearing an ivory and rum pink wedding gown...and ten years later, my life looks so different, but is very much the same.

My Mom, if she were here, would have said, I wasn't sure you'd make it this long. She knew that I marched to my own little drum and parading around on the streets with no names. She was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to stay in step with one other person for all of eternity. But, she was wrong.

Certainly, over the years, my band has included lots of people, but over in the corner, playing his own little drum kit, is Dave. Sometimes our cymbals crash and clash, but, overall, the music is good; it has a strong beat, a nice rhythm, and it is as diverse as it simple.

There is no guesswork involved; Dave and I are polar opposites on most things. He like acid metal and hot dogs; I like classical piano and tofu. He likes leather biker jackets and old cars; I like Indian dresses and Range Rovers. He reads books about rock stars; I read books about Laura Ingalls. We are very different.

But, there are some things that we have in common, and these have been the most important things in life.

We both believe in God, and our friendship and love is rooted in Him. We both celebrate individuality over conformity. We both love children and believe that they deserve the best we can give them. We both believe in the power of prayer. We both believe in the sanctity of music. We both believe that charity is more than giving money. We both believe that loyalty is the best give we can give our friends and family. We both believe in the power of forgiveness, and we always find a way to work out an argument.

Things are never perfect, and I am not perfect, and he isn't either. But, for ten years, we have learned to do what we said we would do when we said our vows 10 years ago:

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Happy Anniversary, Dave!

Creating Ringers for the iPhone :-)

I love music, and it is so awesome to be able to attach a sound to a person on the iPhone. It also serves as a great warning if you aren't in the mood to talk to your Great Aunt Essie.

There are two ways to go about getting yourself a ringtone for your iPhone. You can either do it yourself in iTunes (which can be easy if you have recently purchased a tune), or you can create and/or download some awesome ringtones online using free programs. This post will help you to do both.

iRinger

iRinger is an awesome site, and you get 25 ringtones but then have to pay up (10 clams per month). It is also only for PC users. The 25 freebies ought to do the trick for most people, but, still and all, we at MUO like FREE FREE FREE stuff!

Going Free Style

In the quest for finding FREE 3G Ringer sites, I came by some super sweet places to create and download free ringtones. The best out there is Audiko. It is both PC and Mac friendly, and it is FREE!



You can upload any song from your computer, use a link, or provide a YouTube URL. It will then allow you to clip the section you want to use as a ringtone. Finally, you can download the clip for free! They have options for PC users, iPhone users, AND for people with older phones!



Now, don't be scared...there IS a HUGE HUGE button that says "Send to your phone" but you DO NOT NEED TO DO THAT...that is for a paid service (and is probably how they are able to do the rest for free). You can create your ringtone for free without sending anything to your phone.

Once you create your 30 seconds of bliss, you will have the option to download it in a variety of formats like on this Lady Gaga clip.

In a Pinch?

If you don't have time to create a ring tone, there are lots and lots of choices for ones that have already been created. Simply select from the list, and you will be able to download it for free (just remember, it is NOT NECESSARY to send it to your phone!).






Once you have the ringtone saved on your desktop, simply drag and drop it into your ringtone folder in iTunes. Go into your iPhone and assign the tone to one of your lucky callers!

Do it Yourself in iTunes!

If you want to go old school, make the ringtone yourself in iTunes. Just remember that you can ONLY create ringtones from music you purchased in the iTunes Store. If you downloaded a song from somewhere else, you are out of luck.

To create the ring tone, simply right click on the song, and choose "Create Ringtone." You will be able to select a portion of it to use, and iTunes will do all the rest for you. It will put it right into the ringtone folder, and it will create a little bell icon for in your library.



Be prepared, though, because not ALL the songs you purchased can be made into ringtones. There is some sort of secret formula about when you purchased the song and whether or not you have the most current version of iTunes.

Have you ever created your own ring tone? Do you have a favorite site to create and download them for free?

Ning gives Educators the Heave Ho!

Okay, not quite...but I am really sad about Ning's decision to pull the carpet out under all of the teachers that relied on its free services. Jane Hart has a nice article about it, and Tech Crunch was the first to break the bad news.

