Sparks & Flashes

University of Alberta Web Experience Survey Results

2011-05-06T16:26:00.001-06:00

Back in February, for about two weeks, we launched a web experience survey to current students, staff, faculty, prospective students, parents, alumni, donors and other members of the University of Alberta community. We had over 2,700 responses in that short time and over 200 folks also opted-in to our Feedback Forum where we will be showing ideas as we iterate for the community to give us their thoughts. I felt it was important to create a way for all members of a university community, regardless of their role at the university, to contribute to the creation process, since committees are often so small and include only a fraction of the community. Also, rapid iteration in design and development, and including a feedback loop from community members, doesn't really lend itself to the committee structure of monthly meetings!

If you would like to join the UAlberta Transformation Feedback Forum, you can sign up here.

So below are the results from our web experience survey that I am sharing to the broader audience as it gives good insight to the web needs and mobile and social media preferences of a teaching and research focused university community. I hope you find it useful in your research, and, as always, appreciate your thoughts.

University of Alberta Web Experience Survey Results

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Social Media Ideas for Professors

2011-04-04T22:23:00.000-06:00

Today I had a quick half-hour to talk to some of the professors in the Faculty of Extension at the University of Alberta about how they could leverage social media as a professor - both in the classroom and as a public subject matter expert. Of course, there are so many social media tools out there now so I limited myself to just a handful. Here is the presentation, which also gives an overview of the university social media accounts we are currently using at the University of Alberta.

How University of Alberta professors can leverage social media...

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University Web Strategy in the Reputation Age

2011-02-24T12:56:00.000-07:00

Just finished speaking to a packed house at CASEipedia conference in Vancouver on University Web Strategy in the Reputation Age. Here's the presentation itself:

University Web Strategy in the Reputation Age

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As part of the presentation, I gave away the Framework for Web Engagement Goals document that I am using to facilitate this strategic planning at University of Alberta. Feel free to use this framework for discussions at your own university, non-profit, or company:

Framework for Web Engagement Goals Setting Session

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I encouraged folks to use the #ReputationAge hashtag to tweet their thoughts, comments, questions and here is that backchannel conversation that was happening while I spoke:

Transcript of Twitter backchannel

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The full archive of the Twitter backchannel can be found here:
#ReputationAge on WTHashtag

Chat Transcript from Week4 of #CCK11

2011-02-09T11:40:00.001-07:00

Although I haven't had time to be more engaged in #CCK11 the past three weeks as work and Internet activism have kept me hopping, I was finally able to attend live for the first time, the Wednesday Elluminate session.

Neil Selwyn spoke on: "Social media and education: reasons to be fearful?"
In the spirit of debate, I congratulate Neil on bringing to the table the articulation of viewpoints that certainly lead to much further discussion. I do feel that considering his points are valuable for any of us that are leading change in our respective fields, so that we can better prepare well-articulated counter-points that help our colleagues who are more reluctant to the changes the social network has been bringing us ever since Usenet went live back in 1980.

The chat transcript captures the nascent counter-points that I feel are critical to further develop, so for the benefit of those who did not attend the session, here is the full transcript of that chat. (There were a few folks who continued to thank the presenter and facilitators after I copied this, so those posts at the end are not captured.)

Joined on February 9, 2011 at 10:03 AM

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Cris2B: The DS106 radio stream is great, Stephen.

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Me: hi all, live at last

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): Yeah, I'll probably set up my own audio server when ds106 ends

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): long past time I had my own talk radio station on the internet

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LeahGrrl: @Stephen: Go!

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Cris2B: Looking forward to it, Stephen!

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Jonas Backelin: Fearful vs. excited

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Cris2B: Hi JG -- good to see you live

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Cris2B: y

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): Sound is coming through loud and clear

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Me: Thanks @Cris2B - #Jan25 #Egypt plus work has kept me out of the course - but back for now!

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Simon Fowler: I agree ... it's very much about what it means to be human.

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Andreas Link: @stephen: your big clock as radio jingle, big sound :-)

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Larry Kahn: Education has certainly served Apple's interests over the years...

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): 'punters' - we need punters in Canada :)

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Moderator (George Siemens): this quote (particularly last sentence) is v. relevant to cck11

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BrainySmurf: : @larry and vice versa with prevalence of those tools in classrooms now

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Stu Harris 1: @George looking at that question is a course in itself.

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Cris2B: @George -- and LAK11

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): The alternative to this sort of view is the 'Code and other Laws' or 'Program the Future' or 'Program or be Programmed' perspective

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Moderator (George Siemens): @Stu, Chris2B - yes :)

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Larry Kahn: @Brainy yes!

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Tracy Parish (@hamtra): I love the way Neil has set up his slides!

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Me: uh-oh. I am all these (items 1. through viii.)

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Moderator (George Siemens): Hi Jen Dalby!

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Moderator (George Siemens): I was hoping you'd catch the tweet

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Moderator (George Siemens): I know you've mentioned value of Neil's thinking previously - (i.e. after EDMEDIA in toronto)

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Jennifer Dalby: @george Very excited!

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): I'm actually in favour of using technology for stealth socialism

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carol yeager: :)

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Me: @downes ditto. as per @JPBarlow

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): yes

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): quasi-statists

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Jennie Scott-McKenzie (jennieteacher): can i be a little bit of all of these - please

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ines cambiasso: lots of anti and counter?

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Jennifer Dalby: I have a "remember the little guy" agenda.

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Larry Kahn: strange bedfellows indeed

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): I have a 'I am the little guy' agenda

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Jennie Scott-McKenzie (jennieteacher): Librarians - vix

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Jennifer Dalby: @Downes Hey, I remember you!

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BrainySmurf: @Tracy P- agreed, this course has used slides well, as stimulus for conversation rather than text to hide behind

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): cool

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dustproduction: Immersve virtual worlds are also social media, and students are spending the same time, 10,000 hours gaming.

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John: Social Media = individual ?

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): I prefer: social media = personal

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dustproduction: This equals the hours spent in school.

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BrainySmurf: @john, yes strange set of words - individual media with social connection

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Me: social media = usenet v.2011

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John: Contradictions: "social" media = personal

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dustproduction: "freeing the individual to learn anyway they want" ???

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LeahGrrl: Old problem: student motivations?

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keith.hamon: @John @Stephen: either phrase points to the necessary connection between the individual and the environment, an interactive connection, dynamic, a strong characteristic of complexity

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BrainySmurf: @LeahGrrl - changing role of instructor motivations? ;)

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keith.hamon: as Morin says, we must learn to define individualism in terms of interdependence

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LeahGrrl: @Brainy: No, I was thinking about the autistic kid in my husband's 8th grade class who isn't potty trained....

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): ack, mic is broken...

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NinaF: Definitely see that education is becoming more commodified.

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FrancesBell: Agree - use of social media is not neutral - particulalry whenFacebook treats members as product not customers

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dustproduction: Disaggree, it seems to be an "inevitable" part

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Ken: well, education probably can roll along just fine without it

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Jennifer Dalby: I'm always concerned about how the word "power" is thrown around.

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BrainySmurf: @leah - right, that's an interesting example of newer philosophy about integration in classrooms

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Stu Harris 1: what impact does lack of awareness on the part of teachers have on the neutrality of social media in education?

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John: Social Media may not be inevitable but technology is.

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Cris2B: @keith.hamon -- good point about the individualism and interdependence -- definite connectivism connection

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Jennifer Dalby: power of the network, power of social media, power of the PLN

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Ken: seems like marketing mantra

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the digital conservatoire: I think nothing can ever be neutral - of course our views are skewed by whatever our ideological stance is. I just find that people have not quite got the hang of technology - in terms of how to exploit its potential

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dustproduction: Social networking is a natural process

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carol yeager: Social Media has the "sense" of individual control .. tho not really true

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LeahGrrl: @carol: Facebook is a good example.

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Jennie Scott-McKenzie (jennieteacher): I am equally committed to getting schools outside - physically and in the community as well as using social media to applify our humanity in those local/global actions. I don't see it as all or nothing...

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dustproduction: not just imagining, "creating"

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carol yeager: Social media also opens more poors to exchange of ideas, goods, etc

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carol yeager: doors

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John: Social Media = the power of every man.

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BrainySmurf: it seems that 'control' of education is more obviously in hands of users/learners in the past, which seems inevitable now that knowledge is easily accessible outside of classroom

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LeahGrrl: @Neil: What about "digital divide" in this context?

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Stu Harris 1: greater good

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Simon Fowler: SoMe is inevitable so long as people want to talk to each other in any non-encounter way

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NinaF: Definitely corporates are getting involved and education is becoming more homogenised from a global perspective. Rather than reflecting local cultures.

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carol yeager: @Brainysurf ... agreed

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fredgarnett: Technology not neutral, but new media is adopted according to the degree that it patterns to conversation (Digital McLuhan)

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FrancesBell: But technology isn't fixed - malleable and alsways changing

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dustproduction: aren't books a social media

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Simon Fowler: Highlighting the freedom of the individual is a somewhat ironic way of championing "social" media

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carol yeager: Scale od connections is a big draw for some, a drawback for others

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fredgarnett: @Frances 'technology' is something that isnt working yet

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keith.hamon: @dustproduction: yes

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Jonas Backelin: Marginalisation is not only access to technology; there is an embedded ‚ÄòNetworked Literacy‚Äô

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Ken: I don't think anything is really neutral

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FrancesBell: @fredgarnett - what do you mean by 'working?

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FrancesBell: @fredgarnett ;)

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fredgarnett: informal over-valorised! I dont think so... Formal is where the money is

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keith.hamon: @Simon: only if you buy into either/or ‚Ä¶ social media can enhance individual through wider network of connections

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Wanda Simpson: needs to be a blending of informal/institutional learning & technologies

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dustproduction: so remove the technology and the social media is still "emergent"

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BrainySmurf: agreed, informal is wildly attractive on some common sense level, no?

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carol yeager: Love this visual on the slide!!

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Cris2B: LMS as a bubble

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Paul Ellerman: @ BrainySmuf: Agreed. Learners have more control now over their learning, and the avenues they can use to obtain it.

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Simon Fowler: @dustproduction @keith.harmon .. social does imply dialog ... a book in itself, is a one-way street Author->reader, unless the reader discusses it with someone else or interacts with the author

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Peter Rawsthorne: I think the individual vs collective and personal vs dependant is really important here

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John: Those who are inculcated with the institution value the institution.

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Ken: don't you have an internal dialogue with a book?

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Jennie Scott-McKenzie (jennieteacher): books are technology

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dustproduction: Social media is the emergenceof the collective intelligence

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johngriffin0928: @JOhn. Agreed. Too much so.

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NinaF: But ironically there are more qualifications and levels of qualification - just see what is happeining within the professional sector.

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): I excel at hanging out and messing around

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Jennifer Dalby: @Downes that's because you practice

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Me: Usenet came out of DukeU in 1980 - 31 years ago - we've been hanging out for a lot longer

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BrainySmurf: and individualism is a more prevalent notion in this day and age - what if this technology had been available in the 50s - would there have been more or less appetite?

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the digital conservatoire: @fredgarnett I agree - formal is where the money is. throws up quite a few questions about the future of open content etc.

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carol yeager: @simonfowler ... some of the newer ebooks, are, indeed, intereactive

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Kevin: What bothers me most is the obsessive nature of people's relatiionship with social media.

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Simon Fowler: @Ken, 'internal dialog' isn't social

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fredgarnett: @digital informal 'cool' but formal doesnt care bout that

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Peter Rawsthorne: I think Thomas and Seely-Brown ding good work with collective and individual; http://www.newcultureoflearning.com/community2collective.pdf

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Ken: @simon you're right

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John: If you can't evaluate it, it doesn't exist?

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BrainySmurf: @digital conservatoire - good point with trying to advocate for informal learning in organization where only formal is resourced

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dustproduction: @ Ken, you don't? Isn't it immersive

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johngriffin0928: So what happens to those of us who don't "geek out" but do use social media?

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LeahGrrl: "Programming is the new literacy of the digital age"?

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Ken: @dustproduction I do, very immersive

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Tracy Parish (@hamtra): did he say lots of people hang out or only some do?

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John: LeahGrrl - good point!

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Stu Harris 1: definitely..all learners are not autonomous

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Simon Fowler: "not all learners are autonomous" ... interesting ... really?

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BrainySmurf: GREAT point ‚ÄúAutonomous learners can learn anywhere but not all learners are autonomous‚Äù

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Cris2B: @LeahGrrl: 7 Languages in 7 Days -- was surprised to see those were programming languages

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Larry Kahn: @LeahGrrl Programming is one of the new literacies of the digital age. Catch Wolfram Alpha's TED talk

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Simon Fowler: ILearners don't always learn autonomously

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): The best predictor of learning outcomes in general (and not just informal) is social-economic status

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Ken: I can agree with that, formal learning has value

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the digital conservatoire: is not the point of education to make all learners autonomous?

