Presentation Tomorrow! ABOUT BLOGS!

I do tend to do this as a matter of course, but this time in particular I find myself wanting to tweak my presentation the night before. Part of this is because I learned so very much today at my pre-conference workshop: Searchers Academy (AKA Finder Academy!) The speakers were folks I have heard in the past and my expectations were quite high for the day. I was not disappointed. The most of the day was shared between Mary Ellen Bates, of Bates Information Services, and Marcy Phelps, Phelps Research. The last hour was presented by the inimitable Gary Price of Resource Shelf and Ask.com (and no he was NOT on the Google Executive Board at one time...) Anyway, one thing that was covered was the searchability of blogs. This is a rapidly improving ability that is moving towards negating one criticism sometimes leveled at blogs: that they are hard to search. So I am revising to include that information. Also, it occurred to me that I could use some great tips for what makes a good, viable, healthy blog. So I posted that question to my friends at LM_NET, TLC, and EDTECH. I asked them to add comments to my wiki for the presentation but now am thinking...maybe they should have posted them HERE SINCE THIS IS A BLOG. Ah well, if anyone wants to share a tip, that would be great! I wish I had more time to write about the things I learned today, since they will get buried under the things I learn tomorrow, but I am going back to tweaking...after today/night maybe I will find time to be more current with specific things that stand out from the sessions.

WOW! Voice Thread!

I have been practicing my avoidance skills, looking around the Net for new and different things rather than going over my presentation for next Monday, which I SHOULD be doing. Anyway, I came across a great Web 2.0 tool just now, that I have not seen or heard about before. It is Voice Thread! The idea is that you build a presentation/conversation around an image or group of images. Your audience can chime in either with voice comments or with text messages. The picture, which is the centerpiece, will be in the middle, with everyone's avatars and comments clustered around it. There is a great demo if you go to the site. Take a look! It is really cool! And who knows? Maybe it will be new to your filter and thus fly under the radar at school! I keep hoping...anyway here is the URL:
http://fresh.voicethread.com/
I am off to sign up and then report to my wiki and practice my presentation. Otherwise, I will have to go to 43 Things or TadaList and nag myself online!

Feeling like a phony

I am headed to Monterey, CA tomorrow for the Internet Librarian/Internet@School Conference. I will be presenting a session called "Here Today Here to Stay? The Future of Blogs." And yet I have not updated my blog in a week. What's up with that? Well, the flu is what has been up, plus reaction to an antibiotic that I think was worse than the malady. The combination has had me so out of it that I have only been able to concentrate on the bare essentials, preparing the presentation and keeping up with my REAL job. I hope to redeem myself by blogging faithfully during the conference, which is my #1 favorite place to learn new things that I can use all the rest of the year. This will be my fourth conference and I know I will be learning tons of great new information. My wiki, where the conference presentation plus a couple of others that I will be doing in November, is located here: http://forwhomthebelltold.pbwiki.com/

MA Bell's Blog about Librarianship and Technology

I must say this is handy. I just uploaded a powerpoint presentation that I plan to use soon, using SlideShare. After uploading, I had the option to share it here. So...here it is! The raison d'etre for this powerpoint is to help people come up with creative ideas for teaching with technology, even if they have little or no Internet access. I share David Jonassen's philosophy about mindtools and then give some activities that go along with it. They all involve the use of readily available, low-cost or free applications. This is intended to be useful even in the most heavily filtered schools where Web 2.0 options are blocked.

Knocksockstech

From: drmaryannbell, 2 minutes ago

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This slide show is about how to use technology readily at hand in teaching K-12.


SlideShare Link

Contemplating Contemplation

When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time just thinking. Of course much of my time was spent in angst ridden daydreams about some boy. But all the same, I was just sitting alone in the quiet of my favorite spot in our big yard, unplugged from even my transistor radio. This was what I liked to do in the early evening after the supper dishes were washed and put away and yes, I was involved in completing this task and not with the aid of a dishwasher. I would then wander away to my place, look up into the darkening sky, and simply think. Not all my reveries were lovelorn musings. I also thought about my future, what career I might have, where I might live, what college might be like, etc. Some of my thought were prayers as well. No one suggested this was a waste or time or an unusual activity. My folks left me alone. When it got dark or I got cold, I would wander back inside where there were all the usual distractions of TV, phones, and radio. I was not a hermit, but I did need and want time alone.