Sadly, Ning's "only" solution is to save pocket change by nixing their free services. Sadly, the ones that used that service most was the educational community. We turned to them, championed them, and spread the gospel of Ning at conferences, workshops, and in classrooms. And now we - literally - have to split or pay up the pot.

What Ning fails to realize is that we used their service BECAUSE it was free and because our schools couldn't or wouldn't afford to pay for services like it. That same negative cash flow still stands, and so we have no more money now (less money, actually) than before, so if they think they are going to intimidate us into buying the farm, well, sadly, their crops will remain untouched.

This is a total crash and burn for Ning, and the new(ish) CEO should be super proud that he is driving one of the best services straight into the ground.

There are other services, and a smart start up will take over and improve what Ning started. They will do it with less staff and cut the overhead; they will wisely use advertising and Social Networking to their advantage. They will provide FREE service and be rewarded by innovation instead of damnation.

Good Bye, Ning. Don't let the virtual door hit ya...

Back? GeWar2

So I haven't really been here for a while, but that is all about to change! I am writing more these days (mostly over at MakeUseOf), and I think it is high time to head back over to this side of the blog :-)

Since I am not teaching in SL, I have not been inworld much, but I am going to be using it this May to teach American Romantic literature and Introduction to Fiction. I have also been looking at other games like GeWar2.

Here is a review of it:

If you have a bit of free time and would like to try your hand at world domination, Google Earth War v2 (GeWar) might be the game for you! While it isn't a fast paced shoot em up kinda game, it is a lot like RISK and requires planning, strategy, and wit.

I have to admit that I never heard of version 1, but was totally excited when version 2 was born. I like games that make you think, and, as a Google Earth addict, I was keen on using GE for more than directions to the hair salon. Sadly, the awesome game concept is slaughtered by poor directions, difficult processes, and low turn around.



I was totally thrilled to take part in this review because I love games, and I love world domination (heh). This game promised to be hoards of fun for my character, Commander Young. In this version of GeWar2, players gather with others around the world to hunt for jewels and develop armies. There are over 1300 cities to search and there are alliances to build and enemies to destroy! My armies of deviant goddesses were ready; our money was overflowing; opportunities over floweth...but, splat, nothing.



For starters, the game is hard to figure out. The directions make absolutely no sense, and it took me forever to figure out that all I really needed to do to start was load up the first KMZ map.

Grrr. So, after I had that part sorted out, it took another hour to figure out how to select a home base. You have to zoom in slowly to see the cross hair, but you can't be too near an existing city or by a nosy neighbor. You have to keep checking the side bar in Google Earth to see what you are not doing right, but once you figure all that out, simply double click on the map to set your pin.



So, now I am two hours into this game and have yet to even dominate my cursor, let alone the world. I must admit...my passion for conquering Rome was waning. But, the desire to rule all of Christendom was still slightly alluring...so I marched onward.



The compass must have been broken or my GPS out of commission. I had no clue what to do next. Once you establish your home base, you are sent to your GeWar page, and you'd "think" there would be clear directions about what happens next...but...um...no.

Because the directions were not clear, I had no idea that I "shoulda" housed my base somewhere more central to things like fishing, oil fields, or cotton plantations. Evidently, the great New England states aren't known for their prowess.



But, since you don't actually load that map until AFTER you select your home base, I was stuck with Puritan Goddesses. We were no where NEAR close to either the fishing waters of Australia OR the oil fields of the Middle East. We were at least on the same continent as the cotton, but, sheesh...cotton???



(Side note...the graphics aren't the best, but they are OK given the difficulty of adding graphics to GE on a larger scale).



But, I didn't let geography get me down (even though this IS a game about geography and topography, right?). I paid hard earned Geos (the currency of the game) to place my ship, and oil rig, and cotton plantation, and diamond mine workers so I could train my army.

When I was at the screen I had enough Geos to train lots of my armies to be Goddesses with Gusto...but, because I was so new, or because I am a dolt and couldn't figure it out, I wasn't able to train my armies. As I will mention later, the boo-koo GEOS I had stashed and earned vanished over night, literally, so I have not been able to afford to train the warrior girls.