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Simon Fowler: I'd say "learners don't always learn autonomously", slight difference

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fredgarnett: This is a false dichotomy

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Moderator (George Siemens): interesting: formal learning as "equality of opportunity to access learning opportunity"

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Ken: @simon yes, better

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BrainySmurf: @digital - maybe that's the point of education but not sure we deliver on that consistently

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johngriffin0928: I learn certainly things autonomously. I need help with other areas.

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Me: Reality=Formal+informal.

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): I think we need to be careful about what we mean by 'learn autonopmously'

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dustproduction: This says to Daniel Kahnman's discussion of the "experincing self, and the remembering self.

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Jennie Scott-McKenzie (jennieteacher): the problem isn't expertise - it's the way it is delivered by the "classic learner" that has floated to the top of a "classic system" to teach in a "classic way"

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keith.hamon: Seems to me that all learners are autonomous, but often give up that autonomy in formal teaching environments.

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): the disfference isn't between 'learn in a formal classroom' and 'learn by yourself / learn by discovery'

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Moderator (George Siemens): I personally love a good lecture

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Simon Fowler: @Neil - I really appreciate this balance ...

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Cris2B: Lots of people don't know what they don't know

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): informal learning not the same as discovery learning

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Stu Harris 1: balance is the key word

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Larry Kahn: @Stu Great point!

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the digital conservatoire: we should - as any fule surely must see it#s not about content any more, but about where to find information and about the transferble skills - particulalry as knowledge half-times are decreasing rapidly

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Me: Being told what you don't know - what if the "teller" has an agenda?

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dustproduction: what about the need to be a life long learner?

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): the 'teller' always has an agenda

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Simon Fowler: @neil - it depends on what the purpose of learning is

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John: Golden age of lecturing?

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Me: @downes right on.

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johngriffin0928: All "teller" have agendas.

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BrainySmurf: @JGChesney, don't all tellers have an agenda? even a supposedly 'noble' one?

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Cris2B: @JG -- hmmm the teller always has an agenda

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Jonas Backelin: Time for metacognition

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Moderator (George Siemens): we all have an agenda, not just the tellers

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Ken: are all agendas 'bad'?

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LeahGrrl: @Neil: I believe in the importance of teachers; blogged on that this week (leahgrrl.wordpress.com)

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keith.hamon: So Stephen and George, what are your agenda?

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fredgarnett: In the UK the rewards go to those who believe, follow and promote formal learning. It is about recreating tradional UK hierarchy, as set up in the Reformation

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Moderator (George Siemens): @ken - no. but they need to be surfaced

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Stu Harris 1: are people advocating the disposal of formal education?

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Me: @BrainySmurf - yes, they do. which is why Discovery learning by individuals provide a way to judge the perspective of the "teller" in the formal setting

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Cris2B: agenda is like propaganda -- neutral but laden with baggage

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Ken: @george I agree very much with that

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Simon Fowler: agree ... we all have an 'agenda' but ... yes, what @george said, they have to be surfaced

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): @keith - to promote good networks via autonomy, diversity, openness, interatcivity

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Larry Kahn: Bill Gates thinks institutions are going away. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation just invested in online learning.

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NinaF: Whilst I think the rhetoric is about informal learning, I think the reality there is an increase in formal and institutionalised learning.

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Moderator (George Siemens): @Larry - online does not mean institutions are going away

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FrancesBell: Perhaps formailty/nature of learning should be determied by individual needs / subject rather than soci-ecomic status/ geogrpahical location

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Stu Harris 1: @larry but even online learning can be formal

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John: Bill must know. He's rich.

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keith.hamon: @Stephen: I can ride that

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LeahGrrl: @Larry: and hence, they'll go away....

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the digital conservatoire: @fredgarnett amen bourdieu

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Moderator (George Siemens): if anything, it means that institutions are going to be more like google/microsoft

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Me: i don't believe in the end of the university - I work in one - and labs and blackbox spaces will always have deep value

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LeahGrrl: If Bill Gates or Oprah says it...

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dustproduction: on-line, but perhaps a switch to virtual classrooms

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Simon Fowler: @neil 'end of school' is based on a very flawed assessment of human nature, as is the 'preservation of school in its current form at all costs"

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Larry Kahn: @Leah Power of traditional social media...

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BrainySmurf: @JGChesney, agreed - hence skills for judging sources of information, synthesizing, filtering are becoming critical for school kids

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Me: @BrainySmurf - agreed.

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dustproduction: 3D immersive virtual learning

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Stu Harris 1: all learning institutions should be constantly working to improve the learning environment.

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carol yeager: My experience has been working online for 12+ years in higher education

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Jennifer Dalby: I think we've come to this position because we started with the agenda of achieving recognition for informal learning.

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Stu Harris 1: That doesn't mean closing the doors and wlaking away

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dustproduction: GREAT DISCUSSION!

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Cris2B: "end of school" is much like "end of newspapers" as Shirky argues we're lamenting the institutions as we know them and not as they need to evolve

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fredgarnett: @Neil formal is the great orthodoxy and it has the money and the votes and the ministers

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BrainySmurf: @George, yes online is presenting new roles for formal institutions if they choose to embrace it

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LeahGrrl: @Cris2B: good point.

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carol yeager: evolution in education tends to be slower than many of us are comfortable working within

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Dave S -Winnipeg: @Larry. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sounds like an "institution" hailing the end of institutions, odd that.

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Mike Johnson: many learning technologists are so immersed in technology they forget those who could care less about it - the Selwyn critique has massive resonance with me and my students

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Simon Fowler: @neil, I totally agree ... it does seem rooted in a post-modern suspicion of 'authority' and 'power' - as though we the free people don't seek, exercise and need authority and power (i.e. we want 'empowerment')

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John: Social Media: I get to listen to Neil Selwyn, while half a world away. Fantastic!

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mathtech: I love "...lots of people don't know what they don't know". Good to have that point reinforced.

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Larry Kahn: @DAD ROTFL

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the digital conservatoire: @Neil formal vs informal probably does come down to money, power and the perpetuation of social hierarchies

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Me: Respectfully, labeling as "danger", you will see "danger"

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Stu Harris 1: oppression requires that a whole bunch of people don't know what they don't know

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carol yeager: @mathtech ... good point

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Ken: variety is the spice

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): I want to present the extreme case ... the VERY extreme case - for informal learning as a way of moving the definition of "it's in the middle"

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the digital conservatoire: the medium will evolve and potentially new forms of 'accreditiation' might emerge

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LeahGrrl: @Stephen: As in, the "radical" moves the middle?

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Dan: With reference to academic course design, do you have thoughts about course or assignment structures / organizational models that blend the different forms of iearning you have mentioned?

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): The radical always moves the middle by defining new extremes of possibility

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DUMACORNELLUCIANro @web20education: @Stephen I support free learning - free web 2.0 and social media in education , I send you a message to post my website in your list http://unhub.com/web20education/82502

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): @DUMA send by email please

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carol yeager: moi ... hanging out, messing around ... not sure geeking out is in my dna :)

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fredgarnett: Really Free School, spontaneous self-organised education now in London; http://reallyfreeschool.org/

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Peter Rawsthorne: I think we need to ask ourselves is acedemia relevant any more in changing society... I'd say Zuckerburg has influenced more in 5 years that Chomsky in 30

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Cris2B: finding myself wanting to retweet much of this -- funny feeling in Elluminate chat

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LeahGrrl: That is, "literacy" will change.

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Me: @downes - yes, move the middle - here & in #egypt #jan25 examples

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Larry Kahn: I'm in K-12 and working towards having all students exposed to legos, Alice and/or Scratch.

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DUMACORNELLUCIANro @web20education: I send 2 mounths ago a email

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Moderator (George Siemens): @stephen - the overton window (before Beck took it on) resonates with me in terms of extremes moving the middle

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NinaF: Understanding a program language? Hope not! I'll be in a mess.

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Stu Harris 1: I think we are confusing learning and education to some extent

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fredgarnett: @ninaF release your inner geek :)

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Moderator (George Siemens): @Cris2B - we need elluminate to tweet widgets

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Kevin: George, what do you think of all learning how to program?

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the digital conservatoire: interestingly in music - at least among practioners the formal/informal divide is irrelevant, it does not matter to casting directors if you learned your craft at a conservatoire or inforamlly or even autodidactically

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fredgarnett: Formal Institutions, run by professionals or managers?

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Jennie Scott-McKenzie (jennieteacher): @stu - agreed - I hope schools don't go away - just that they evolve with better learning

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Jennifer Dalby: If new people don't learn programming, we'll only have technologies designed to influence consumer behaviour

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Simon Fowler: yes, 'critical digital literacy' ... perhaps should be called "digital fluency" .. knowing how to use what, when, for what purpose, and with whom

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Moderator (George Siemens): @kevin - increasingly, I think yes

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Moderator (George Siemens): i.e. we need to learn to program

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Stu Harris 1: @jennie exactly...baby and bathwater and all that.

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Cris2B: @George -- that would be great and vice versa so the DS106 tweeters out there could interact here

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Moderator (George Siemens): 45, 50, 60 :)

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Me: @thedigitalconservatoire Agreed on pt of music.

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BrainySmurf: @digital - sounds like music world is performance-driven then, rather than credentials? if you can play the violin to x degree we don't care how you got there? i like that

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Mike Johnson: epistemic fluency is far more useful than digital literacy, and being able to type is far more use than programming

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LeahGrrl: Even a bit of programming knowledge gives one some control over tools created by others.

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Moderator (George Siemens): strata

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fredgarnett: @mike johnson > & epistemic cognition

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Ken: formal system - make good citizens?

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Me: I feel a new #CCK11 hashtag coming on: #MoveTheMiddle

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the digital conservatoire: @brainsmurf absolutely. same goes for actors. although of course there are some advantages in temrs of access and exposure

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John: There will always be a need for accedition for some form or other.

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Peter Rawsthorne: accreditation bahhh... its about reputation!

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Stu Harris 1: @john what about performance indicators insead of accreditation

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Jennie Scott-McKenzie (jennieteacher): Can we talk about Blending Learning in K-12?

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BrainySmurf: @Stu - RIGHT ON

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LeahGrrl: @Stu: My students would say, does it help my resume?

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Me: @Rawsthorne Agreed on reputation

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Moderator (George Siemens): no prob!

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carol yeager: @Stu and how and by whom would the performance indicators be assessed?

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Jennie Scott-McKenzie (jennieteacher): sorry - Blended Learning

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BrainySmurf: @Jennie - my experience in teaching K-3 was quite blended and then it became more bookish the higher the grade

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John: Do you want to go to a "doctor" how has a good reputation? Or pilot?

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Stu Harris 1: @Leahgirl they know what they want

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BrainySmurf: less hands on sadly

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Cris2B: personal cyberinfrastructure -- http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume44/APersonalCyberinfrastructure/178431 Gardner Campbell advocates for "owning" our tech lives

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Peter Rawsthorne: in a flat work our reputation is determined by our peers and out interactions

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Simon Fowler: @mike epistemic fluency ... how is that expressed with others, socially? isn't that through 'media' ... whether spoken word, writing, an app, facebook?

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BrainySmurf: @john - i want a doctor/pilot/musician/artist who can perform to the highest standard regardless of formal/informal background :)

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carol yeager: Perhaps we need to rethink what it means to be "educated" and how the learning to become educated occurs?

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Stu Harris 1: @john you did say it though there will always be a need for accreditation

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fredgarnett: @Simon, see Katerina Avremides on 'epistemic cognition'

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dustproduction: Sugata Mitra

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John: I still want to see some paper on the wall.

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Larry Kahn: @carol Yes

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LeahGrrl: @dust: Yes!

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LeahGrrl: @dust: He uses Grandmothers.

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carol yeager: @Stephen ... solo learning is possibel but is it preferable? and to what extent can one learn as a solo silo?

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Peter Rawsthorne: physical wall or virtual wall?

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Larry Kahn: @Dust I'm going to hear Sugata speak in a couple of weeks. Can't wait!

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Simon Fowler: @mike so agree 'digital fluency' may not capture it all, but 'epistemic fluency' sound internal ... but thanks @fredgarnett I'll look that up so I know what I'm talking about! :)

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sheena: where do we learn how to be functioning, contrinuting members of society in an informal system?

---------------------
Me: Empowered individuals in support of a smarter collective is the balance we need.

---------------------
dustproduction: peer to peer

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BrainySmurf: @sheena through the experience of informal learning itself?

