EdVentures in Technology
teaching, learning and change
May 20, 2008 at 9:02 am · Filed under Random Thoughts
Want to help in the fight against childhood cancer? So does St. Baldricks! St. Baldrick’s day has been an annual event in our community for years and yet I knew little about it until this year. Turns out that St. Baldrick’s started as a challenge between three friends hoping to raise $14,000 by shaving their heads. Their efforts expanded and in the end yielded over $100,000! From that beginning, St. Baldrick’s has grown into
“…the world’s biggest volunteer-driven fundraising program for childhood
cancer! In eight years, events have taken place in 18 countries and 46
US states, raising over $34 million, and shaving more than 46,000 heads.” (
http://www.stbaldricks.org/about_us/index.html)
This year St. Baldrick’s wasn’t held in our community. However, my son’s Cub Scout troop put out a call for volunteers and Hunter, along with his friend and St. Baldrick’s alum Ian, have chosen to participate. We have our own connection to childhood cancer, as a family friend and schoolmate was recently diagnosed with and is currently receiving treatment for, a form of osteosarcoma.
So today, my son and I are beginning our fundraising efforts and are looking forward to losing our locks on the 31st. I’ll be posting pics as soon as the shearing begins!
If you would like to donate to my fundraising effort: https://www.stbaldricks.org/get_involved/donate.html?ParticipantKey=2008-53478
If you would like to donate to Hunter’s fundraising effort: https://www.stbaldricks.org/get_involved/donate.html?ParticipantKey=2008-53476
If you would rather not donate online, feel free to download a donation form here: http://www.stbaldricks.org/includes/downloads/donation_forms/53500/2008DonateS53476.pdf
As I type this, Jon Lester has just pitched a no-hitter against the Kansas City Royals. I’ll take this as a good omen, since Jon Lester is a cancer survivor himself!
Tags: stbaldrick, cancer, fundraising, hunter
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May 5, 2008 at 1:37 pm · Filed under Random Thoughts, Web Expressions
I am presenting today at the Business2Business Conference being held at the beautiful Mount Washington Valley Hotel. I was invited to speak about Free and Open-Source Solutions to enhance communication and collaboration in business. What follows is my Google Presentation that will go off in about 30 minutes.
Free Communication & Collaboration Tools for Business
How business can quickly and easily deploy Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) solutions to enhance their internal and external communications, collaboration and marketing efforts.
The recent explosion of content authoring tools such as blogs, wikis, and Google Office have created an untapped opportunity for businesses to improve their ability to communicate and collaborate internally, within the organization, but also externally, in working with partner organizations and development teams outside of the traditional business model. The simplicity and availability of these tools outside of the physical office environment have led to unprecedented gains in productivity, as well as some unique partnerships. This session will serve to introduce participants to the wide variety of tools available and discuss how they might be quickly integrated into their business practice.
UPDATE: Presentation went well. It was recorded, so I may have a copy to post here in the next couple of days. Here is the PBwiki link for those interested in the presentation development and some of the vids we didn’t have an opportunity to view this afternoon. Thanks again to all who attended!
April 18, 2008 at 11:39 am · Filed under Social Software, TechTalk
Twitter is a pretty simple mechanism. In 140 characters or less, tell the Twitterverse what you are doing, what you’ve been doing, what you plan to do or what is holding you up from doing what needs to be done. Got it?
First, create your account
Twitter is free, but you do need that digital identity so folks can find you. So visit Twitter.com and sign up.
Second, start posting
You really don’t need to do a whole lot if you just want to sample the world of Twitter. Once you are logged into your account, start dropping your Tweets into the What Are You Doing? box.
Third, find folks to follow
Now you will want to build out your network. This is done by finding folks to follow. You may want to find those in your local area or in your industry. You may want to find those who share your interests. Or you may just start picking folks at random. There are a couple of ways to do this. One is to use Twitter’s Search feature to find folks by name or by location. 
Once you find someone that you wish to follow, take a moment to see who they are following. You can quickly and often times effectively expand your network in this fashion, growing geometrically rather than linearly. 
Another recent resource is TwitterPacks. Twitter-ites are adding themselves to this wiki and self-sorting by field, location, and interest.
Fourth, find a good Twitter app
Once your network starts growing, you will likely find that constantly refreshing your Twitter page gets old quick. Once you hit this point, you will want an application that displays your Twitter activity in near real-time. Finding a good Twitter app, or client, is sort of like finding a good pair of shoes. You have to try a few on before you’re happy with the fit. I’ve tried Tweetr, Twhirl and Snitter. I finally settled on Snitter as it had most of the features that I needed/wanted in a Twitter client.
Fifth, manage your network
Your network is organic and I would compare it to the art behind the bonsai tree. Like the bonsai, you need to nurture your network. It requires care, fertilization and sometimes, pruning. There are a number of tools you can use, but that is a topic for a future post. Managing your network is an art form and it deserves greater attention than a few lines can deliver.
Sixth, have fun!
When it comes to Twitter, if you’re not having fun then you are doing something wrong. Twitter is kind of like Cheers, where everybody knows your name. Spend some time Tweeting and responding to other Tweeters and pretty soon, when you come online, your Twitterverse will treat you just like Norm (minus the beer)!