In the midst of this annoying and chaotic game, I kept thinking that the concept of the game is stellar. I really like the premise of it, and think it would be awesome for teachers to use if they modified the (really) bad and non-existent directions.

One sweet feature, for example, is that you can go on a treasure hunt to find jewels. The jewels are hidden in major cities or near real historical places, and you can learn about the places whilst hunting for the gems. I love that idea, and I think the developers could really go crazy if they clean up the documentation for the game.



To find the jewel, you were able to learn about the Pyramids of Giza.



I was actually refreshed after finding the jewel and thought maybe the game wasn't so bad after all. I still had high hopes because I love a game that teaches something, and I love rubies. Oh, and I wanted to rule the world.

So, I started looking for how on (Google) Earth was I supposed to start dominating...and, for not a lack of trying, I could not figure out HOW to attack another army.

Granted, I was tired. I had been playing this game for 5 hours and had one little ruby and some new factoids about Giza in hand. I had a nice sized army for a newbie. I had things growing and getting caught all over the planet. But, hmmm, how to attack thy neighbor???

My strategy was to find other clueless souls and attack them. But, I couldn't find them. Well, I couldn't find them for a while. So, I figured I would start with a land locked country like Chad because, well, I dated a guy named Chad when I was much younger and he was a jerk. So, it seemed as good a place as any.



Crap. Evidently, New England isn't close enough to Chad to wing zing an attack. I didn't have enough oil. I had to wait for my oil fields to mature or mate or whatever they were doing over there in the Middle East before moving my army.

Fine.

I understand that not everything gets spelled out in the directions, and I should have picked a better place than the Berkshires to host home base, but, c'mon. If I had known that there were going to be oil fields and fishing waters and whatever, I might have considered thinking about where the game designers would put them.

I had no idea what I was getting into with this game. And, now that I know better, there isn't a thing I can do about it. As the site makes perfectly clear a trillion times, you can only have one character or you get the virtual heave-ho.

So, at the end of day one, I had a fairly serene inventory but no clue what to do next besides wait.



The problem with a game this complicated is that I can't do it while balancing a crazy life. I couldn't get back to it the next day because I didn't have another 5 hours to devote to decoding the instructions. So, when I went back 3 days later, I had lost all my money, been attacked by a bunch of armies, and, ugh, I just gave up.

But, I wanted to be fair about the game, so I recruited some gamer students to play it. I also enlisted the help of a friend who is totally into world domination. These three gamers could not figure out the first KMZ file. None of us understood the instructions. We looked for FAQs.

Nothing.

In concept, I love the idea of this game. As an educator, I love the idea of learning about war using games like GeWar2. BUT, and this, my friends, is a HUGE BUT, the documentation and descriptions have to make sense and be USEFUL to a new player.

Image by John LeGear

Am I a SWAG Hag?

Definition: SWAG hag - a person that only goes to the vendors to get SWAG ("Stuff We All Get").

Picture Credit: The MiScope by Zarbeco...my NUMBER ONE piece of SWAG and the coooooooolest product demo ever.

Visiting the vendors at NECC was lots of fun. The nerd inside actually went through the program in advance and marked off vendors that had goods that I am interested in learning more about (clickers, wireless, etc.). Since I am always on the hunt for cool things for the faculty and students at Hotchkiss, I expand my search to things for science, math, and other disciplines.

So, what about SWAG? I have to admit...I LOVE SWAG! It might just be a function of having a 6 and 7 year old that love little trinkets. OR...it might be that our suitcase ripped and all of Dave's shirts got milkshake spilled on them, so earning tee shirts was a solution to a potentially expensive problem.

But, does SWAG make me think better about a company?

The reasonable girl in me says that if a company is sporting expensive SWAG, they have to jack up the prices of their products to cover the costs of the SWAG. Little staplers can not possibly be cheap.

But, as Elvis dazzled me and I had a shiny new iPod shuffle in my pocket, I wondered how much of a SWAG hag I really was...and if my inner Hag would win over the practical girl we all know and (hopefully) love.