---------------------
fredgarnett: @Simon slideshare on Epistemic Cognition http://slidesha.re/aooA9D

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Moderator (Stephen Downes): @JG agreed

---------------------
Me: current collective is not working

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): @JG - yes - that's why I want to redefine these end points

---------------------
johngriffin0928: @JG what current method is working?

---------------------
Peter Rawsthorne: JSChesney what do you consider to be working?

---------------------
Me: @Downes yes! #MoveTheMiddle !

---------------------
dustproduction: ....for a cost!

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): It's not just "individual vs collective" but rather "individual vs Collect model A" and "individual vs collective model B" etc

---------------------
Simon Fowler: This all sounds like the tension between equality & freedom (de Toqueville)

---------------------
Simon Fowler: @fredgarnett thanks

---------------------
John: Wikipedia

---------------------
fredgarnett: In the PAH Continuum we show how to integrate Cognition, metacognition & epistemic cognition. you can design learning to do this (eg ThomasCochrane)

---------------------
carol yeager: Home schooling vs institutionalised learning may be a prime indicator of the 2 schools of ideas

---------------------
Larry Kahn: @Stephen, can you expand on that?

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): cnsider the difference between 'collective as defined by hierarchy', 'collective as defined by commune', and 'collective as defined by network'

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sheena: @BrainySmurf, with or without role models?

---------------------
BrainySmurf: @george - what about opportunity of social learning given to poor labourers in dominican republic just by having access to cellphones? potential of that exchange of knowledge/information/awareness regardless of their access to schools?

---------------------
saadat_m: I think putting more values on informal leanring and the role of social media and technology dont threat formal and institutionalized learning but instead bridgening informal and formal learning mediated by technology make institutionalized learning more accessable and affordable perhaps

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fredgarnett: @Stephen Nice :)

---------------------
Larry Kahn: @Stephen Thanks

---------------------
Simon Fowler: @JG @stephen @johngriffin yes, "what's working" presupposes a purpose for learning ... that's the big question for individuals and society and the world

---------------------
Me: @johngriffin0928, @Rawsthorne What is working: empowering individuals via technology to produce a smarter collective. Recent example #egypt #tunisia

---------------------
DUMACORNELLUCIANro @web20education: I tweet now this wonderfull on-line session ;)

---------------------
LeahGrrl: For me, school/education was the only way out of Indiana....

---------------------
Moderator (George Siemens): @brainysmurf - have you seen this on web 2.0 in Africa? http://dotsub.com/view/7a64255a-02e7-4d70-9d2a-48bef0aeda2d

---------------------
DUMACORNELLUCIANro @web20education: :)

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Me: @LEahGrrl Same for me (Memphis, TN)

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BrainySmurf: @george, thx will check it out:)

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dustproduction: opensource tech is needed

---------------------
DUMACORNELLUCIANro @web20education: @Downes I send you a email from pr.lucian@gmail.com to your email

---------------------
John: Commerical break?

---------------------
Cris2B: Station ID

---------------------
LeahGrrl: @JG: Before the INternet for me, though.

---------------------
Me: Brought to you by Tide - as it It's Changing.

---------------------
DUMACORNELLUCIANro @web20education: Do you like social media curation tools ?

---------------------
BrainySmurf: @JG good one :)

---------------------
Tracy Parish (@hamtra): @JG LOLOLOL

---------------------
Cris2B: and this is the ebb and flow

---------------------
Simon Fowler: @JG yes, I was just thinking about #egypt ... big questions going on right now about the constitution ... whose is it, who is Egypt and what makes it legitimate authority as a 'collective defined by network'?

---------------------
Me: @LEahGrrl me too! Zine culture helped me break out - precursor to Internet

---------------------
Stu Harris 1: @leahgirl were yu an autonomous learner?

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): Need to do the station IDs for audio listeners on radio station, also makes the audio recording more useful

---------------------
LeahGrrl: @Stu: Still am :)

---------------------
Moderator (George Siemens): @stephen - agreed

---------------------
John: Social Media is more accessible.

---------------------
BrainySmurf: agreed with not fair media if a country can 'pull the plug' on it!

---------------------
dustproduction: "public networking" vs social networking

---------------------
LeahGrrl: @JG: Great connection. Zines must've paved the way for the Internet.

---------------------
fredgarnett: In my Emergent Learning Model i redefine informal learning as the social processes of learning, non-formal as resources and formal as institutions;

---------------------
fredgarnett: http://www.slideshare.net/fredgarnett/fg-ouemergenttable

---------------------
Stu Harris 1: @leahgirl is that the key..do we need to concentrate on providing studetns the ability to be autonomous..what wuld that mean we need to do generally

---------------------
dustproduction: public media = Open Source

---------------------
Simon Fowler: even if everyone has social media access, if power congregates around a group it can silence or ignore those 'outside' the group

---------------------
LeahGrrl: @Stu: I think that's what good teachers do.

---------------------
NinaF: Totally agree: social media is not fair. Many communities are impoverised by this new technology.

---------------------
DUMACORNELLUCIANro @web20education: Yestarday was #sid2011 and I made this topic with eSafety resources

---------------------
BrainySmurf: @Nina - how impoverished? that's interesting...

---------------------
Jennifer Dalby: Some are passionate and active, but lack the social skills to be successful.

---------------------
dustproduction: 500 million users!!!!!

---------------------
John: Tell that to all the bloggers/twitters, etc

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): This is a good point - me having my own website (and access to a radio station ;) ) gives me a huge advantage over people who just use Facebook anbd Twitter

---------------------
Stu Harris 1: @leahgirl I keep thinking about are situation here. 30% of our students don't do well. and about 70% of those 30% are first nations, poor

---------------------
Jennifer Dalby: There's a kind of digital charisma that comes into play, that is rarely acknowleged.

---------------------
Me: but the 1% who blog, 9% who comment and 90% who read are a far bit better than the passive culture taught by TV consumption by the previous generation

---------------------
John: Tell that to the people of Tunisa or Egypt

---------------------
fredgarnett: Southern Californian tech developments are often by greedheads who believe in Ayn Rand and want that billion dollar IPO, or are we talking about geeks?

---------------------
DUMACORNELLUCIANro @web20education: http://www.scoop.it/t/esafetyresourcesforschools/

---------------------
BrainySmurf: @jennifer d - i see social media as providing oppty for those who are not interpersonally social but do well in virtual connection

---------------------
FrancesBell: Ah the homophily effect does challenge 'Only Connect'

---------------------
Simon Fowler: access <> power

---------------------
LeahGrrl: @Stu: Here, those percentages are reversed. Most kids don't get through high school in urban Columbus, Ohio.

---------------------
Jennifer Dalby: @BrainySmurf That's a dangerous assumption.

---------------------
Cris2B: @Jennifer -- digital charisma is interesting concept.

---------------------
Simon Fowler: access <> influence

---------------------
dustproduction: Social disability, learned disability, all created

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): It's way better - and it would be absurd to say anything like "we shouldn't set up websites because not everybody can set up their own websites"

---------------------
Cris2B: @jennifer -- like TVQ

---------------------
Jennifer Dalby: @Cris2B Socially awkward people are still frogs.

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Stu Harris 1: @leahgirl wow....we tend not t put thins into perspective

---------------------
Jonas Backelin: Should we have 3 students working on 1 computer instead of individual (support each other)?

---------------------
Moderator (George Siemens): @Jonas - Sugata Mitra would likely say yes

---------------------
FrancesBell: Open source communities can still have significant power differences eg gender

---------------------
Cris2B: Sadly I think many k-12 teachers are being left out of networked learning

---------------------
BrainySmurf: @ jennifer - how so? and what did you mean by digital charisma? interesting phrase

---------------------
Simon Fowler: @stephen yes, very true, but we also shouldn't say "being able to sett up websites will make us all equal"

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LeahGrrl: @Cris: Many are just trying not to be spit at by their students.

---------------------
John: Some people will write books while most will read.

---------------------
Me: Everywhere it's dark on the map is where we need to empower individuals via technology so they can build their smarter collective!

---------------------
Jennifer Dalby: @BrainySmurf You have to attract people to communicate with you. Technology doesn't create social grace.

---------------------
FrancesBell: Topical;)

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): @Simon - it wouldn't make us equal - some people woiuld be better at it - but it would be a good thing

---------------------
dustproduction: in Christakis & Fowlers research on social networks education infuential people spreads the knowledge via social contagion

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Stu Harris 1: @jonas I think technology should not be as defined in schools. It should be available and used for the purpose that presents itself at the time and in the context

---------------------
Cris2B: did you see results that women aren't represented as Wikipedia authors?

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): I think eventually everyone will have their own server (much the way everyone has their own telephone)

---------------------
John: More people have access to education and information today then 50 years ago.

---------------------
DUMACORNELLUCIANro @web20education: I think that web 2.0 and social media can bring a new dimenssion and redorm education worldwide http://www.scoop.it/t/web20andsocialmediaesafetyinxxicenturyeducation/

---------------------
BrainySmurf: @jennifer thx i get that - though i see adults using technology who will reject participation from those without social grace (world of online gaming can be very supportive, engaging, considerate)...though i agree some participants think they can be anonymously rude! :)

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): <--- exudes digital charisma ;)

---------------------
DUMACORNELLUCIANro @web20education: http://www.scoop.it/t/web20andsocialmediaesafetyinxxicenturyeducation/

---------------------
the digital conservatoire: @Neil why would there be an assumption that interactions are any less charged and influenced by position of 'power', realtive intelligence etc. - those inequalities will imo definitely be perpetuated by social media

---------------------
FrancesBell: @Cris2B one of the many examples of where women are underrepresented in public discourse - in comparison with semi-[rivtae discourse such as Mumsnet

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John: Like that doesn't hapen in other aspects of society?

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): "Look at your man. Now look at me. Look at your man. Now back to me. I am the man your man could be if he was online."

---------------------
Moderator (George Siemens): It's @Jennifer - she's good with words (viral PD) :)

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LeahGrrl: @Brainy: Yes, that reference Stephen had last session about the Microsoft woman (can't recall her name!) who was pilloried via Twitter during her talk.

---------------------
dustproduction: "Three Degrees of Influnence"

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Cris2B: @FrancesBell -- and the problem with Wikipedia is simply that women aren't choosing to author there

---------------------
Moderator (George Siemens): @Stephen - perhaps you can start a video show with you exiting your shower

---------------------
Moderator (George Siemens): I'm not sure I'll watch

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): yeah that's what the world needs

---------------------
Jennifer Dalby: If I released my Twitter DM's on the world, you'd see a lot of people who are hurting for not being popular

---------------------
BrainySmurf: in social media circles it seems a bit easier to reject those with whom we don't jive and find others with whom we do - seems a bit hard in person to do that

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maurazini: hi all!

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Simon Fowler: I don't want to see Stephen in a shower towel, I really don't

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Jennifer Dalby: people who don't commincate as well, or don't enjoy writing

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FrancesBell: @Cris2B - not sure it's simple ;)

---------------------
Simon Fowler: search engines will necessarily not put everyone at the top of the search

---------------------
Mike Johnson: be thankful that if you're reading this you are probably not worrying about where your next meal is coming from

---------------------
Abdullah: social media from my point of view provides more fairness for handicapped people who might find it difficult to "get out" to socialize. Of course there is this condidion that they need to have internet connection.

---------------------
LeahGrrl: @George: We need another hour!

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): yeah

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Cris2B: well, there are faces made for radio ;-)

---------------------
dustproduction: Alison Gopnik describes the learning of babies as all social

---------------------
Tracy Parish (@hamtra): nice point @Abdullah

---------------------
Mike Johnson: I hope Neil has written this all down somewhere (pref in a book :-) ?

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John: Love it! Face made for radio :-)

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Moderator (George Siemens): Paper by Neil: http://www.scribd.com/doc/33693537/The-educational-significance-of-social-media-a-critical-perspective

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Me: Another dangerous...lots of danger....

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Cris2B: @John -- original to Garrison Keillor

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LeahGrrl: @George: Thanks!

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Jennifer Dalby: and commodity fetishism around identity

---------------------
fredgarnett: @Neil, when the LGC group developed the Open Context Model of Learning, based on what we learnt about learning from using new technology we deliberately left out any technology descriptors so people could think about learning; see http://www.slideshare.net/fredgarnett/the-craft-of-teaching-2011

---------------------
Simon Fowler: Is the historical account, and the lessons learned "so far" of the rise of National Socialism "commodified" learning?

---------------------
BrainySmurf: @jennifer, you're right there is a base of skill there required to be 'effective' with new tools - fast keyboarding or texting is a simple example :)

---------------------
BrainySmurf: @mike fair point, we are already a fairly exclusive, privileged grp to have these tools at our fingertips

---------------------
Moderator (George Siemens): Neil on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/neil_selwyn

---------------------
dustproduction: @ Adullah: this connection for the handicapped addresses social disabiities as well

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): government skunkworks = great idea

---------------------
John: Money for education! At last.

