CogBlogged from ‘September, 2010’

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Actually not, but bear with some metaphor swinging from the opposite end of the globe. I’m halfway through a round the world trip for a series of NMC meetings. In the past week, we have run two meetings related to the work of the Horizon Project’s Australia-New Zealand Editions. The 2010 version is moving into the writing phase and is due out in late October 2010. We have come here (here being both Brisbane Australia and Wellington, New Zealand) for a different aspect of this project; not to work with the production of the report, but working with key people who we are working with to develop action plans / recommendations to put its ideas more into policy and a wider scope of implementation here. We’ve run day long meetings that result in the end of a “communique” (Australia one is in draft [...]

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog I’m about six weeks into my round the world loop, been here in Brisbane, Australia since arriving Thursday. For the long trip and spots of free time, I practiced one of my favorite book selection techniques. I went to the Senior Center Thrift Store in Pine Arizona and picked up a paperback I never heard of, never spending more than 25 cents on the investment. This one is paying off. I’ve known of Tom Robbins maybe my mention but never read any of his novels. and frankly, Still Life with Woodpecker is so far over the top and down the other side, I could not be happier It is super dark and funny. I get a chuckle just looking at the cover, and cannot help of thinking of my favorite new ex-smoker. The writing style is rapid fire bullets, and dark dark sarcasm. [...]

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog No matter how many titles I created for this post, all of them went the wrong way down innuendo lane. This morning, at 1:00 AM local time on Brisbane, Australia, I gave an online presentation for the KU Village conference… from bed. I agreed to do this almost 9 months ago, not knowing I was going to be over here- at home it would have been a more humane 8:00 AM slot so I would have managed to be sitting at a desk. But really, with all the trite sayings of working online and sitting there in your underwear… this is pretty much true. Suit and tie not needed. I can say this is the first presentation I have done from bed, and it is pretty comfortable (thanks to Phil Long for hosting me and providing the podium in his guest room). And [...]

One of the largest PITA flavored hurdles of using an iPhone or iPad for more than just lookin’ at stuff is the end arounds one does to move documents on and off the thing. This means either having to sync through iTunes, or more often than not, the 2000s version of sneaker net is emailing attachments to yourself. I have have seen (and installed) the Golden Light, the Grail (for now) — Phone Disk – it mounts your iThing as a drive! And what is crazy is you can download a fully licensed version for free until December 1st. If you have an iThing, stop reading my stuff, and download a copy now! Do it! What it does is mount your phone (it can be automatic or you can set it in motion) when you connect it with the USB cable. There is a menu tool that you can control [...]

cc licensed flickr photo shared by Lars Plougmann I’m ready. Once again, with the best intentions, I have signed up for a George and Stephen (and others more now) Massively Open Online Course, Personal Learning Environments, Networks, and Knowledge 2010 (PLENK2010). My track record is poor, I easily let this stuff slide off of the radar. I’m a MOOCDO. But they have done a good job of re-assuring people that they don’t have to try and grapple it all. And all is a lot. I get dizzy when I look at that discussion forum, and by the time I scroll down to the form field at the bottom of a long page, I’m empty of thoughts. Week 1 is an introduction to PLEs and PLNs and msy be just the first bowl of acronym soup. Having complained plenty about the meaningless of some of the terminology, I am aiming to [...]

cc licensed flickr photo shared by mag3737 If anything I might remain consistently inconsistent. After two previous switches, I have reverted my flickr photo creative commons license to the Occam Razor version- BY Attribution. Right back where I started from. It was a little over a week ago, I switched to BY-NC, influenced by the experience shared by Alec Couros. I then got a notice by a colleague about his inability to use BY-NC photos in Wikipedia and then in a comment, Mike L shined some more light on the issues of the NC clause. I tried on the BY-SA for a while, and next thing I know, the Senator of Openness from Australia, Leigh weighed in again (shucks did not mean to make him cry). So I am changing my mind more often than a …. well fill in your own metaphor, most I thought of seemed inappropriate. But [...]

cc licensed flickr photo shared by Leo Reynolds In preparation for the startup of the PLENK2010 open course that starts tomorrow… well shoot, if my patterns are consistent, what am I talking about being prepared? I’ll start week one with good intentions and let it drop off the edge of the table. But don’t let me put my self pessimism before the horse. I’ve been thinking about a notion I hope to play out in at least two presentations in the next 5 months. One bit is some of us talk about a binary fork in the diagram of learning, splitting either into Formal (stuff we pay for, register for, go to trusted authorities for), and Informal (stuff we do on our own, for our own interests). Yet this is arbitrary to some degree, and the open course model that has been played out a few times in the recent [...]

I fell into a link hole. It seems almost more interesting to me when Google does not reveal answers, but offers more riddles. Where is the truth? Out there. Or in there. I saw this rather provocative and clever quote in… of all places, the first issue of Hacker Monthly. That I came by the way of exploring the pay to print service from MagCloud, which interestingly, you can read for free on the iPad. But that’s the worm hole. So this thing about theory and practice, wow it sure sounds like a Yogi Berra quote – http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/y/yogiberra141506.html. But what about Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut — http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jan_L._A._van_de_Snepscheut? Who said dat? The internets do not give a final answer. And more, who is Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut? Wikipedia provides a stub. And more mystery– which version of his death do you want- the LA Times version or [...]

cc licensed flickr photo shared by AlyssssylA I get about one of these a day. I guess there is a giant “SUCKER” sign pasted on the back of me on the internet. Do you think it is that hard to spot a machine generated body of text? C’mon, I did Mad Libs in the 1970s. Dear [sucker's name], I really appreciate your collection of information for teachers on the [sucker's blog name] website, [sucker's blog url]. I have also found your post “[last blog post]” very interesting. Yes, [sucker's blog name] is one of those sites I keep coming back to. I’ll keep this short as I know you probably get a ton of email. I have developed a tool [insert name here] that I think your readers will find interesting. It is a useful thing to post on your page so you and your readers can [verb made into [...]

It was back in late 2006 I switched my flickr photo creative commons license to the simple, and sharable, by attribution license. I said then: So I am considering, pondering, swaying that the most free, is the simple BY Attribution license, and until someone strongly can compel me backward, have switched this on my blog and my flickr collections. I now have been strongly compelled, by Alec Corous’ recent post on Considering CC-Non Commercial. Alec does have a new Amazing Story where his video of him helping his daugher learn to ride a bicycle was found, and licensed by Nokia to be part of a new commercial. Not just part- it is the crowning last segment in a montage, the one the closes the deal on the commercial’s message- check it our yourself http://stalkr.tv/Media/Nokia.mp4. The thing is that his use of the BY-NC creative commons license (it can be used [...]