CogBlogged from ‘April, 2011’

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by Ronan_C My list of words never used here include things like “monetize” or “viral” (oops I just used them). But in terms of trying to get a message out, I am keen to experiment with ways to make it go further. Yesterday, in one of those serendipity series of events triggered by what might be properly termed as “goofing” off, I came up with what i thought was a clever way to amplify the sharing of a Google form via twitter. First of all, I am unabashedly in love with Google Forms… It does in minutes what I previously had to do in custom PHP code/databases, or wrestle with other packages that were clumsy and inflexible. I use GForms for things like surveys, webinar registrations, conference evaluations, collecting input for projects, demos of the “real time” web (audiences are [...]

The media evolution of ds106 is progressing, first it was free form ds106 radio, now we have a free form tv station, what is next? Major kudos to @timmmmyboy for getting it going. I took my first crack at live broadcasting today, using Wirecast to publish to the justin.tv site. It’s been a while since I played with Wirecast, and once you sort out were the stuff is, you can sit back amazed at the sophistication you (not yet me) can do. I managed to make a title strip, add my icon, switch from live video to a still to a video, and swap in the desktop presenter. On testing, I found it useful to use the broadcast setting that saves as a local video recording. What is slick about justin.tv is how it automatically archives footage. If you log in within 2 weeks and make a highlight of a [...]

Without a doubt in doing talks about the future, my favorite (and many other people’s favorite) quote is from William F Gibson cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog It is so powerful. I still sit back and marvel at it (see also the attempts to track down the source). These words bashe the simple idea of time being some sort of linear line with neat little dots and notes hanging on it. Or that some person/authority can put a signpost out alerting you that you have arrived. Tt just doesn’t work like that. Sorry, but the future swirls around us like bits of ephemeral wisps (as well as the non-future). And we don’t know it until it is right Here, and then it is not the future, eh? In some alternate universe, I might be a PhD in Philosophy, and this topic would be my dissertation, [...]

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by ryancr We learn early and repeatedly that stealing is bad (and it is if we are talking about malicious theft), but perhaps as we grow older? wiser? that there are layers to this concept, and I am just loving How to Steal Like an Artist (and 9 other things nobody told me) by Austin Kleon. A big kudos to Andy Rush for tweeting this link. There are powerful ideas here. Sometimes you come across a link and maybe toss it in the social bookmarking pile, sometimes it is better and worth sharing via a tweet, and then there are ones I find I just have to blog up and down about. Maybe this resonates in relation to what has been flowing by the last months in ds106, but I find more here, that not only apply more broadly in education, [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog I was excited to get this copy of “Radio: an Illustrated Guide” from the folks at This American Life, the best-est radio show in the universe. I noticed it was a reading from one of the sections of ds106 and followed a link from there to order it directly from the TAL store– for $5 plus shipping. When writing up the caption for my flickr photo above, I googled the name of the book, and ended up seeing it at one online store… for $159! Well, it was a hardback, maybe that is the difference, still seems a big jump from $5 to $159. I then looked it up on Amazon– where the paperback is $29.59!- same book, same dimensions, I bought for $5. The other four sellers have it listed new from $69.95 to $168.01. I think I need [...]