---------------------
Simon Fowler: if no-one chooses to learn from it, is that totally fine, isn't it something "we" have some obligation to teach, to make sure people know and remember?

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Jennifer Dalby: @BrainySmurf Some people just don't want to write or blog. They don't enjoy it. Or they don't want to spend their time online.

---------------------
Julia: like me!

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BrainySmurf: @abdullah - thx you're right and Cdn government is looking at greater accessibility through social media with populations that would normally be marginalized, hard to reach

---------------------
Me: Tricky part is where govmts think they can do education better than the publicly-funded unis. Now that is a concern.

---------------------
DUMACORNELLUCIANro @web20education: Why teachers must use social media in teaching and learning in XXI century education ?

---------------------
Moderator (George Siemens): Neil's publication page: http://www.lkl.ac.uk/cms/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userprofile&user=165

---------------------
fredgarnett: @Neil when Tony Blair, who knew nothing about ICT, was elected he invited Bill Gates over to advise. His advice? Build databases. Result huge national IT projects that didnt deliver. When David Cameron was elected he invited MArk Zuckerburg over...

---------------------
Me: Cutting off uni funding so govmt can put technocrat in charge of public edu - is that a good thing? I'm torn.

---------------------
Cris2B: have you seen the backlash and some tech mavens like Vicki Davis refuse to use term "social media" and calls it "learning media"

---------------------
Mike Johnson: "sleslie left a comment

have you put this anywhere except Scribd? I want to read it offline but refuse to pay for downloading it. scribd sucks.

---------------------
JackPark: So, how to avoid commercializing learning?

---------------------
Cris2B: too funny. Have you seen Shirky's TED on cute cats

---------------------
NinaF: Rhetoric of continuous learning and professional development is I fear about commercial products and services!

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): Scribd is a user-hostile interface

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Jonas Backelin: Some media ‚Äògurus‚Äô get their thoughts on-line with help of disciples or followers (second hand)

---------------------
Moderator (George Siemens): and, another good paper on a critical perspective on edtech: http://www.scribd.com/doc/24171626/Looking-beyond-learning-notes-towards-the-critical-study-of-educational-technology

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BrainySmurf: @jennifer - agreed, i am online full time at work and only rarely at home

---------------------
fredgarnett: @Mike @sleslie I have a book on Scribd!. Do you have to pay to read it now?

---------------------
Moderator (George Siemens): @Stephen - yes - I have immense dislike for it

---------------------
Kevin: from Academically Adrift - Young people see degrees as "tickets" to jobs and are not interested in learning.

---------------------
Jennifer Dalby: the commodification of scribd...

---------------------
FrancesBell: @fredgarnett - so what disaster will follow from Cameron meeting Zuckerberg - removal of privacy rights?

---------------------
DUMACORNELLUCIANro @web20education: George Siemens twitter account http://twitter.com/#!/gsiemens

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Larry Kahn: Has anyone read Oppenheimers crtic of ed tech "The Flickering Mind"

---------------------
Mike Johnson: @jennifer - irony noted ;-)

---------------------
fredgarnett: @Frances Facebook is the Enron of Social Media ;)

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): 16 listeners to the audio stream; we peaked at 20

---------------------
Me: Definitely agree that it is about politics - whether we want to admit it or not.

---------------------
Jennifer Dalby: very grateful to have participated in this. Glad to have the privilege.

---------------------
Larry Kahn: Sorry, I cannot type correctly today!

---------------------
NinaF: But educational institutions are colluding with private sector!

---------------------
Cris2B: William Gibson --- Facebook is like the mall and Twitter the street

---------------------
Stu Harris 1: I didn't really take it as negative.

---------------------
LeahGrrl: @Neil: Awesome talk and points. Much to think about.

---------------------
FrancesBell: @fredgarnett - ha ha

---------------------
BrainySmurf: GREAT SESSION!

---------------------
NinaF: A great discussion!

---------------------
Larry Kahn: Many Thanks!

---------------------
fredgarnett: :)

---------------------
johngriffin0928: Excellent discussion.

---------------------
luisa dall'acqua (italy): Very interesting

---------------------
Lars: brilliant!

---------------------
carol yeager: Wonderful session and side discussions!

---------------------
carol yeager: Thanks so much

---------------------
BrainySmurf: what a nice safe space we have here to kick this stuff around!

---------------------
Mike Johnson: yeah - great to bring you guys together too!

---------------------
Jonas Backelin: Thank you!

---------------------
Cris2B: knocked a homerun your first time out, Neil. thank you!

---------------------
Simon Fowler: @neil awesome session, excellent challenge to both the status quo and the SoMe-philes

---------------------
sheena: many thanks

---------------------
John: And we used Social Media to do it. Imagine that :-O

---------------------
the digital conservatoire: very interesting discussion. thanks!

---------------------
Me: @John awesome.

---------------------
DUMACORNELLUCIANro @web20education: My presentation about PLN , edtools , web 2.0 and social media in #CO11 http://www.slideshare.net/DUMACORNELLUCIAN/teacher-duma-cornel-lucian-romania-present-edtech20-project-in-connecting-online-2011

---------------------
mathtech: Thanks Neil - you have really made me think...

---------------------
Mike Johnson: If I had a dime for the number of people who say to me 'I am the least technological person in the world'

---------------------
BrainySmurf: this moved the middle for me

---------------------
Dave S -Winnipeg: Good topics, Thank you Neil

---------------------
Me: #MovetheMiddle

---------------------
FrancesBell: PLUG !!! ALT-J going Open Access in 2012 - yay! http://goo.gl/8kWAl

---------------------
John: Evil commercialism :-(

---------------------
Jennie Scott-McKenzie (jennieteacher): whoa - i worry about an "untechnological person" having views on questioning technology

---------------------
Me: Let's start using that hashtag, #CCK11

---------------------
Jennifer Dalby: I shared the paper with my students.

---------------------
BrainySmurf: @jennieteacher - is a person untechie because they have views/concerns about tech?

---------------------
Simon Fowler: What is the purpose of education?

---------------------
Simon Fowler: you have one minute!

---------------------
Ken: to be educated

---------------------
NinaF: Ha ha!

---------------------
Mike Johnson: nice one Stephen

---------------------
NinaF: Good one @downes

---------------------
John: Simon Fowler: The $64 question!

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): :)

---------------------
Jennie Scott-McKenzie (jennieteacher): no - but it's a language that we should be able to speak before we can question it

---------------------
Cris2B: jingle bells?

---------------------
carol yeager: If only we could expand time to fill our contribution and learnng needs!

---------------------
Stu Harris 1: somebody having tea

---------------------
NinaF: Loved this critical discussion!

---------------------
Me: Hoping that Neil's work isn't thrown around by academics tecno-phobes in unis to stall PLE needs of students in a relevant uni.

---------------------
Moderator (George Siemens): peer pressure! start blogging!

---------------------
LeahGrrl: @Neil: come back!

---------------------
ines cambiasso: thanks so much! Very interesting discussion

---------------------
Cris2B: @JG -- there's always that danger

---------------------
the digital conservatoire: interesting book mind vs money ; a bit of a polemic; but quite an interesting take on the position of the intellectual in a capitalist socieaty

---------------------
Me: Neil, open up your Twitter!

---------------------
Moderator (Stephen Downes): lol

---------------------
carol yeager: Thanks Neil, super opportuntity for us to learn and discuss further

---------------------
Simon Fowler: Loving that you have lots of English folk on #CCK11 sessions. Missing London.

---------------------
Me: @downes - you too!!!

---------------------
Jenny Mackness 2: Very refreshing! Thanks

---------------------
Abdullah: Thnx Neil

---------------------
Anu Maniram: thanks Neil... alot to think about now!

---------------------
Me: Thanks, Neil!

---------------------
sheena: thanks to Stephen and George as well

---------------------
Mike Johnson: thanks Neil!

---------------------
John: Thank you.

---------------------
Julia: thank you

---------------------
Shamini: thanks

---------------------
shivaani: Thank you all.

---------------------
Simon Fowler: Thanks Neil, and @george and @stephen

---------------------
FrancesBell: Thanks

---------------------
graeme ferris: Thanks!

---------------------
LeahGrrl: @Stephen: Do you have a radio license?

---------------------
MJMatos: See you friday

---------------------
Cris2B: a course with a lot of digital charisma!

---------------------
DUMACORNELLUCIANro @web20education: My free project teacher account http://twitter.com/#!/web20education

---------------------
carol yeager: So much fun!!!

---------------------
Me: Hppefully Elluminate Chat transcript can be posted?

---------------------
Lars: very good session! thanks again

---------------------
carol yeager: :)

---------------------
Cris2B: on the other side sort of worried me?

Architects of Vascularization Building Lattices of Learning - The #PLENK2010 Experience

2010-12-20T16:37:00.000-07:00

Last month concluded the amazing MOOC experience of #PLENK2010. And yet the course really has only just begun. Many of us continue to share ideas inspired by our PLENK2010 discussions on Facebook, Twitter, and pearltrees which is pretty remarkable if you think about it. Sure, in university we made friends in classes and some of them went on to become life-long colleagues, but it's inspiring to watch how some of us from PLENK2010 are simply collaborating in our continual learning journey, not because there is a paper to be published or a degree to be conferred; simply because we enjoy and are thankful to find folks to discuss these new ideas of education beyond the current paradigms in which many of us work and by which all of us are affected.

But more on that later...

First, for the continuity of readers of this blog who were not readers of the PLENK2010 discussion boards, I wanted to include some of my November posts where I went into more detail on my ideas of the PLE/N of the Future.

In Week 8 of the course, the question was asked: "How do you manage your information/knowledge?" Here is how I answered that:

If info/knowledge is coming at me (pushed), I manage it.
If I am going to info/knowledge (pulled), I absorb it.

These two processes are different.

Before I describe that, I will clarify that knowledge in my definition of it is a product of the flow between the eight common human elements I described in my Week 7 post:

So to break it down in regards to manage/absorb, here is what that looks like per each of those 8 elements:

1. Non-verbal Earth knowledge
Direction: pull/absorb
Example: Walking through deep woods
Storage: memory, photos, songs
Recall Tools: storytelling, singing, writing, iPhoto

2. Creative leaps
Direction: push/manage
Example: A Eureka! moment
Storage: memory, writing (on whatever you have at that moment)
Recall Tools: computer files

3. IntuitionDirection: push/manage
Example: Knowing the answer without knowing from where
Storage: memory only
Recall Tools: face-to-face conversations, hunches, link following, meditation

4. Physical attunation
Direction: push/manage
Example: Relaxing
Storage: body muscle memory, hormone balance
Recall Tools: stretching, dancing, exercise, meditation

5. Emotional response
Direction: feels like push/manage but if we are in flow with #7, we realize it is actually pull/absorb
Example: Compassion
Storage: laughter, tears, body muscle memory
Recall Tools: pattern analysis (our own and other data)

6. Quantitative Analysis
Direction: pull/absorb
Example: PLENK2010 participation
Storage: computer files, blog, twitter, facebook, email, moodle
Recall Tools: same as above plus other media/books/journals I am digesting

7. Impartial Observation
Direction: pull/absorb
Example: Experiencing emotions arise and letting them go
Storage: memory
Recall Tools: meditation, walking in nature

8. Non-verbal Spiritual knowledge
Direction: pull/absorb
Example: praying
Storage: memory
Recall Tools: storytelling, singing, writing

As I look at this breakdown, I note that the only elements I feel the need for online/internet/software/computer storage is 6 definitely and 1 and 2 somewhat. That is a surprise to me.
Maybe I rely too much on my memory now in my prime and perhaps I will need to change my storage selections to something more online as I age?
However, in 5 of the 8, I am using online/internet/software/computer for Recall Tools.
This also tells me there is so much further for us to go in the online space and also perhaps raises the question of should we go further? Should all of those 8 elements have both their storage techniques and recall tools in the online space?

In Week 9 of the course, Janet Wilde started a great discussion inspired by her grad students' discussion on Connectivism.
Here are my thoughts on how to define Connectivism:

What a fantastic post, Jane - please thank your students for letting us think about what they are debating here in PLENK2010!

My understanding of connectivism is outside of the "is it a learning theory or a pedagogy?" debate as that is not my field of interest.

I see connectivism as a state of being brought on explicitly by the innovation and democratization of personal technology.

Using the pilot example above, pre-modern tech, let's say when all the pilot had was instruments and radio, she could indeed utilize her radio network of air traffic controllers to fly and land safely.