I have about 4 bags full of SWAG. To help Dave out, I sat through 5 presentations to get him tee shirts, but, ethically, I would only sit through presentations of products I was interested in learning about (clickers, mostly). We have one set of Turning Point clickers, but I wanted to learn more about them and their competitors. Since I am a SMART fan (LOVE LOVE LOVE their products), I did get myself a SMART shirt so people would know my genius before speaking to me (har). Office Depot (Tech Depot) will be remembered because they gave out those little extender USB thingers that I desperately needed for my Mac. Aruba Networks sent me a little coin in advance of the conference, and when I turned it in with the card, I received an iPod Shuffle. Now, I had no idea what Aruba did, but I am much more likely to remember that they can provide a wireless solution to Hotchkiss because our car rides are now quiet as my son listens to his favorite tunes on his little Shuffle. And, I am eager to pass along their information to our IT department because they made such an effort to contact me. The SWAG I loved most was from Zarbeco. They gave out these little bugs in plastic that can be used with these UBER COOL hand held microscopes. Honestly, I am buying one just for myself because they are so uber cool. And, truly, I probably would not have stopped at this little vendor if I had not spotted the little bug thingies. After chatting for a half hour and playing with these mics, I am totally recommending that our science department buy them. So, in this case, yet again, SWAG brought me in...and SWAG helped me to see something I wouldn't have seen.

In other cases, it just wouldn't matter what they gave out. For example, I am a Google fan, so it doesn't matter that they handed out uber cool slinkies. They were great hits with my kids, but I would still love Google anyway. And, while I wanted a coveted SMART shirt, I love their stuff regardless of the tee shirt. PBS Kids, too, had great SWAG. They gave out little notebooks that I am using for Geocaching. But, again, I am already a fan of all of their work. Scholastic also had great prizes, and I won a Clifford the Dog USB. But, I loved them, too, without the little prize.

So, am I SWAG hag? Probably.

Even though it isn't important in the end, clever SWAG will get me to stop at your stand. Things like sticky pads and pens just won't do it...you have to sport little staplers, plastic buggies, or USB port thingers. If you are going to bother to do SWAG, make sure it is cool and different. But, don't worry, in the end, it is your product, not the SWAG, that will get my endorsement :-)

#NECC2009

NECC Reflections: The Good, The Bad, and The Untouchables

I just returned from the best conference I have ever attended (and I have been to a LOT of really great conferences!). ISTE's NECC conference is, by far, the best out there. I learned so much, and was able to meet some of the coolest people EVER - Mitchel Reznek from MIT and Alice Christie of Geocaching fame (to name just a few). I also had the chance to meet some buddies from Second Life!

But, I am an uber nerd, so I wanted to use my time to learn about concepts that would be useful to the teachers and students here at Hotchkiss. And, as much as I would have LOVED to play with SL in the SL lounge, I never actually made it there! I was off learning about how to use NASA's tools and MIT's Scratch Ed and the Library of Congress and US National Archives and these cool funky microscopes that are TOTALLY rockin. I spent some time at the vendors, but didn't even get 1/3 of the way through the 5 football fields worth of them. I listened to my favorite speaker in all of Christendom (well one of them), Alan November, while volunteering as a NECC "Ask Me" person.

I LOVED LOVED LOVED the poster sessions the most. I learned all sorts of things and gathered ideas to share with my colleagues at Hotchkiss. The student presentations were just fabulous, and it was great to see teenagers all engaged by teaching drooling adults! I did a poster session for the first time, too, and OMG, they are a bit harder than straight presentations! They are longer, for one, and my booth was busy from start to finish. This very sweet woman came to meet me, and she says she follows the blog, and it was such an honor to meet her and to hear how much she appreciates the work we do at Literature Alive! Truly, Eloise and I don't get a paycheck from our work with Lit Alive! so it always helps to know that people appreciate the work we do in SL. It was just so great to meet her!

There wasn't much I didn't like about the conference itself; it is REALLY well organized. The conference committee needs a totally huge medal and fully stocked bar, as they did a tremendous job putting it all together. The convention center in DC is nice, but the food was expensive and crappy.