I was thinking about this yesterday as I relaxed during a heat treatment at the physical therapy clinic where I am receiving treatment for something aptly called frozen shoulder. Heretofore when I was lying on the nice padded table with pillows placed around my arm and shoulder, enjoying the lovely mild electric/heat treatment, I would let my mind drift, maybe thinking about a work project and how I would approach it. Another thing I might do was simply meditate, going through some of my repertoire of memorized Biblical passages and other inspirational ones, such as the Prayer of St. Francis and the Serenity Prayer. But yesterday I brought a new friend with me...a brand new iPod. I really enjoyed listening to my favorite lowbrow music, a mix of traditional country and Americana, with a heavy dose of Texas musicians including my own daughter, Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keen, Merle Haggard, Lucinda Williams, Alice Stuart, Gillian Welch, and lots of others. Even better was listening while doing my pulley exercises and using the hand bicycle. The music made these monotonous tasks much less boring and tiresome. But as I listened I did think about this new experience. Now I was NOT giving my undivided attention to the art of thought. And next time I have therapy, I know I will want to use the iPod again. It makes me wonder about people of all ages, but especially youngsters, who are never unplugged. I see then on the walking paths, on campus, in cars, and really everywhere. Do they ever just stop, be still, and think? Do we ever encourage kids to do this during school hours or at home? Don't we always scramble to keep them busily occupied, and even fill previously quiet areas with music or other sound to keep them occupied? Is this all to the good? In my graduate days I wrote a paper comparing American and Japanese educational environments. One big difference between the two, I learned, was importance given to silent time for thinking. Americans really seem to discount and also shy away from this. Now with all the wearable and easily carried technology to engage us, I wonder of anybody does ever stop and just think. And further, I wonder what it means to our society that we do not?

Trip Down Library Memory Lane

I took a trip down memory lane yesterday. I visited the periodical stacks at my university library. To tell the truth, it has been years since I have gone to the shelf and pulled down a tome, and riffled through the pages of a bound volume, hoping the article had not been cut or torn out by some other long-ago reader. It felt a little funny to be back there, even though I am on the same campus all the time since I teach at the same university where I got my MLS. Back in the old days at SHSU, library classes were held in this building, and on the same floor where I found myself yesterday. I could remember being there every week-end in the early 80’s when I was working on my degree. I could look in the little conference room where I had catalog classes with my hero, Dr. Bonnie Thorne. It is a storage room now. For those of you who remember her, Bonnie is doing great, retired, and looking amazingly unchanged from when you had her for a class. I found the volume and article, which was from 1995 and no longer available online, and made a few notes.

Looking at the article was another memory-lane experience for me. It was by Dr. Doug Rogers, director of the doctoral cohort to which I belonged in the late 1990’s, and still inspiring students at Baylor University. This article was the linchpin of his views on technology and I wanted to refer to it in an upcoming presentation. I want to talk about the article in a future posting but wanted to commemorate my library visit and search in this one. The questions I could not escape were…

1. I wonder how much longer all these resources will be here? The musty smell of all those aging pages was, if anything, more intense than I remembered.

2. I wonder when I may be back over her to do a search for a print article? I still use the library for books, of course, but for journal articles, no—online databases generally suffice. Of course my fields are educational technology and librarianship, and 99% of the time I want the most recent information possible.

Am I saying print files like these are passé? Do I advocate disposing of them? Emphatically not! Even in my field, I just proved the ongoing value of those bound volumes. My BA is in English and history, and I certainly know that scholarly thought regarding these realms does not get dated in the same way as information may in other fields. Indeed, my reason for seeking the outdated article, which is about educational technology, is to point how timely the premise is some twelve years later. Long live libraries and the treasures they hold until the time comes when I need that one remembered gem and find it waiting for me on the shelf!

Motion Computer Emotions

I mentioned in my previous post that I opened two cool appurtenances today, an iPod and a Motion Computer. I raved about the iPod in that posting, and now I want to describe my reactions to opening this tablet computer.

• Packaging was a bunch of sturdy brown cardboard boxes. They did not reveal contents which is frustrating because, with several, you have to examine the thing inside to figure out what it is. What I mean is, there was one box that contained an external CD drive. It was in a larger shipping box that held other stuff as well. It took me a minute to figure out what the thing was because the box really did not say.
• Frankly, documentation is lousy. Packaging is mundane. After all these years, one might think that competitors would learn from Apple about the little things like these...
  
• The stylus was missing. OK that is not Motion's fault. Computer services handled the computer first and installed software, etc. They carefully packaged everything back up, but the sleeve for the stylus was, alas, empty. Since I already have an HP tablet, I tried that stylus, and was happy to find that it does work. BUT I think every tablet computer should come with at least two styluses (stylii???) Come on, people lose those things. Next on my list is to try to find the missing one and request that more are ordered.
• I was not the one who originated the order for this computer, so was not that familiar with it. I kept looking for the keyboard. THERE IS NONE. Unlike my HP, this computer comes with the assumption that you will use it just with screen/stylus, choosing between the three modes for text input: handwriting, single letter entry, and on-screen keyboard. At first this dismayed me, but the idea is growing on me. After all we really want this thing for conferences, etc. where the keyboard is less important. Handwriting recognition works great for me. My handwriting is OK, not pristine but not physician's scrawl either. So I am fine for entry.
• Another box held a large supplemental battery that is the same size as the computer and attaches to the bottom. Good for extended use, I am sure.
  
• The best thing about this gizmo is its weight. My HP feels like a ton of bricks in comparison. I can and will look up the weight, but right off am saying that it is very light.
• It is also very sleek and slim. I think my Motion and my iPod like each other...
• Conclusion? This is not someone's workhorse computer, at least not mine. But for conferences, meetings, etc, it is very, very cool.
  
• Take a look! Here is their website: http://www.motioncomputing.com/