Personal technology, though ubiquitous, has not changed the pilot's fly-and-land usecase yet. Google Maps isn't helping her fly-and-land, that is still the job of human air traffic controllers (though it doesn't need to be, but that is a whole other topic)

So, I don't see the pilot as a connectivist example. She isn't choosing her network, she is using the framework traditionally as laid out for people of her profession. (Could she be? Sure, once both technical accuracy and public trust become such that anyone who learns how to utilize certain software can fly a 747 of travelers from New York to LA from their couch - we already ride unmanned commuter trains - again, I digress)

To be a connectivist is to choose your network, any network and then use whatever personal tech tools are out there to take your node (aka your brain) and absorb the information you are seeking in order to create, solve, perform in both virtual reality and location-based reality.

For example, perhaps our pilot chooses instead to start an online media company. She doesn't have a degree in business or journalism, but she does have a burning desire to see stories not on the public radar to get out there by any means necessary. She goes online, finds like-minded folks who would like to do the same thing - her first level of network. Then this small network of collaborators attracts more people who have a similar passion, and a company is born.

Of course in this example she is learning, but moreover she is participating in a new reality whose underpinning is democratized technology. In this new reality she can indeed choose her destiny, regardless of degree, regardless of socio-economic background. (Which is why free access to the web is so critical)

It still takes a lot of practice, willingness to fail, work long hours to master this new capability, but what has changed is that you can do this, choose an area you want to excel in, utilize the network to mature to expertise, without first getting a degree in it.

So to sum, connectivism to me is the unprecedented ability for any human to plug in and become knowledgeable and create new knowledge based on their own passion. It is unprecedented because previous to about 15 years ago, it was impossible to do. Networks were closed. You didn't get the prerequisite degree/training. Connectivism means the end of the dead-end job, or the high-paying job you have to sell your soul and sense of ethics to. Connectivism also means each of us now has a much more intense personal responsibility to fulfilling our dreams and interests. That of course is tough for a lot of folks to swallow as they would rather blame a system than realize they can go under, above, around it - that it no longer has the hold on them they and their older generations of family may have felt victims to.

Now connectivism is very much Stephen and George's baby, so forgive me if I am using the term differently than our facilitators would.

And as an aside, I would like to add that I don't think this means we need to throw out the university/college...for bringing the like-minded folks together to collaborate, in the lab, or classroom has incredible merits that are a key part of creating. But I do think that the traditional format we are now a part of in universities/colleges will change radically to reflect the connectivist reality.

And then PLENK2010 came to a quiet end - on the timeline, anyway. I was furiously working and furiously writing my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo as the course came to an end, so my final assignment is now here in my blog instead.

The questions posed to us in Week 10 were:
"So, how has this discussion helped you in your understanding of PLE/Ns? What have been your main insights? What are your outstanding questions?"

The main insight I have had as part of PLENK2010 is that as educators and administrators in post-secondary education, we need to develop a mash-up of integration. We need to get serious about collaboration and create a lattice for learning so that students can weave in and out of them as they wish, in what makes sense to them. Not mandate a one-size fits all approach to either the learning or the tools, as in the learning management systems mandates of old. But, foremost, to build for students that lattice which they can utilize in their time with us, and that lives with them beyond their time at university. We need to be the architects of vascularization, providing the map, but not forcing the direction or even if the map is used as we expect it to be. Architects of vascularization must now understand how critical it is to take the powerful enterprise and cloud-based systems that are in our hands, e.g. Google, Moodle, Mahara, etc and accept responsibility in ensuring we integrate them into the lattice that supports the learning of our students.

In a futuristic point of view, another insight, probably evident from my earlier posts, is that so much of what really is learning does not happen online at all today. We truly are just scratching the surface of understanding and even admitting acceptance of so many other ways and types of learning reflective of what it means to be human. So above all, this lattice we create for ourselves and the learners we steward must be open, flexible, and reaching towards the ability to capture and share those other common human elements that are the world of our interior and its myriad motivations and intuitions. Then, in time, these other elements can branch out across our lattice, too, and connect us to each other, to the Earth, and to the wakening bio and computational intelligences we are creating today.

As always, would very much appreciate your thoughts on these ideas...

PLE/Ns of the Future and the Ocean of Maya

2010-10-28T22:35:00.004-06:00

Week 7 of #PLENK2010 has been focused on PLE/Ns tools with the adjective "new" used three times in the questions to we students to answer. While tool talk can be interesting, I am more taken with the need for us to understand what a PLE truly encompasses because I see so much of what is in the PLE simply unchartered, save for a passing remark in Wilson's "Patterns of personal learning environments" where he says; "Connect the metadata and sensors of the object to the network; allow the object to describe itself."
In my September post, "Focusing a PLE/PLN with a Personal Intuitive Map", I began to feel my way into the space of describing the totality of the personal learning environment, inspired to a great extent by my ongoing study of neuroeconomics. In this post, I have now attempted to classify and identify both the common human elements and the unique individual elements that form my PLE.

PLE for PLENK2010

In the above, Top type = Me, the living human, and Superclass = intuition.
The schema's parent elements are these eight common human elements pinned in example here to each chakra of the living human, as a way to anchor them into a physical reality (the human body and electromagnetic field around the body):

1. Non-verbal Earth knowledge

2. Creative leaps

3. Intuition

4. Physical attunation

5. Emotional response

6. Quantitative Analysis

7. Impartial Observation

8. Non-verbal Spiritual knowledge

Each of the common human elements optimally relate to each other in a flow state representing full immersion in the personal learning experience. Each of the unique individual elements operate in this map both as descriptions and indicators of the picture to which they are associated as well as inputs for my personal learning environment (obviously your overlapping photos and unique individual elements would be different).
Of note, is that the "tools" of Twitter, Blogs, YouTube, and Media are in an individual element called "Ocean of Maya", an historical reference and reminder that the tools feed impartial observation, but are not the PLE in total. Also of note, is that previous to watching the recording of Maria Andersen's session on Wednesday, and her wonderful description of #socrait, I had also identified in my unique individual elements, my elementary and high school Jesuit education and its Socratic Method underpinning.

So, back to the questions of what new tools and new interfaces are needed, what functionality is missing in PLEs. I submit that before we identify further technology tools, we need to address what is most missing in the discussion: a recognition that we have outgrown the learning environment of classroom, but we are stymied with the unfortunate economic reality that typically two parents need to work and so children who need to learn need to go somewhere. Moreover, the somewhere cannot be simply online but needs us to consider how we provide for the successful growth and maturation of the eight common human elements. So our PLE needs to include the system or method that leads to the ideal outputs of abundance, wonder, joy and attunement and participation in the universe by each learner. And here we run smack into the question - who provides this method? Previously in history, some of the eight elements were nurtured in various educational systems or methods, but I don't believe anyone did or has yet to create an educational method that seeks to provide for the growth and maturation of all eight of these common human elements. Although I am still thinking my way through this, so I do not yet have a concrete opinion, it seems to me that it is the ultimate responsibility of the individual, not an educational system, to ensure the growth and maturation of these common human elements. Much of the learning done as adults today is often focused in several of these common elements that did not properly mature through our traditional educational backgrounds.

Musing on what this highly individualized PLE would look like, I surprise myself, a career technologist, by concluding that this system, which would help me understand at any given moment how one common human element is in or out of balance with the others in my personal learning environment, would most likely not be online. I envision it as an object of beauty that we would carry with us constantly, much like we carry a purse or backpack today. It would have elements of the compact mobile device of today but would not be connected to the Internet as we know it today. As it would be intimately connected to our neural and biological states, I envision we would fiercely guard these devices and would feed them through both the data of our senses and data from the online world, but we would only, if ever, hook up this PLE to a virtual knowledge bank that we would demand to be as impenetrable as a Swiss bank account. In a way,it would be as if each of us would carry a kind of data-fed soul, a unique PLE, that over the lifetime of our physical body would grow in richness and complexity that could be outwardly reflected in the beauty of the PLE's outward appearance to others.

In this imagined reality, the three areas of future education that Maria Andersen spoke of: content, coaching, and assessment could also be applied. Assessment could be evaluated based fundamentally on the ability of the human to achieve and maintain flow state between her eight common human elements. The PLE could physically reflect these states through color and sound comprehensible by all cultures. Coaching ideally would be done by specialists whose PLE reflects their ability to maintain flow state through all common human elements. As that flow state is, at least in current times, rare and fleeting in most humans, initially there would be specialists in one or more of the common human elements. These people exist today, we are just heavily overweight in Quantitative Analysis specialists. Finally, the content could be any content at all - the point of the PLE would be to provide the individual the ability to grow and mature into optimal flow state, be it via mathematics, science, arts, athletics or any other traditional or cross-disciplinary set of interests.

This is all very much a work in progress and attempts to describe something that does not yet exist, so I am very interested in hearing other PLENK2010 participants' thoughts on imagining the PLE of the future.

Focusing a PLE/PLN with a Personal Intuitive Map

2010-09-19T23:03:00.000-06:00

I have just completed my first week of #PLENK2010, which is the first MOOC (massive open online course) in which I have participated. I joined the course because I was interested in the concept of PLE/PLNs (personal learning environment or personal learning network), particularly in the work around creating naming conventions and visualizations around the process of personal learning, a process that I wonder if can ever truly be pinned down and mapped?

In my case, having worked online for now over 15 years, it struck me that beginning with trying to map my PLE was like building a relational database view with no schema. Even more, it was like describing a schema, with no enhanced entity relationship model to inform the process. So, I will attempt to describe the enhanced entity relationship model (here called a Personal Intuitive Map (PIM) that informs my schema (TBD) which will render the relational database (still further TBD) that portrays my PLE (even further TBD).

Easier said than done. Here's the rub. I'm human, and as such, my entities and their relationships change state, function, direction and even swap roles with each other. Hard to diagram that.
Ok, then, at the very least I can start with the top type: me and the superclass: intuition (though I suppose even here the two are interchangeable if you start to ponder which is there before birth, during life, and after death).

My poor beginning here then is a personal intuitive map (PIM). Top type is implicit; superclass, defines the filter through which any of the entities are recognized, evaluated, or give rise to further values and actions by top type. The entities displayed here are obviously symbolic. A flag is not a flag.

Personal Intuitive Map (PIM) as #PLENK2010 exercise

This collection of images are photos, illustrations, and art work by various creators that represent both certain values and certain triggers which when combined, act as a focused filter that I use both to select the learning I choose to engage with each day, and to remind me to observe and honor the intuitive underpinning of all that I do. My PIM resides on the desktop of my home and work laptops and mobile devices and a printed version is always nearby when I am away and offline.

What I struggle with is this is a symbolic language that is unique to me. Another person cannot know what relationships these entities have with each other in this picture, and I'm not sure how I can describe their changing state or how each influences the other as well as unseen subclasses, although I have attempted to capture a snapshot in time of one possible combination of influences.

Remembering Destin, Florida & the Gulf's Local Seafood Before BP's Oilspill

2010-06-21T18:53:00.001-06:00

About a month ago, I took my four-year-old son down to Destin, Florida, where my family has had a beautiful beachfront spot for over twenty years. Using Twitter, I documented not just the beauty of the pure white sand and turquoise water, but also the incredible variety of seafood, fresh out of the Gulf of Mexico that I made a point to order at every meal, knowing it might be my last time. So here, in reverse order, are the tweets from the past month documenting these now lost realities, and also my thoughts and Gogyohka poems as I grappled with the emotion of saying goodbye to such a special place for me and my family.