There was only one thing that really put me off, though, and it has little to do with the conference itself. I have heard echoes of this in other blogs about how the "in crowd" is really kinda snooty. There is a group of EduTechPeeps (for lack of a better label), that think that their words, their blogs, their "projects", are the best out there, and they spend all their time talking about how great they are and how important they are, and they don't spend any time listening to other really great (but unknown) peeps, and they certainly don't pause for 12 seconds to offer friendly advice or mentoring. Sadly, I saw it over and over as people tried to introduce themselves to the self-appointed "Masters" and were given the cold shoulder-nod thing. PUHHHHHLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE. Rebel me...I didn't even bother. I have read their blogs and tweets, and, trust me, they are only interested in hearing themselves pontificate. They couldn't hear you if you were playing a bass drum AND a stand of pipes. They can only hear the clamour of their puffed up egos.

The bottom line is students. Period. If there is too much ME ME ME going on, no one is worrying about what the students are learning. I simply walk away and find the people who are saying THEM THEM THEM. Take up your hiking stick, and join the trek!

Visit Rime of the Ancient Mariner!

Need something fun to do today? Head over to Literature Alive's Rime of the Ancient Mariner build at Drexel Island!

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Drexel/189/35/24

Literature Alive! and the Conference Circuit

Working on the builds for Literature Alive! is only half of the work Eloise and I do in Second Life. Eloise has her own thriving business as a goddess scripter/builder and RL educator, and, of course, I have my own RL educator work at Hotchkiss. On the side, I do a lot of presentations, workshops, and faculty development projects including trainings, conferences, and workshops.

Conferences are energizing, and I truly love participating in them. Of the conferences I love most, NMC's conferences top the list. They really select top speakers/presenters, and I always learn the newest and most cutting edge stuff. Their energy is amazing, and Larry Pixel (RL Larry Johnson) and CDB Barkley (RL Alan Levine) and really great guys.

The NMC Symposium on New Media and Learning opened today, and I am presenting on Google in Second Life on Thursday. If you have teh chance, PLEASE go register! It is well worth the money spent, and it is all online, so you can stay in your jammies!

If you don't have spare cash, check out the Best Practices in Education conference happening this weekend in Second Life. The schedule was a bit hard to find, but here it is.

So, to see if anyone actually reads this blog; what do you think of Desi with short hair? T'is a little poll ;p

Rime of the Ancient Mariner, or The Albatross Returns

Now that House of Usher is done, we are moving on over to the Rime of the Ancient Mariner build. I love Samuel Taylor Coleridge's wicked sense of doom and gloom. We have all felt the weight of that albatross from time to time.

In my renaissance, I have been connecting with old friends in SL. Many of them are wearing the weight of those virtual albatrosses (albatrossi?). As budgets get cut, monies for virtual education are slim to none, and it gets hard to make a case for supporting virtual worlds when supporting the real world is hard enough. It is challenging to see value when the fog is thick and the seamates are dropping like flies all around you; it is easier to just to jump ship and swim to a safe shore where the birds are cute and don't smell like dead penguins.

However, there is hope. There is ground under that fog; there is light. The Mariner came back to tell his story. There was no dead yucky bird grossing out the bridal party; no - he lived to tell the tale.

We are all in a storm right now. But, there is hope, and we have a tale to tell. Our students need us to be creative all of the time. If we give up during the worst of times, our hope for the best of times is slighted. We need science folks to keep thinking about ways to cure the ills of the world; we need engineers to think up better and stronger bridges; we need people to find better and useful ways to communicate. It is only through the storms that we generate the best tales.

The Virtual Edgar Allan Poe Classroom ReBorn!

Eloise and I worked all day and night on recreating the Edgar Allan Poe Classroom (AKA "The House of Usher Classroom). Eloise whipped up a snappy drawbridge, and you can read or listen to several Poe texts before "trying" to gain entry to the House to find text-related artifacts. Stop in at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Drexel/200/25/24

Near the Poe Classroom, you will find a brief little exhibit called "Virtual Rhetoric." Complete with tank, the lesson address visual rhetoric in virtual worlds. Stop by at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Drexel/178/52/24

MANY MANY MANY thanks to Jean-Claude Bradley at Drexel for providing land sponsorship to Literature Alive!!!