There is a wealth of information out there but I’ve found the Twitter Wiki (http://twitter.pbwiki.com/) to be an incredible resource for all things Twitter.
Tags: twitter, how-to, community, collaboration, network
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April 18, 2008 at 9:36 am · Filed under Social Software, TechTalk
Ellen Paxton (@epaxton) asked a question on LinkedIn, Are You a Twit? A few weeks later, Allejandro Reyes (@successfool) at Successfool.com asked the same thing. Here was my response.
My LinkedIn Answer
“For me, Twitter is my professional development, late breaking news and support system in one tool. It enables me to ask and answer questions from my network and has led to more than one “A-ha!” moment. While some are quick to point out it’s rather unstructured nature, it is that very characteristic that makes it so valuable. The lack of structure has led to some unique and effective community generated processes, such as the open but specific response (
@edventures) and the TwitterPoll. Twitter does take on a life of its own and regular users will find that they will develop a sense of community with those they follow and those that follow them. The sense of ownership is strong and has led to the development of real world networking and collegial opportunities that might not have otherwise presented themselves.”
It’s been over a year since I first heard about and chose to dabble with Twitter. I’d long been frustrated with the one to one limitations of the majority of Instant Messaging services and had longed for a means to collaborate with a number of folks simultaneously. Twitter was the answer to my needs but it took nearly four more months after I used it for it to become the tool I desired.
You see I wanted a network that was a stripped down version of the Facebook/MySpace wall. I wanted a community of contacts with whom I could converse on a variety of topics without all the extraneous chrome that surrounded Social Networking sites. The problem was not with the tool as Twitter was designed for this very thing. The problem was adoption. It wasn’t enough for me to be online, I needed colleagues and contacts to adopt this tool as well. As it turned out, it was simply a matter of time. By last fall, Twitter had, for me, finally reached a critical mass. This was identified not only by the number of Twitter users, but by the number and variety of tools that sprung out of the needs and desires of the community to communicate and collaborate in different ways.
Now, a year later, my very own personal and professional network has grown. I have 421 followers and am following 352 Twitterers from all over the world. Nearly every day I add someone new to my network and as a result I have a steady stream of information flowing through my Twitter client, Snitter. Which begs the question…
How do you keep up with the flood of information?
There is a literal ocean of information that floods through our processors every day: e-mail, RSS feeds, Tweets, IM, SMS, the list is endless. It is impossible to keep up with the torrent and foolish to even try. So rather than spend one’s time trying to consume it all, try a different approach. One of my colleagues (can’t remember who, so drop a comment and I’ll make sure to give you proper attribution) had an analogy about a river and fishing. Mine is quite similar.
When I was stationed in Pensacola, I used to head to Johnson Beach as often as I could to escape back to nature. One of my favorite pastimes was to throw a cast net and see what I caught. I could spend hours casting just to see what I could find, or I could spend just a little time fishing for a specific critter. And as with every endeavor, the more your refine your technique, the better you become and the more efficiently you use your time.
CC Flickr Image by jaredb
Throw a cast net and see what you catch. Sample bits and pieces and if you find something of interest, follow up. Or you can refine your technique by automating the process of searching on a specific keyword that you can identify.
Tags: twittercommunication collaboration community practice
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April 15, 2008 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Diigo Links
April 14, 2008 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Diigo Links
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FancyZoom 1.1 - Annotated
tags: blog, html, images, zoom, webdesign, fancyzoom, web
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Designed to view full-size photos and images inline without requiring a separate web page load, FancyZoom’s raison d’être (French for “raisin-determination”) is providing a smooth, clean, truly Mac-like effect, almost like it’s a function of Safari itself.
April 12, 2008 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Diigo Links
April 11, 2008 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Diigo Links
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RSS « Learning 2.0 @ SIAST - Annotated
This week’s discovery exercises focus on learning about RSS feeds and using Google Reader (a free online newsreader) to bring your feeds together. If there is another online reader that you are more comfortable with, or that you already use, please feel free to use it.
tags: rss, learning-activity, siast
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This week’s discovery exercises focus on learning about RSS feeds and using
Google Reader (a free online newsreader) to bring your feeds together. If there is another online reader that you are more comfortable with, or that you already use, please feel free to use it.
April 4, 2008 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Diigo Links
Zamzar - Free online file conversion
tags: audio, mp3, video, wmv
Needed to rip audio out of a WMV with bad video to create an enhanced podcast.
Convertube::Online FLV Converter
tags: audio, extract, mp3, video, wmv
Needed to rip audio out of a WMV with bad video to create an enhanced podcast.
March 31, 2008 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Diigo Links
An Outsourced Open Source LMS and a Pot of Gold? | EDUCAUSE CONNECT Annotated
tags: blackboard, lms, lms-project, moodle
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Like many WebCT campuses, SUNY Delhi must select a new LMS and complete migrating to the new system in the next year. The total cost of ownership comparison led us to adopt a remotely hosted open source solution. We’ll examine the facts, figures, and progress of moving from WebCT to Moodle and integrating with Banner.
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