The blogging has been and will be sporadic, as I am learning to crawl, then walk in my new role with the NMC. Yes, I am a newbie. It’s like thinking you are proficient on the lake, and you realize when you show up for the group trip, that your expertise with the pedal boats does not match this group of bonded river class-5 kayakers.
I’ve been remiss on following the piling up things in the reader, and only marginally got to listen in on the sessions at the TCC 2006 conference where it was very cool to see as keynoters Tim Lauer and Will Richardson— most important as K-12 educators helping the mostly higher education audience better appreciate their future students.
At the same time, NMC has a launch tomorrow of their Second Life space, next week is the online conference on Personal Broadcasting, and I need to go on fast track to learn Pachyderm.
So, in summary, the feeling is still surreal, still a bit in transition, and the odd mixture of anxiety and excitement.
Perhaps my eyes are a bit tired from reading the student’s writing all day Alan, but after scanning the Pachyderm site, reading through the “About” page, and viewing the showcase I have a vague idea as to what Pachyderm can do, but I really have no idea exactly WHAT Pachyderm is.
My guess is the NMC is gearing Pachyderm towards the post-seconary academic community. I know many elementary and secondary teachers that woud like to use a tool that allows for “Learning materials created with …[and] optimized for Internet delivery, easily reusable, and conformant with key search, archival, and cataloging standards” that also includes “pedagogically useful templates,” but if they’re like me, finding the time to puruse the site and actually figure out what the heck Pachyderm is would be a major deterrant. Just thought you might want to pass it on to someone at the NMC: Pachyderm looks very interesting, but the site doesn’t actually tell visitors what it is.