The Heroic Journey

Among the builds that Literature Alive! still operates, the Archetypal Cave is among the list of the living. Visitors can learn about archetypal literary theory and the quest of the hero. In a classroom, it is an engaging and interactive lab full of hunts and student-created content. Alone, however, it is a pretty dish with stale candy....pretty to look at, but a little dusty.

In Second Life, this seems to be the norm. There are lots of pretty dishes. There are lots of fabulous places that are chalk full of content but are empty, abandoned, and, well, virtually dusty. Even my most favorite builds are empty when I take people to visit them...they have, somehow, lost their magic, their wonder, their passion...

Right now, Eloise and I are finishing a how-to chapter on building a viable workspace. This comes at a time when we have lost more than 50% of our donated land because the owners have given up. What can I possibly tell businesses about Second Life when we are holding on to Literature Alive! by a simple thread? Should we pack it in? The thought has occurred to me on more than a few occasions.

But then I think about those wandering avatars. The ones that get tired of the hair of the week hunts and lucky chairs and type "Poe" into the search box. They will find the Literature Alive! Edgar Allan Poe House of Usher plot hosted by AJ Kelton and Montclair State University. Or, if they type "literature" they will find the Literature Alive! group that was formed for 3 people and now is home to a few hundred. They can find Dante's Inferno in a simple search and learn about Italian and literary history. These are the reasons why packing it in is not an option. As a teaching professor, the mission was always to get students to love literature. The goal wasn't to be the most popular professor, but to be the professor that sparked interest and cultivated a little flame

The virtual dream was the same. I started Literature Alive! alone as an alternative to the crappy content that can be found in SL. Literature Alive! would have died without the scripting genius of Eloise Pasteur, and since she came on board, we have celebrated all sorts of successes for over 2 years now. The students that have gone through, most notably Daliah Carter, have become proficient communicators. Daliah is such a success story...an adult learner gone from sewing factory worker to newspaper editor. She never planned to be a writer., but Second Life gave her a chance to write publicly. It is for the the Daliahs of the world that we need to keep on track.

That said, we do need some fresh air; we to open the windows in our virtual world and kick out the rugs. Once the light cracks through the dust, we can see what it is that makes us love virtual worlds. Eloise and I have been kicking up the rugs, and underneath the dust, we are finding the gems that have made us strong. The content, the builds, and the documentation have all been strong since the first prim was raised in the name of Literature Alive! While things might be dusty, the is solid. There is no structural damage. There has been no weathering.

Jean-Claude Bradley (SL Horace Moody) is donating some of the land at Drexel Island to Literature Alive! In real life, Jean-Claude is one of the most inspirational people I know, but he has now become that open window of fresh air for my virtual life. Literature Alive! is organic, much like the chemistry he teaches, and it relies on constant care, examination, and experimentation. Alone, the structures are just molecules, but adding the chemistry of intellect and passion will be the air that is much needed for us to stay successful in SL. What makes SL the tool of choice is its ability to connect people together - the collaboration of many for the sole purpose of educating others.

OK, so we have let ourselves get dusty. There are always Pledge and Old English. We need to grab our rags and polish and get to work. It is time for Spring Cleaning!

Where Have I Been???

Lordie! It seems that I have been away from this blog FOREVER, and then I checked the date, and, d'oh! - t'is true!

Life, as is usually does, got in the way of composing witty posts for all y'all. Most specifically, my mother's terminal illness raised its bar on Christmas Day, and it has been an all consuming journey. She is stable for the moment, and I can breathe once again.

Sooo....I'm back!

My Second Life is a little smaller now, as I have packed up a number of our builds. Sadly, the economy is hurting everyone, and my generous donors are giving up property left and right. One day, Literature Alive! might have its own island to call home, but, for now, all of the builds are available on request with a few stable properties left standing. It is sad to watch SL shrinking. It is a great tool for educational collaboration, and I hope that, one day, the powers that now rule LL will see the educational value of programs like Literature Alive! - the ones that serve the community as a whole and not a specific college or university. But, then again, they are a business, and money is usually the bottom line, so I guess we will just keep on trucking with what we have out there.

