Session Reflection

OK, as "tweeted" during the session, I totally missed Ian's presentation after he started the presentation with some Twitter instructions. That happens to me all the time! One thing I am learning in these Instructional Technologies classes is to be very, very careful with "The Hook". Education professionals are constantly searching for that hook that will get their students interested and focused on the task at hand. But it's been my experience that the hook can be extremely distracting for certain learners. I'm one of those learners! That "Voki" thing that everyone is throwing into their projects now... whenever I see it I tune out of the project and go play with Voki!

The other day another student prefaced a presentation with a demo of Spokeo. I spent the entire presentation looking myself and others up on Spokeo. The irony is, the actual presentation had nothing to do with Spokeo.... the presenter just thought it would be something interesting for us to see.

Anyway... I have to lookup Ian's presentation because what I glanced at was informative, and the actual design of his presentation materials looked GREAT!

#itec562010

Week12 Reflection

We got to re-define our definition(s) of web 2.0 and I have to say we were generally pleased with the work we did at the start of the semester. One major thing we wanted to do was point all of the elements in a specific direction. At first I thought everything should be under a massive, all encompassing "knowledge" unbrella, but I didn't think that metaphor really fit. Ultimately, we created a knowledge star at the center of our universe and pointed everything toward it. That's what it's all about: knowledge. Actually, it's about information, but we couldn't erase.
Kyle gave an informal talk on his experiences with the iPad, and I'm still not convinced I need to buy one. Why no Flash player? Why?
Eilleen gave a fascinating presentation on the Mechanical Turk. She used PowerPoint and apologized profusely for doing so, but I don't see why. PPT has a place in this web 2.0 world if that's what works for you!
Posted as an email composed on the Motorola Droid.

Session 9

I was once again blown away by the caliber of speakers we're treated to in this class. This time it was Eugene Lee, CEO of Socialtext. I assume I wasn't the only one blown away because after Mr. Lee's presentation he opened up the floor to questions and we all just sat there dumbfounded..... My jaw was still on the floor as I thought: Am I really experiencing this?

Many things resonated with me. First of all, I really like what he said about "Executive Trading Cards" with the Facebook paradigm. As one of many teachers with a Facebook profile at my work site, I often find myself in these discussions: Should you, or should you NOT, "friend" your students? I'm against friending students for various reasons, but one thing that really does concern me is the Executive Trading Card game. I often get friend requests from students that are not genuine, if you know what I mean. These people are just collecting friends for the sake of it. More important, though, is the game that gets played once I accept a single friend request.... then I have to accept them ALL, or start playing favorites. It's just a line that shouldn't be crossed in a student/mentor relationship. Students can subscribe to my Twitter feed, they can email me anytime they like, but I don't want to get into that friendship playing card game. Too much politics, too little time to navigate it. For the same reason, I have never tried to friend the admins at my school site. Although I do have a good relationship with a few folks, I don't think it would be fair to them or the rest of the staff to go the Facebook route.

The next thing that resonated with me: I am smart and hard-working, so I sometimes get to thinking I should be making much more money than I do. I have really expensive taste in furniture! But when I meet a person like Mr. Lee, I have to admit I don't want to work that hard! It's obvious he loves it, and I love my job, but he really LIVES it 24/7. That's part of the reason I asked him about the possible conflicts when there's no separation between work and personal life in the Twittersphere. I believe I asked if he and his workers have separate Twitter accounts for work and play. Apparently, there is no need for Mr. Lee to have a separate Twitter account because his work at Socialtext is his life. He made it clear what his morning coffee and news revolves around: work. Wow. Now that I think about it, I am somewhat the same way. My reading revolves around work, pretty much everything I do revolves around work. Hmmm. Perhaps Mr. Lee and I aren't so different after all... except he was wearing a really beautiful watch and I sport my The Pirates of Silicon Valley Casio:

Just kidding, I love my Casio!

Next up... using Twitter and other tech to collaborate and find what you're looking for as opposed to sending out the dreaded SPAM-like email to everyone in the organization. This is such a great idea and I sure wish my work-site adopted this paradigm. I could see it saving so much time and effort.

Finally: Wikis in the workplace. This is another great idea my tech department really needs to pursue. I spent hours trying to get my Android phone properly linked with my work Novell Groupwise account, because I couldn't find any of the correct SMTP settings (if they even exist). I know many other people in our organization have gone through the same slog, but I couldn't find the answer on our tech answers web site. Pretty much the only thing I found was a two-page .pdf on recommended file naming conventions (I am not making that up). I tried to make my own tutorial but abandoned it when problems arose with Groupwise again. My final solution: Forward everything to my GMAIL account.

To sum up... special thanks to Ethan for bringing in another amazing guest speaker, and special thanks to our speaker, Mr. Eugene Lee.