Well, it's official...the beautiful beach at Destin, FL now has tarballs washing up. http://bit.ly/d5IAMe
Tue Jun 22 00:17:45 +0000 2010

What do you tell~a three-year-old~whose father will never come home~for Father's Day~or any day http://bit.ly/9Ov2ph #oilspill #BP #gogyohka
Sun Jun 20 14:34:47 +0000 2010

Tony, our neo-Nero / sails on a yacht / in blue waters / while the Gulf burns / and dies. #gogyohka #bp #oilspill #oilpocalypse
Sat Jun 19 21:04:41 +0000 2010

The sea turtles' nursery / of flotsam & seaweed / awaits a million hatchlings / but this time / there's oil. #gogyohka http://bit.ly/cNTBhH
Fri Jun 18 13:27:16 +0000 2010

Why would you invest in a company that has the worst safety record against its peers? Their $20B fund won't cover all the Gulf damage. #BP
Thu Jun 17 13:20:51 +0000 2010

Instant Branding: BP's "small people" comment has its own viral parody song and has cemented global perception of #BP as greedy colonialists
Thu Jun 17 13:06:46 +0000 2010

The Gulf that was before BP's utter disregard destroyed it; Gorgeous day in Destin; #bp #oilspill http://twitpic.com/1qqy4m
Wed Jun 16 13:12:17 +0000 2010

The oily ocean waves / gently roll in / as I float away / in reverie / remembering them turquoise. #gogyohka #oilspill #bp
Wed Jun 16 13:07:28 +0000 2010

I think of eleven men / and their families / violently torn / from each other / by BP's inhuman greed. #gogyohka #bp #oilspill #oilpocalypse
Wed Jun 16 05:00:20 +0000 2010

Colossal floating waterfalls / venturi and air stones / might aerate / and bring to life / Gulf deadzones #bp #oilspill #gogyohka
Thu Jun 10 03:36:17 +0000 2010

Why when a man / joins a big company / like #BP / he loses his truth / and cuts corners that kill? #gogyohka #oilspill
Thu Jun 10 03:07:41 +0000 2010

The FL panhandle that was; now oil on Gulf Shores & Destin gets it soon RT @JGChesney: Gorgeous day in Destin; #bp http://twitpic.com/1qqy4m
Sat Jun 05 03:57:14 +0000 2010

Remembering the panhandle, RIP: Gulf waters so clear today;schools of hundreds of guppies swim around me #bp http://twitpic.com/1r39or
Sat Jun 05 03:54:10 +0000 2010

Friends down on Gulf Shores confirm the oil just rolled on shore at sunset - "looks like chocolate icing, smells like the gas station" #bp
Sat Jun 05 03:35:49 +0000 2010

Rebuilding hurricane damaged Gulf property we're used to; but hurricane damage w/ #BP oil too? Insurance co's must be on red alert.
Sat May 29 23:44:27 +0000 2010

Saw this 1st-hand in Destin; no usual hungry vacation crowds RT @jgrindal: Restaurants are suing #BP over the #oilspill http://bit.ly/9hjC70
Sat May 29 23:28:43 +0000 2010

Back from trip to family Gulf beach house as #BP oil oozes towards it; in Canada home boycott BP here starts w/ boycott Safeway Gas (is BP)
Sat May 29 14:22:13 +0000 2010

Now ends our Destin trip-no #BP oil on our beach yet;To think that our Gulf fish & water may never be the same;sad http://twitpic.com/1rvea9
Fri May 28 17:36:02 +0000 2010

Last breakfast in Destin; delicious Gulf coast eggs benedict w/fresh crabcakes at The Donut Hole: http://twitpic.com/1rvckx
Fri May 28 17:29:00 +0000 2010

Would #BP have this same utter disregard for safety if the rig was right off the British coast? Boycott BP.
Thu May 27 23:10:06 +0000 2010

Mr. President, @BarackObama, now is the time to be our Commander in Chief & take the War Powers over #BP on the Gulf; we are not a UK colony
Thu May 27 23:07:00 +0000 2010

No #BP oil on the gorgeous beach of Destin today. Cancelations hurting local economy; help out by booking a stay: http://twitpic.com/1rj3cw
Thu May 27 13:48:01 +0000 2010

Gorgeous night on bay side of Sandestin; help Gulf towns out by vacationing here 4 seafood fest b4 #BP oil hits: http://twitpic.com/1rfeig
Thu May 27 03:57:58 +0000 2010

Another great Gulf specialty I hope #BP doesn't kill off; Poppy's Red Fish N'awlins w/jumbo shrimp & lump crabmeat http://twitpic.com/1rfbp8
Thu May 27 03:47:41 +0000 2010

I don't give a cr*p about Facebook; our Gulf is under attack by foreign company's deliberate recklessness & untested chemical solution #BP
Wed May 26 20:20:24 +0000 2010

#BP is UK's largest company; got nothing against the Brits, but am joining global boycott of BP products & services; BP Out of Canada
Wed May 26 14:04:05 +0000 2010

#BP already paid over 1B in settlements regarding their TX disaster years ago; they can well afford 1B escrow account 4 southern states
Wed May 26 14:00:48 +0000 2010

Yet sis' house on Dauphin Island under martial law & at my bro's place in Fairhope, AL, they laid boom today; hear #bp rejected hair 4 mats
Wed May 26 01:50:28 +0000 2010

Gulf waters so clear today;schools of hundreds of guppies swim around me as I hunt shells. #bp oil kill looms http://twitpic.com/1r39or
Wed May 26 01:45:52 +0000 2010

At Captain Dave's,savored the crabmeat-stuffed grouper, another great Gulf fish that hopefully #bp won't kill off http://twitpic.com/1r37j8
Wed May 26 01:38:02 +0000 2010

Feel like I'm on Mann's Magic Mountain as I indulge in this Gulf paradise while 7MM #bp gallons ooze towards us http://twitpic.com/1qt9f6
Tue May 25 12:33:40 +0000 2010

At Dewey Destin's 4 blackened cobia, fish that winters in the Gulf; hope #bp disaster doesn't kill that migration http://twitpic.com/1qr12t
Mon May 24 23:49:57 +0000 2010

Gorgeous day in Destin;if u want 2 help their economy,book a trip; #bp spill fear has meant tons of cancelations http://twitpic.com/1qqy4m
Mon May 24 23:39:42 +0000 2010

At Back Porch, longtime Destin fave 4 fresh Gulf fish;Gorgeous white sand&green waves; hope #bp doesn't ruin it: http://twitpic.com/1qj04b
Mon May 24 02:57:45 +0000 2010

Appalachacola oysters r Gulf-only; unique,subtle taste; Ate a dozen, hopefully not my last thanks 2 #bp http://twitpic.com/1qiz3b
Mon May 24 02:53:06 +0000 2010

Amberjack is 1 of my fave Gulf-only fish;it has a sweet, buttery taste. Hope #bp doesn't kill it off: http://twitpic.com/1qixlr
Mon May 24 02:48:28 +0000 2010

View from our family house on the Gulf in Destin, FL; no oil yet. Will chronicle how beautiful it is. #bp http://twitpic.com/1qgdzn
Sun May 23 21:16:12 +0000 2010

So mom, me, & my 4yo son will be packing the albuterol to visit our beach house b/c of oil disaster;Hope we don't have to use it.
Fri May 21 01:39:37 +0000 2010

Particularly sad if true; my mom, who also has asthma, always loved going to the Gulf beach b/c it was where she could breathe easiest.
Fri May 21 01:36:54 +0000 2010

My dad, a pulmonologist down South just said to pack my inhalers 4 trip to the Gulf; Dr.s' verbal network reporting breathing probs b/c oil
Fri May 21 01:35:27 +0000 2010

Spring cleaning!...Integrate your blog with Facebook, Twitter, & LinkedIn

2010-03-30T23:20:00.001-06:00

Like a lot of folks, I set up a blog some years ago and then after getting busy with numerous life events, I abandoned it where it lay dormant for a couple of years. During that time, cyberlife kept growing and like many others I joined Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. But the problem was (until recently) that each of these sites stood alone and while some *might* allow cross-linking, there wasn't anyway to integrate without being quite a savvy coder, something I haven't been since the days of XML 1.0.

In coming back to my blog after 2 years, I was psyched to see that many of the social networking sites do have widgets and other tools to allow better integration than back in 2006. However, I also found that I had to do a lot of Googling to find these bits and pieces so that I could actually implement them. So, the purpose of this entry is to give back to other non-coders like me so that you can get a handle on your social network profiles and merge them into one cohesive online profile. None of this is rocket science or new, but hopefully it will be helpful to folks managing their online presence over a number of channels. These methods are specifically for Blogger blogs as that is the platform I use.

What I have found works best for me follows. It is by no means the only, or even the best way to integrate your online presence, but was fairly painless to do. One point for you to consider is how integrated do you want to be? There are degrees. For instance, I have set up Twitter and TwitPic and Echofon so that posts to Twitter are automatically fed to my Facebook status. But, although I could also set it up to auto-update my LinkedIn status, I decided not to because of the differences in my network on LinkedIn. Let's face it - you don't really want to tell executive recruiters about your desire for nap time or details on your children's witty banter. If I do want to include the update to LinkedIn, I just add the hashtag '#li' to the specific post with which I want to update my LinkedIn status.

When I do spend the time to write a bit more than the sacred 140, it's nice to be able to share that work beyond the virtual space of my blog address. And you want folks to be able to share what you've written and see what has been shared.
Here is how to add Twitter Retweet to your blog.
Next to that, you can also add the Share-This icons that let you share your post with Facebook, Twitter, and others.

What about content flowing the other way? You might choose to put your whole posts into your Facebook Notes as that is another automated way to have your content flow beyond your blog without having to manually adjust it each time. Here is how to import your blog entries into Facebook Notes.

Then there are the social network profiles or badges. Each site has these, most being informational. To not repeat info on your blog, you might want to choose to display just your networks you are a member of in your Facebook badge, while your LinkedIn badge has your CV details. Each of these are customizable so you can choose how static/dynamic the content in the badges are. Since I begin my online entries using Twitter/Echofon, I have chosen to make only the Twitter badge dynamic. Here is how to integrate your latest Twitter posts into your blog and here is how to add your LinkedIn profile to your blog.

Finally, a couple of other items to consider. Remember that you can post full blog entries from your mobile phone and ads have come a long way from Punch-the-monkey days so take some time to understand how AdSense works and determine if you want to include contextual ads on your blog.

If you are tired of maintaining a separate website to your blog (and who isn't?), the integration technology has caught up and it is possible. You can now add pages to your blog so that it really can take over as your informational website and to further the custom look, you can fairly painlessly create your own Twitter backgrounds using Keynote/Powerpoint. I haven't taken that final step yet, but it's on the to-do list. Also on that list is figuring out what to do with my MySpace profiles; dump it or integrate? Nirvana will be when one idea, whether it be 140 or 1000 characters, for family or friends, or colleagues can be entered once and intelligently edited and posted to all pertinent social networks. We're not quite there yet, but the tech has certainly come a long way in 2 years and it's worth the time-savings to do your spring cleaning, revamp your blog, and get your social networks integrated.

What's "Disappointing" about Silver or Bronze?

2010-02-22T00:15:00.000-07:00

Or even 4th place for that matter?
Maybe it's because I'm watching the Olympics up here in Canada, where my fellow Canadians seem to be always unfavorably comparing themselves to everyone else, but what is the obsession with gold?
Sure, it's phenomenal to win it, but silver and bronze still mean success, don't they?
Yet every media personality up here seems to fixate on the "disappointment" of bronze or the "shame" or "upset" of a 4th or 5th place.
What Canadian media should focus on is that these athletes represent the best of the best, whether they win a medal or not. Most of these amazing competitors have worked all their relatively short lives so far to get here, with years of pre-dawn practices and nights in cheap motel rooms going from venue to venue.
Celebrate the perseverance, tenacity, and dedication to their sport and their dreams that has brought them to where they are today. It's the journey to the Olympics that is the most awe-inspiring, not the coins and ribbons they may or may not wear on the podium.
Team Canada has already won gold for those of us in the stands and watching around the country - "disappointment" and "shame" don't need to be part of any media commentary.

Jesus Eclipses Tiger in Today's Headlines!

2010-02-19T17:39:00.000-07:00

Tiger's mea culpa and pledge to get back to his Buddhist roots was eclipsed today by breaking news that our man, Jesus, has been sketched smokin' and drinkin' in handwriting workbooks in India, while Elton lets us know the Great One was a super-smart gay man.
These critical, must-read stories are brought to you by the BBC, "the largest broadcasting corporation in the world...

Pause.

In 3 days, 2 injuries & now a death on the Olympics track that some claim was designed backwards

2010-02-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

Reading a few moments ago about Olympic-hopeful, Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili dying from his crash on the Whistler track earlier today, I was surprised to read there had already been 2 bad crashes in the last 3 days, but a little digging reveals that this track is already infamous, with speeds far beyond what governing body, FIL, has endorsed, and with a design some professionals claim is "designed backwards".

From the CTV article:
"Whistler's reputation was established in November, 2008 when Loch damaged shoulder tendons in a crash and was one of three lugers hospitalized, and Canadian bob driver Pierre Lueders crashed in Corner 7, which was instantly named Lueders' Loop.

Holcomb has since claimed that the course was designed backward, with tighter turns near the bottom where sleds max-out the speed. And American luger Tony Benshoof told NBC: "When I first got on this track, I thought that somebody was going to kill themselves."

Turn 13 banks sharply to the left and sends the sleds into a horseshoe-shaped curve that slings them to the finish line. Two-time overall World Cup bobsleigh champion Steve Holcomb nicknamed it "50/50" after half the sleds crashed during the World Cup training run. Some track modifications since then will give the drivers a little more leeway going into it during the Olympics...

The Whistler Sliding Centre is designed to a maximum G-force of 5.02, and sleds will typically pull 2.5 or 3.0 Gs. By comparison, a Formula 1 car might hit three to four Gs when braking, and a top fuel dragster going from 0 to 160 km/h in 0.8 seconds creates a G-force of 5.0"

So now that one of our young athletes has died today from a course that is known by all involved to be too fast, too unsafe, why will we risk the lives of more Olympians on this track that clearly is problematic to put it mildly?