It feels good to be back :-)

A Card from the Boys

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Support Joel Tenenbaum

Please join me in supporting Charlie Nesson (Harvard) in spreading the word about supporting Joel Tenenbaum. Joel is being charged with pirating 7 songs using Kazaa in 2004. He could have to pay a million bucks for those 7 songs. I urge you to gaze at your iPod and count how many songs you might have to pay for if you were in his shoes.

There is a Facebook group to join, but also BLOG about the issue! Twitter it! Spin it off into the viral world. This poor guy is standing where any one of could be...let's STAND UP FOR HIM!

Award Winning

T'is the Season to win awards. MANY congrats to Drexel Island for winning a nomination for the EduBlog Awards! I would like to hope that Literature Alive!'s Women and War Classroom helped, but, truly, it is likely that Jean-Claude Bradley's amazing work with chemistry is the culprit! To vote for them, go to EduBlog Awards voting.

I always wondered how these voting things work. I didn't get to vote for the Webby Awards, and I didn't even know that the EduBlog Awards were happening. I always think those things are stacked anyway. The same bloggers (the "A" List) win every year, and yet the people who I always think should win (Vicki Davis/Kathy Shrock/Larry Ferlazzo) do not. And, of course, I never voted because I had no idea there was voting going on. So, the blogosphere is a bit like High School. The popular kids are very popular amongst themselves, and the other kids, the ones that really make a difference, get little recognition. The prom queen is someone made only of legend and taffetta. Not that I think the winners aren't deserving, and there are surprises every once in a while (YAY DREXEL!). But, I have vowed to vote for these things from now on.

Mashable, by far my favorite blog ever, is promoting the Open Web Awards. They have all sort of nifty skippy categories, and you can have a voice in who gets picked.

I am not a campainer, but I will champion this one cause: VOTE FOR DIIGO! Diigo is the best social book marking system out there. It is easy to use, and, honest to Pete, I get so many great resources from there! SO VOTE.

Choices

I caught this TED talk by Barry Schwartz on the "Paradox of Choice." Fascinating. Although created in 2005, I believe the content is still important (and, I am holding out for the Creme Brulee torch!). We have so may choices, and the paralysis of choice is very true.

Here is his advice: "The secret to happiness is low expectations." and "We all need a fish bowl."

He is a great speaker:

The Book Club

I needed to feed my brain. It was starting to dry rot. Well, maybe it was always a bit touched with soggy wood, but I felt the need to read something other than a blog.

The beauty of New England (besides the leaves in fall) is that everyone belongs to at least one book club. I joined the one for female faculty at Hotchkiss, and I was so excited and motivated at the first meeting.

Instead of the traditional format, this month they did a "share" session where you bring in books you have recently read and loved and share them. At the end, you toss them into a circle and pick out a few to take along to read.

I selected three books, and have started the first one: La Tour Dreams of the Wolf Girl by David Huddle. So far, the book is an excellent read (even though I HATE the main character, Suzanne). But, truly, to get me to hate a character so well is a gift of genius. The opening story about Suzanne on the school bus sets the tone for her character, and I dislike her already. If La Tour is indeed an "old fart,"Suzanne is his modern prodigy (an old "fartress"?).

For our next meeting, we are all reading Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. Ms. Brooks spoke at Hotchkiss earlier this term, and I am eager to read another book by her.

People have asked if I have given up on Second Life. The answer is no. I am not teaching right now, and so I am using my free time to explore some other things, but I will be back again once I am teaching. Plus, my best friends are in SL (Eloise and Dal), so I will be back very soon.

Is Blogging Dead?

I just read a fascinating article over at the Economist about the "death" of blogging. My knee jerk reaction was that, NO! BLOGGING IS ALIVE!

Is it?

True Confessions of a Social Media Slacker!

