CogBlogged from ‘July, 2008’

In my continued exploration of new technologies, I am looking at a new compact, portable, cheap, information device that may offer a lot of potential for not only education, but society in general. Use of it requires almost no electricity! It offers in depth amounts of information in a refreshingly simple user interface that is easily mastered by learners of all ages. They call it a “book” ;-) Yeah summer break from (some) technology is just doing some plain old reading. How novel! So, in the current thing I am reading, this description comes up- does this described a country you know? The changing character of the native population, brought about through unremarked pressures on porous borders; the creation of an increasingly unwieldy and rigid bureaucracy, whose own survival becomes its overriding goal; the despising of the military and the avoidance of its service by established families, while its offices [...]

Dancer by cogdogblog posted 20 Jul ’08, 11.34pm MDT PST on flickr Its CogDog and friends night gathering at Almustafa, a fab Lebanese restaurant in Sydney Leaving Sydney in style… Actually the last night in Sydney was two nights ago… or tomorrow…. or I am #*&ing tired of trying to get time zones sorted out. It was more than a 24 hour travel journey from hotel in Sydney to LA to Phoenix and capped with a drive home to Strawberry. But what a great time it was connecting with past and new colleagues and getting to see just a wee bit more of the grand Australian country (and cities). Twice as long in Australia would have felt like it was not nearly enough.

Us Americans Appreciate the Traffic Help by cogdogblog posted 18 Jul ’08, 1.18am MDT PST on flickr Look Right! There is a car! Even after 2 weeks in Australia, I remain confused at traffic crossings- yesterday I cam oh so close to stepping in front of a fast moving bus. The horn blew and there was not even time for the life flash before my eyes (or there are not enough highlights to make a reel). Sydney has plenty of these curb notes for Americans, supposedly left over from the 2000 Olympics. They probably saved thousands of lives. And hopefully it is not a political suggestion ;-)

If you are in Sydney on Saturday and game to play dodge the pilgrammage crowd game, then join me and my NMC colleagues for a walk somewhere on a beach or around the harbor… er “harbour”. That’s th eplace with the funky curve building. I think they do art stuff there or maybe it is a fancy coffee shop (just kidding- above photo is from my first visit to Sydney in 2000). My friend/colleague Sean FitzGerald is picking out some routes, and we’ll make a group decision in the morning for some options for long walkers or folks that may want to catch a museum. Meet us at Circular Quay around 10:30am Saturday. Okay, that is a big place, am waiting for Sean to identify a more discrete landmark, so either tweet me @cogdog or @sean… or maybe not the smartest thing to blog, SMS me on my aussie phone [...]

Since I am just started playing with taking gigapan images, I was eager to experiment with the device on the trip here in Australia. I dont have fancy case for the thing- I am carting it around in the foam padded cardboard box it got sent to me. I am carrying it in my old backpack with a tripod strapped to the bag: I had a small break Tuesday and wandered down Swantson Street to capture an image of the impressive State Library of Victoria– which always fascniated me with the little bit of Twilight Zone sculpture in front – at least I think it is based on the Time Enough at Last episode with Burgess Meredith: So I tried first for a shot at the front of the library, but it was right into the sun, and I locked in a really poor exposure setting, and had to tweak [...]

State of the Web 2008 by cogdogblog posted 9 Jul ’08, 11.32pm MDT PST on flickr What a great presentation of web trends, with extra snark! 0at.org/summer-2008.html "This was created on a cloudy afternoon in Seattle by Matthew Inman of 0at.org" linktribution to the Shifted Librarian fun fun fun

Meeting Leigh by cogdogblog posted 9 Jul ’08, 1.33pm MDT PST on flickr At the welcome dinner for Horizon.au, I finnaly got to meet in person, Leigh Blackall… now I am more eager to find my way back to New Zealand.

dirty wet rag by norwichforlife posted 11 Apr ’07, 8.26pm MDT PST on flickr norwich state Dispatch for Melbourne Australia, Monday July 7- Just arriving here in Australia has been both exciting and exhausting. I’ve done the long leg flights several times now (LA to Sydney and the marathon, LA to Melbourne) and am glad to say I am not “used” to it. It is literally putting your body through the wringer, stretching it out, twisting it, and than tossing it on the floor. I thought I was in good shape having slept a solid 6 hours on the front end of the flight and some more naps into the mid morning. Getting to Sydney was very exciting, though a bit clouded in and missed seeing much scenery. It was a bit of a mad scramble, as the hour plus delay leaving LA got us into Sydney late, missing a [...]

On July 5, while most of America is recovering form whatever it is they do to themselves the day before, I’ll be strapped into a plane 15 hours to fly to Australia. Yes, despite whatever happened, whomever I coughed on, on my visit there last October they are letting me come back. modified from creative commons licensed flickr photo by pierre pouliquin This trip is with my NMC colleagues Larry Johnson and Rachel Smith as we go first to Melbourne to launch a new flavor of the NMC’s Horizon Project, working with a new advisory board of Australian and New Zealand educators on Horizon.au,. Out of this effort, we are producing later this year a Horizon Report specifically focused on emerging technology relevant to education in this region. We are also going to Brisbane and Sydney, visiting in all, the 5 NMC member organizations in Australia: RMIT, University of Melbourne, [...]

I’m not sure what to call the breed of web tools that enable you to draw in content from other web X.0 sites automatically– some call them lifestream (maybe not, wikipedia lands you somewhere else) more like http://lifestreamblog.com/. Swurl is a new one and I am liking its elegance. I get my requisite custom URL and give it my username at a few web services, then I can toss in some customization like colors, banners… I just plopped the image I use from this blog: What is less subtle is that there are no links to see more pages…. as you scroll down content keeps coming in, the river of stuff, like it has no end. Also, what I really liked, is that snce I gave it my accounts, some which have been used for a long time like flickr and del.icio.us, it goes way back in my internet life. [...]