And on another note, I was disgusted to see even the Huffington Post with video and large, full-color pictures of Mr. Kumaritashvili's death. I hope that it and other news outlets take down the video and pictures as soon as possible. Let's give him the respect of not splashing his last moments of agony all over the Internet.

Headline on drug patent expiration sparks a business model idea...

2010-02-05T23:54:00.000-07:00

With the graying of so much of the American and Canadian populations, a lot of attention is being paid to the perceived windfall that drug retailers like CVS, Walgreens, and Rexall will potentially benefit from the expiration of best-selling drug patents over the next few years.

But what really sparked for me from the Bloomberg article was this:
"Drug stores pay as much as 90 percent less for generic drugs than for the branded equivalent, said Adam J. Fein, president of Philadelphia-based Pembroke Consulting, a health- care consulting firm. The pharmacies don’t reduce prices to customers and third-party payers such as insurance companies by as much, which adds to profit, he said.
Those pricing tactics have given pharmacies average gross margins of 48 percent on generics compared with 8.9 percent for branded drugs, Fein estimates. He based his calculations on a 2008 report from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, which provided data on more than 18,000 prescriptions filled under the Medicare program, including almost 11,000 generics."

Hmm...so a 39% margin difference? Sounds like a perfect spot for a low-overhead, online pharmacy to brand their generics right around the 20% gross margin number and sweep market share and customer loyalty right out from under the generic gougers...

Cybercheeze! - What we did this year...

2007-12-31T16:45:00.000-07:00

...or technology aiding the profoundly lazy...no, we didn't schedule in the sending of holiday cards nor had the time to write up a nice note to snail-mail, but thanks to my handy-dandy Facebook-linked blogger feed, all of you get to read our cybercheeze...

So here goes - the Chesney family in 2007...

Joss was the biggest mover and shaker of the family this year. Starting out 2007 in the crawl-only, hairless, toothless, and inarticulate state he progressed into an exhuberent 2-year-old who walks, runs, hops, chats, demands, has a full set of baby teeth and has suffered through his first haircut. His favorite songs are the Theme Song to the Muppet Show and Jingle Bells. He prefers cheese to all other foods with french-fries running a close second. He continues to be obsessed with airplanes - pointing the smallest of dots out in the sky before either of us can see them. He has begun to be interested in the potty much to the delight of his adoring mother and father who will be even more delighted to leave the diaper days far behind.

Cam has had a busy year focused mostly on creating his graphic novel, Daphne, that is really coming along. He also had a great cartoon about our recently passed Grandpa John's days as a 5-year-old horseback rider published in "Awesome! - The Indie Spinner Rack Anthology". If you live in the Vancouver area and speak Mandarin or Cantonese you might have also seen him as the cheezy Caucasian customer in a very strange and funny commercial for Capital Coast Savings Bank. Cam has also become an amazing cook with a specialty in Indian food and slow-cooker sensations.

Fer became a Canadian permanent resident this year which thrilled her to finally get after a year of paper work. Her team at Stockgroup put out a few killer applications - a streaming collaborative portfolio manager and investment research tool called Stockstream, and a financial social network for user-generated content on Stockhouse at http://beta.stockhouse.com Due to the timing of her permanent residency and its requirement to stay in Canada until everything was finalized, she wasn't able to travel down South for opera performances, but now that is settled, she will be doing more singing vacations in 2008. She did get to sing her first mainstage audition for Houston Grand Opera and see her brother John and family while there. Fer was also psyched to start coaching with the dramatic soprano, Jane Eaglen, down at University of Washington in Seattle.

2007 was more of a stay-in-one-place kind of year for the Chesneys, but still there were some great trips. We were able to spend a sunny week up at the lake house over the long July weekend with PawPaw and CiCi and just recently spent a fun week with GranpaG and GranmaG down in Memphis with the Griffin clan. And we had fun celebrating GranpaG and GranmaG's 50th wedding anniversary out at Jekyll Island, Georgia. Fer got to go to Las Vegas for the first time this year and has decided she needs to go down for at least a week on a regular basis just to see all the cool shows. Then there were some short jaunts to Toronto, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley for work. Another big travel highlight was visiting, and totally falling completely in love with, the Okanagan Valley. We hope to get back there soon, too.

To sum it up, 2007 was a year we dug up the garden, dug in and put down roots, all the hard work needed for an abundant bounty in 2008!

Thanksgiving dinner - the day after

2007-11-18T10:14:00.000-07:00

The menu was:
Southern Skillet Cornbread
Pumpkin and Apple Soup with Chestnuts
Festive Holiday Salad
Nut and Pork Stuffing
Butterball turkey (cook-from-frozen)
Turkey gravy (from drippings and giblets broth)
Roasted Rosemary Potatoes with Garlic and Shallots
Braised Fennel with Onions and Balsamic Vinegar
Pumpkin Fritters with Vanilla Ice Cream
Nk'mip Chardonnay

One of the plusses to being Canadian and American is that we get to do two Thanksgiving dinners. Cam made an awesome feast last month, and last night I made a huge feast for us, Carol & Wayne, and Patti. Usually I use my own recipes I've finessed over the years of doing the big T-day meals, but this time I decided to switch it up and make a bunch of recipes I had never done before - a bit of a risk, but the recipes read so deliciously that I went for it.

So where did I get the recipes? Oprah. (I know, I know - I never watch the show since I'm working, but you know, the magazine really is a great read as long as you turn a blind eye to the push to get you to buy every over-priced bauble that ever was dreamed up by Madison Ave)

Anyway, her chef, Colin Cowie published a T-day meal and that's what I made - with some adjustments. The biggest adjustment was the turkey. The folks went out to purchase all the ingredients on Friday while I was at work, but, being in Canada, no one was selling fresh turkeys and it was too late to buy a full frozen one. Thanks to a random conversation Carol had had a while before with Brenda, we found a solution. So a big thank you to Brenda since without that conversation we would have never discovered the amazing technology of the pre-stuffed, cook-from-frozen Butterball turkey! Wow. I kind of feel like I cheated, because literally all I had to do was unwrap it, peel off the giblets packet, stick it in the oven and seven hours later - done! I guess that makes the menu officially my own since Colin Cowie would probably beat me with a ladle for stooping to use the Butterball. Feh. Cooking tech rocks.

Other adjustments - I left out the Raw Brussels Sprout Salad - I just didn't think two salads was needed - especially not one with raw Brussels sprout - what is that? - the Time Out salad if you've been bad?
Now, since I'm up in Canada and I can have American thanksgiving any time I darn well please, if you are cooking in the US and want to do any of these recipes, here are my suggestions for improvements and short-cuts. I am not the Martha type so whenever there is a cooking task that in retrospect just seems silly as far as its ratio of effort to reward, I eliminate it and make a different choice. There were a few of those in these recipes.

First off, if you are going to use chestnuts in the soup, definitely save time and get the roasted ones already peeled. We bought fresh and spent a good 45 minutes boiling, peeling, etc. for what is just garnish. Plus I'm not really a chestnut fan, so next time I would use roasted walnuts instead. I also doubled the pumpkin (by accident - I still screw up metric conversions) which was great along with added chicken stock. The soup was awesome.

The corn bread was a big surprise. I'm a cornbread snob, being from Memphis, and always use bacon fat and I think sweet cornbread is pure evil. This recipe surprised me and I ended up making the best cornbread I've ever tasted. No bacon fat either but not sweet at all. Definitely a keeper.

The Nut and Pork Stuffing was the best stuffing I have ever made. Using all the roasted nuts was so amazing. Another keeper.

The Braised Fennel was eh. First off, fennel is ridiculously expensive - about 8 bucks CAD for 3 bulbs - of course you pay by the kg but you only use the bulb. Anyway, the recipe definitely 'went' with the other recipes, but it just wasn't that interesting. Plus it also had the pearl onions which were already in the roasted potatoes. No one needs that many pearl onions in one meal. I would cut it out completely next time and do a different veggie.

The pumpkin fritters were a huge hit. Don't even think about the calories. They're deep-fried.

Happy Thanksgiving!

New Stockhouse launches!

2007-10-02T21:25:00.000-06:00

Whew!...over 21,000 files and hundreds of thousands of lines of code...but in 5 months we did it and launched the new Stockhouse today at http://beta.stockhouse.com
I haven't slept much in the past 6 weeks but it has been fun - and I am incredibly proud of the challenge my team took on - creating a compelling social network for an already-established financial community - one that is smart and market data savvy.
So now the fun of beta begins - getting users' feedback and juggling bugs and changes as we move from beta to full launch.
But hey, that's what R&D is all about - rapid, Xtreme development!
I'll be taking a few days off next week and plan to just chill out, wander around in the rain forest, play some music, and most of all, sleep.

Crackbook and other adventures

2007-08-29T21:54:00.000-06:00

Crackbook has replaced the Crackberry - who knew that playing Scrabble over weeks would be so addicting? And what with the political quiz, the iLike music clips, and the pics of friends and family, it's like one giant cyberscrapbookin' event. But it's not without its evil side - particularly in the clever ways it skims your personal data out to 'applications' (whatever that means). So much for the privacy policy of yesteryear - in Facebook land the 'application' has to 'know who you are' in order for the application to 'work'. That's a load of bull. It needs your personal details so it can use it for other means - how else would a free app make money? They have to get enough personal details from enough people in order to package up that info and sell it. Facebook cheerfully washes its hands of responsibility by letting you know it's not their app. Hmm...Let's hope they're good netizens and will at least anonymize your details and only report in aggregate - and let's also hope that pixies and fairy dust will save the world.

But we give up our personal info easily - it's fun to create the whole-you picture and share it with your friends - yet we are also giving it away to whom or what we don't even know. I suppose privacy, the idea of a private citizen is antiquated anyway - it just would be nice for people to ask before using your life, your pattern for their needs. Perhaps that makes me a fuddy-duddy, easy to feel when you're in your 30s on Facebook. For now I will wrestle with the desire to be private vs. the desire to share and hope the pattern-suckers behave themselves.

Too many sites!

2007-08-14T17:08:00.000-06:00

So, being an almost-Canadian now, I've committed to Facebook as my general social networking site. It definitely seems to have the most cool applications and features compared to MySpace, which is more used in the States.
This post is basically a test post. Facebook lets you import your Blogger entries via the RSS feed, but the feedback I've read from others is that it's still pretty buggy. So, I've managed to set it up but currently it looks to be cutting the posts and not including the photos as well. That might be ok as it's easier to add photos to Facebook. We'll see how this goes!

Summer in Vancouver & a weekend in Calgary

2007-07-22T21:30:00.000-06:00

Work continues to be nutty - - well, live and learn I suppose - learn what? That I'll have to tell you over a beer!
A few weeks ago in got hot (low 90s, which really isn't that hot) in Vancouver - hot for us without air conditioning. We put the portable air conditioner in J's room and all piled in there for the week - tight but definitely cooler.
Here's Joss down at the Burrard Inlet park about 10 minutes from our place:

It broke this past week and we've had rain for the past 5 days - hmmm, ok so it's cooler, but does it have to rain so much here??? But I was secretly glad it rained non-stop this weekend as Cam went out at midnight and got us our two copies of the Deathly Hallows which we both read voraciously. I won't talk too much about it here, but it was a nice read - kind of sad to see it all end, but WOW - Rowling is just a major heroine of mine - I only hope to write something as successful and wonderful as her books one day!

We had some fun in Calgary a couple of weeks ago - cousin Laurie and hubby Richard's wedding was spectacular!
Here's Cam and Joss with our good friend, Kelly (whose family we'll see up at the lake, as they are now new neighbors!)

Here's Laurie and Richard having a laugh with Joss at the reception:

And the stampede was great fun - who knew that chuck wagon races could be so exciting - and then there was the literally 1 million dollar show afterwards. We just had a total blast.
Here's the finale at the Stampede which was accompanied by fantastic fireworks to boot:

Coming up this week is some time in Whistler for work and then we get our real R&R week at the lake coming up this Saturday - we can't wait!!

One year in Canada

2007-07-02T09:26:00.000-06:00

Hard to believe but we've been in Canada a year now. It's pretty amazing to look back at all the changes the past year has brought the three of us - new home, new jobs, new city, new just about everything! I think we definitely made the best decision for us. And really our life here is just getting underway. Our goals for the next year are getting Cam's book completed and published, completing a few big techie goals, doing some great opera gigs and auditions, booking more commercials, helping Joss to speak and read and sing, and maybe even buying a house... We also hope to all make more new friends and continue just experiencing all this amazing land has to offer.