Lordy...I updated my MySpace page today. Jeebus; the pics were like 2 years old! Then I got a Plurk thingy that said I had to update my Plurk. And, I hadn't been there for a majillion moons! I Twitter every time I Diigo, so that seems like I am on 40000 times a day, but, well, not so much. There seems so much to keep track of out there!

I took a break from SL for a bit. Since I am not teaching this semester, there isn't an urgency to be there, so I tried out some other things. I start coaching diving next week, so I may still be a little scarce until I start teaching in January.

In any case, I thought that I should "try" to be more useful to the online community and post useful things here again. So....

My presentation for NMC is located here. The cool A-Z tools wiki is here. But, to make life a wee bit easier - here is the list!

A = Amazee, Animoto, A.viary and AwesomeHighlighter

B = Broth and BlockPosters and Brush Video

C = CoSketch and Campfire

D = Discipline Specific Tools and Diigo

E = Encyclopedia of Educational Technology and EgoBoxes

F = FURL

G = Google Suite and Group Table and Go2Web2.0 Directory

H = Huddle and Hulu

I = Indezine

J = Joodo

K = KEEP Toolkit and Kwout

L = LectureFox

M = Mixbook and Merlot

N = Ning

O = OneTrueMedia

P = Penzu, Project Gutenberg and Preezo and Picitup

Q = Qlubb and Qollage

R = RTM, Rememble and Review Basics

S = Slideshare and SpringNote and SlideRocket and Storytlr and scrnshots and Scrapblog

T = Technology Dictionary and Teacher Training Videos and Teacher Tube and TimeRime

U = Udutu

V = VoiceThread

W = Wikispaces and WeGameand Web2Rights

X = Xtimeline

Y = YouTube and Yudu

Z = Zotero

A New Day Has Arrived

My children will never know what it was like to only have rich white men in the highest office in the US. This is a good thing. I hope, in my life time, that the words "Madam President" will also be a reality.

No matter what side we were on last night, today we must all work together. This was the message that both McCain and Obama stressed in their speeches (and, why, oh WHY, couldn't ALL of the speeches have been that good???). As a member of neither of the two major parties, I watched with interest as the polidoofi (my term, not theirs) talked little about issues and more about the costs of dresses and someone's great aunt Annie. But, all that is behind us...today is a new day.

Working together is never easy, but working apart is so much harder.

Today, I had the excellent fortune to present at NMC's Fall 2008 Virtual Symposium. The number of new faces was refreshing. NMC does an amzing job of getting new people hooked into the newest technologies.

So, today, educators started our day together...finding ways to teach and learn together. And, outside of the conference, others spent their new day doing the same.

Scientists like Jean-Claude Bradley are finding ways to do research together - breaking down the barriers of patents and antiquated publishing methods. Teachers like Eloise Pasteur are technology to help learning disabled students harness intellectual freedom. Lawyers like Charlie Nesson are challenging the music industry to stop abusing their power. There is a lot more sharing and less competition...and this is an amazing time to live.

But, we still have work to do. 52% of Californians voted down the right of marriage equity. My concern here isn't the number or even the final vote, but that there are literally two nearly even sides of that issue in CA and both sides need to listen to the other. Where can they find compromise? Where can they talk without feeling bashed (and, truly, I mean that for either side)? There seems to be a need for a discussion - not just name calling and veiled threats?

We have lost the art of conversation. Whilst the computer might be part of the demise, I suspect it has a lot more to do with not wanting to anger anyone...or not wanting to "cause a problem."

Teaching Naked requires one to think about life as both being dressed and being open. It is very easy to try new clothes on all the time...it is easy to buy a new outfit when things get rough or go south...it is easiest to layer up the clothes so that the layers can peel off easily in any situation. It is much harder to teach naked...everyone sees all of your everything every minute of every day. But, it is real, and they can expect it always to be real even sometimes imperfect.

I hope that President-Elect Obama will "Govern Naked" as much as he can without selling our national soul; I hope that Charlie Nesson will continue to work toward changing our outdated copyright system; I hope that we will all try to work together to save our planet, our children, and our future. This is a GREAT new day...let change begin with me.

(side note...here is a clip someone took of me and put on YouTube):