Week 7 Reflection

We got to complete our "Meaning" presentation during the week 7 session. I really wanted to do the 20-10 exercise with the class just for fun! I have to admit I do this exercise all the time because I tend to fantasize about winning the lottery (even though I rarely ever PLAY the lottery). It's a great way to evaluate what you're doing with your life. I mean, if you suddenly won 20 million dollars, would you quit your job immediately? I recall having a real epiphany a few years ago while dreaming of all the great things I would do with my (then) girlfriend if I suddenly came into a tremendous amount of money. Instead of imagining how I could pay her off and get rid of her so I could live the life I really wanted to be living, I realized I WAS living the life I wanted to be living. Is that confusing? Anyway, she later became my wife and although we still don't have that 20 million, we're pretty happy.


The class also wrapped up three more "Expert Presentations": Remote Meetings, EFF, and Screen Casting. For me, the most interesting was Screen Casting. I've been after a copy of Adobe Captivate for years, and it was cool to find a cheap alternative in iShowU. What is the deal with the rise in Adobe product prices, anyway? They priced me out of the equation and back into KeyGen searches.


The class finished with a rather confusing explanation of the final project. I was wrestling with the lousy old Apple machine in the back of the classroom and wasn't paying that much attention. I thought we were going to get into a Freidman-esque article we've been after for a week, but we ran out of time while some students debated what the final project should look like. It was a real trial-by-fire for poor Ethan, and I felt so sorry for him! I guess the long and short is Ethan wanted to create an open-ended opportunity for people to explore their passions, but his students demanded more structure. You can please some of the people some of the time, but..... well, whatever. I just need to buy a laptop I can actually carry to class.

Elaine Wheery of Meebo

Wow, we really had an expert presentation for session 6! Our guest speaker was Elaine Wheery of Meebo fame, and she did an amazing job. I really wish I would have copied down her UI (user interface) and UE (user experience) design tips, but I was too focused on her crash course in music history:

1. Medieval - Primarily choral
2. Renaissance - An explosion of musical instrument invention 
3. Baroque - Extreme ornamentation with the democratization of musical instruments
4. Classical - Haydn begins to codify structure and strip out gratuitous ornamentation
5. Romance - Increased ornamentation with classical structures in mind

Ms. Wheery compared the "internet revolution" to the evolution of classical music, and postulated the internet is currently in the "Baroque" period. I'd like to think we are rather in the late Baroque period. Consider the fall of MySpace (outrageous design mashups) and the rise of Facebook (a much "cleaner" interface). 

Obviously, the democratization of design is not necessarily a great thing. 

Additionally, I'd like to see this metaphor extended to other disciplines. Did anyone else in class consider the evolution of typographic design? Watch the movie Helvetica and try to map out a similar wave of evolution. Was Wim Crouwel the Haydn of the 20th century?

Anyway, those design tips I mentioned at the start of the post... can any of my classmates provide those for me?

The Economist: Special Report on Social Networking

First and foremost, I was stunned to discover 70% of Facebook users are based outside the United States. I've been living in my own little bubble, haven't I?

I have to admit: I took a short break from the article to sign up for Facebook Connect, and after the better part of four hours, I'm still running in circles. As far as I can determine there are Groups, Pages, and Applications. Facebook Connect is the application part of it. That's what I don't want. I want a place for my current and former students to Connect and possibly collaborate, but I don't need the API for that. I can't be bothered with a FBML test console. I'm not building apps!

Soooooo, I created a Group. Groups are great! As an admin I get to approve members, filter wall posts and other user-generated content, and message all members. However, I simply cannot find the one little thing I want: A badge to put on my web site which A)Invites people to join the group and B)Displays thumbnails of other members.

Basically, I want the badge that's available with Connect. Lo and behold, the same thing is available with Pages!

Sooooo, I created a Page. The Page schema seems to be really wide open. For instance, anyone can "become a fan." But I don't want fans: I want a Group, with members.... and a badge on my web site.

So I have a Connect App, A Group, and a Page. The Connect is going just as soon as I finish typing this post. I'm going to kick around the Page and the Group just a bit more before I quit this thing. Hey Facebook, it should be much easier than this.

Update: What's the point, anyway? Facebook is, and will be for the distant future, completely and utterly inaccessible from our school site. Why am I bothering with this? I'm just gonna throw up a Google Friend Connect option, since all my students are on Gmail anyway.

Missed My First Day

Well, I have one of those flu's where I'm super hot and freezing cold at the same time. Dislike. Things started to get a little rough during the second half of my Wednesday class. I still HAD to go to work on Thursday because I just got new freshman students, eight computers are down, and I couldn't fathom hurling a substitute teacher into that situation.

I figured I'd just roll with it and attend class that night, but I could barely keep it on the road trying to get there. I guess it was really windy, too. Anyway, there you have it: My first missed class. Someone will help me catch up, I'm sure.

ITEC 830 Day One

Things are moving fast in ITEC 830 after a standard introduction session! Glad to have an instructor who is excited about the content and eager to get us into the action. Rather than staring at the clock just dying to get out of class, time has rather flown by and I'm way interested in getting this blog post done, updating myITEC profile, joining the 830 group, and trying to get some of these folks to collaborate with me on Google Wave (Hey everyone, I'm at jamesbriano@googlewave.com if you already have Wave and want to add me as a contact).

I suppose I'm gonna need to check out the other Blogger templates, too.