Speaking of experiences, I'm quite excited to go to Calgary this weekend to see the Calgary Stampede for the first time. Our friends S. & W. got us tickets for the chuckwagon races. I've never been to any kind of rodeo event like this before so I'm really looking forward to it. Even better, Cam and I get to immerse ourselves in it all while Gramci looks after Joss. He's just too young yet to take to the rodeo and races. The primary reason we're going to Calgary this weekend though is Cam's cousin L. is getting married to R. - it will be fun to go to their big celebration - they're wonderful folks and great parents of three great kids.

Then, later this month we finally get to go back to the lake house. We can't wait! A whole week to just relax on Granpaw's new pontoon boat and play with Joss on the lake beach. And helping Gramci as she's getting her new knee working well. I'm also hoping we can get one date night in so we can go see the last Harry Potter movie out at the old theater in Cold Lake. It's not exactly opening night at the Ziegfeld, but it will do!

50th Anniverasry Celebration at Jekyll Island, GA

2007-06-12T22:27:00.000-06:00

What an amazing experience to watch your parents say their marriage vows to each other again on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary! We were down in Memphis last week to celebrate with all of my family. The ceremony was in St. Louis Church and I sang the mass. That allowed me to be up in the choir loft so I was able to get the best view. Afterwards there was a big party at Chickasaw Country Club where my parents belong. It was so great to see my dad's brothers and sisters there too - most of them are in Chicago so we don't get to see them that often.

My parents really wanted to celebrate with all of us so on Sunday all 26 of us descended on the old Rockefeller resort, the Jekyll Island club. We had a whole 'cottage' for us called The Cherokee. Some cottage - I guess if you consider formal neo-Italianate to be a cottage?

The grounds were gorgeous - live oaks dripping in Spanish moss along with palm trees and hibiscus flowers in bloom. And they had lights in the huge trees that at night really gave them an other-worldly air.

Gorgeous, but hot! - in the 90s every day (that's 30 plus for my Celsius friends).
We took Joss to the beach and he waded right in with no fear; only complaining when his feet started sinking in the sand so he couldn't keep his balance.

Still, we had such a great time just playing poker every night, eating big meals, walking the grounds together. It was truly memorable!
Joss was a huge hit with his cousins and the girls in particular doted on him.
Here he is with cousins Celie, Brighid, Allison, Elizabeth, and April...

Now we're back in Vancouver and I'm back at work - pushing towards a mammoth website release next quarter so it's heads down for a while there. But I hope to get down to Seattle a bit more to to work with J. Last night and today I've had a nasty stomach bug that has laid me low and poor Cam seems to be getting it tonight. We're both vegged-out on couches right now trying to keep our stomachs calm. Thankfully Joss already had this, but much more mild than what we have.

Osoyoos and Oliver

2007-05-25T19:20:00.000-06:00

I've always been a huge fan of Napa and Sonoma wine countries down in the States. I always tried to go during the off-times when there are not the millions of folks and just enjoy everything those valleys have to offer. My favorite town there is Calistoga, because it's desert-y but also close to great vinyards, especially those that do big reds.

Well, this past weekend, which was a holiday in Canada, we decided to go to the desert here in Canada.
Who knew there was a desert in Canada?
I didn't.
I guess it's all part of the quest to find the warmest place in Canada. Most folks would say you found that with Vancouver, and that's true, as big Canadian cities go. But in east BC, down near the US border at the bottom of the Okanagan valley are a couple of great towns called Osoyoos and Oliver. And just like Calistoga, they are decidedly desert-y and the vinyards in the hot-spot produce big reds. And it's only a 4 and 1/2 hour drive from Port Moody - jackpot! (I'd move us there in a heartbeat, but there aren't really any jobs there).

I had heard from folks about what Napa was like in the '70s and early '80s before it became such a tourist mecca. You could picnic in any old vinyard, tastings were free wherever you went, there were still lots of orchards and fruit and vegetable farms mixed in with the vinyards, and old-fashioned houses up in the hills above the valley could be bought for a song.
Of course now in Napa, all the vinyards are fenced off, almost all the wineries charge for tastings, the vinyards have taken over most of the orchards and fruit and veggie farms, and that old house on the hill will be considered cheap at a whopping 800,000 USD.
But all of the old way is alive and well in Osoyoos and Oliver! Unbelievable!
And there's global warming to thank for the area's ability to produce amazing reds now instead of just the dessert ice wines most folks know the area for. Apparently where it used to be that only one in four seasons would be hot and dry enough to "stress" the grapes into producing a big red, every season they've had since 2000 has been warm enough for great red crops producing delicious meritages and merlots. Couldn't find any of my beloved Zinfandels yet, and yes, the vines in general are pretty young right now, but I'm sure in the next ten years or so, it will be a whole different story.
The whole experience was just another example of how amazing Canada is - what a gorgeous valley!

So of course with my ever-present real estate bug biting hard, I'm now trying to figure out how to pinch pennies to save up for a nice little bungalow on a hill overlooking the vinyards one day...

Here are a bunch of pics, including Hope, BC's claim to fame and the obligatory 'arty' pic taken after a glass or two of big buttery chardonnay on the terrace of Burrowing Owl...

Viva Vino!

It's been a while...

2007-05-05T09:36:00.000-06:00

We've both been pretty bad about posting recently. Maybe we're getting blog fatigue? We sure have been busy. First we were down in Houston where we visited my brother John and the kids. I sang for Houston Grand Opera while I was down there. What an amazing theater to sing in! They had the sets on the stage for the Aida that was opening that night - pretty inspiring backdrop to sing Turandot and Tannhauser on. Now we'll just wait and see to hear what the outcome is. We also had a fun time doing some family karoke at home which quickly devolved into the ridiculous. I think there may be a videotape that was made that should be deleted as quickly as possible.

After Houston we flew over to San Francisco to the Web 2.0 Expo. For me that was three days of attending seminars and checking out the latest tech on the exhibition floor. I brought back the findings that I thought were the most provocative and worthy of some pondering and shared them with my team. Since we're in the process of building a very cool release of some of our financial products, it was inspirational.
We were lucky to see my sister Mary in San Francisco too and ate Chinese food from an amazing hole-in-the-wall place that my brother John had recommended. It turns out we had to eat in our hotel room since Joss hadn't napped all day while out and went down for the night at 6pm. We also got to go to the Crumb exhibit at YBCA which was overwhelming as there was just so much of his great stuff. I was particularly overwhelmed since I only had a half-hour to spend there and had Joss in tow. Cam at least got to go back and spend a few hours looking at everything in detail.

After San Francisco, we were back a couple of days and then had to go out to Retlaw (Walter spelled backwards) for Grandpa John's (Gigi) memorial service. It was held in a tiny wooden church in Retlaw, Alberta whose rennovation Grandpa had helped fund. Other than the church, the town is a ghost-town now - it was once touted as the grain capital of western Canada. The faithful have posted pictures or paintings on cardboard where the town buildings used to stand. We traveled by car from Calgary to Retlaw with Carol, Wayne, and Carol's sister Barb. I had a pretty bad cold but offered to sing something since there hadn't been time to plan music. I picked Amazing Grace because it's simple to sing and I knew the words and could sing it without accompaniment if need be. Coincidentally, in this tiny, unheated, plain church, there just happened to be a bunch of copies of Amazing Grace sitting by themselves on the piano, just waiting to be used. Cam and other relatives had wonderful things to say about Grandpa. Joss had started to fuss since he was missing his nap, so I hung out at the back of the church to try to keep his wails to a minimum. Members of the Royal Canadian Legion, that Grandpa was a member of, also spoke and saluted his coffin and played the trumpet at the end. It was a beautiful and touching ceremony. Later we went to the Legion in Taber nearby for dinner and drinks. We got to visit with many of our relatives and Joss made friends with cousin Tara's little girls. They had a good time running around together.

From Calgary, we were home one day and then I was back out of town again with the management team to our quarterly offsite. We go to a lodge out near Agassiz where buffalo are roaming the pasture whose backdrop are gorgeous snow-capped mountains.
When I got home from that and after finishing the work week, I was most interested in just spending some be-at-home time with Cam and Joss. I really don't like being away from them at all. I still haven't unpacked everything yet, but it was more fun to play with Joss who is babbling and walking constantly now.

This weekend we also have projects going on that I'll tell you more about when I can without giving away any surprises. Cam has a commercial shoot tomorrow which is pretty cool and I am putting together the music for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary mass and party happening down in Memphis at the end of the month.
Other than that, I'm looking forward to hanging out here in Vancouver for a while and admiring the beautiful spring flowers erupting everywhere!

Here's a recent pic of Cam and Joss on our patio enjoying the spring...

Easter Weekend

2007-04-07T19:14:00.000-06:00

Last weekend and this Easter weekend we've been lucky enough to have Granpaw and Gramci with us. The weather has become warm so I've planted rose bushes and we got the patio all fixed up with new seating (thanks to Aunt Noonie). Joss has really started walking now and given the opportunity will go back and forth pushing his little red wagon across the patio endlessly until he tires himself out.
Of course with Gramci here we are eating too well! We couldn't decide what we wanted for Easter dinner so we're having two - ham and scalloped potatoes tonight and a roast beef tomorrow night. Yum! For Easter tomorrow, we're going to place plastic eggs with chocolate eggs in them in various places in the garden and on the patio - not sure if Joss will understand the hunt aspect of it but it should be fun. Of course I got fancy chocolate bunnies in dark and white chocolate, which is really more for me and Cam! It sure is green and gorgeous here it that entices any of you to come on out and stay awhile with us...
Singing has been going really well lately after finally kicking those weeks of coughing we all had here. I've hit on a new practicing technique where I have my arias on my iPod and I have them playing in one ear while I'm singing. It works great as far as really getting my timing down and has the extra bonus of not needing to get a pianist every time I really want to sing through everything.
This week we go down to Houston to see family and then from there over to San Francisco where I will be going to a Web 2.0 conference while Cam and Joss will tool around town with my sister Mary. Their first stop will be the big Robert Crumb exhibit that recently opened up there. I'm hoping I will get to see it too, but most likely I'll be going to workshops and such.
Cam's graphic novel is really coming along. He has a lot of pages completed now, enough for a chapter - except he's not going to release them a chapter at a time but rather write the whole thing before he puts it out there. So I guess I'll just have to be the inside scoop on that right now - so you heard it here first - it is fantastic so far!

Super bug

2007-03-25T00:32:00.000-06:00

Wow, we had quite a flu and cough that went through our office like wildfire - more than half of us got it as did our families. I got it last weekend as did Joss. Never had a flu like that but usually I get the annual shot. This year, with still getting settled in, that didn't happen. Shakes and sweats and a cough that lasted for days. We had to take Joss in again on Friday since his cough seemed to get worse but now he seems better, taking Prednizone and antibiotics. So in all, a bit of a lost week.

I've set up our vacation times for most of the rest of the year so we have a lot of fun trips to look forward to - Houston in April to visit John and family, Memphis and Jekyll Island in May-June for Mom & Dad's 50th wedding anniversary celebration, Calgary in July for Lauri and Richard's wedding, late July-August for the long weekend up at Moose Lake, and then Memphis in December for Christmas with the Griffins. Most likely I'll also be doing a bit of traveling for work and will hopefully be able to take Cam and Joss with me at least a few times. Might get a chance to go to a Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, flying there from Houston, but I have to try and arrange that first as it's getting pretty close in time.

Tonight Cam is out at a Comic sketch jam while I make sure Joss sleeps well. Hopefully Cam will get a good chance to network with some other illustrators. Working from home sounds ideal, but it can also be lonely when you don't have any friends yet, so I'm glad he is getting out. I'm also still working on making friends myself who aren't work-related. I know I just have to make it a priority to do so, but it also seems that folks in Vancouver are a little more reserved than folks in Seattle. I'm so glad I'm able to chat with my NYC friends about everything. Had a great chance to catch up with Lara to see how married life is treating her. She sounds great and is really enjoying living down South.

Finally was able to start singing again today as my cough is now under control. There's a lot to do but I look forward to getting everything together again. It's not easy to have the energy to practice after working all day but I always feel more energized after I've sung so it's just a matter of throwing myself into it when I get home.

Other than that, it's been another weekend of rain. Insane rain. There's only so much curling up with a good book you can do. No wonder everyone who lives out here is so outdoors-y. I think it's because when you do see the sun you literally run outside like a person dying from thirst who hears water nearby. You become greedy for the sun and nothing takes precedence over just being able to bask in it, even if only for a few minutes.

The best suprise this week was, on the way home on the West Coast Express train that hugs the shore of the Burrard Inlet, I saw two huge bald eagles diving and swooping very near. They were riding the wind. I had never seen bald eagles flying so close in the wild before, so it made my heart soar. Yes, it's wet here, but WOW - just so beautiful.