Blog Pile
Like Cows, They Look Silly. And Fart A Lot.
It’s the MOOc Mocking Channel! All Cows. All Mocking. All The Time.
CogDog The Blog
An early 90s builder of web stuff and blogging Alan Levine barks at CogDogBlog.com on web storytelling (#ds106 #4life), photography, bending WordPress, and serendipity in the infinite internet river. He thinks it's weird to write about himself in the third person. And he is 100% into the Fediverse (or tells himself so) Tooting as @cogdog@cosocial.ca
Blog Pile
Stories are Fragments
cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog My brother David was born January 20, 1953; yesterday he would have been 60. There should have been a big party, or a tropical trip, or some adventure like parachute jumping. But he passed away in 1987, not in a place known for parties, […]
ds106 Class Notes and Stuff
Tinkering Under the ds106 Hood
cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Thomas Hawk
Last week I wrote about the ideas and content changes I had in mind for the next semester of ds106. The car polish is looking shiny. Over the last few weeks I had out my WordPress wrenches, calipers and engine pulls to do some work under the hood. The current site is coming up on two years old, and has been a great example of growth by accretion, experimenting, adding things on. That is all part of running experiments.
But it also got a bit wobbly last semester; no one likes their web site going down, but we were sure ringing the buzzer frequently at our hosts Castiron Coding for server restarts. It wasn’t clear if it was the database, the demands on the server processes, but I took it as a mission to keep happy the unicorns that run the server room
First of all, our site is a WordPress multi site that not only servers up ds106 covering numerous sections taught over the last 2 years, but also the Assignment bank, the Daily Create, the Assignment Remix Machine, in[SPIRE], plus the archive of Camp Magic Macguffin, and (just unearthed) the May 2011 class taught by Martha Burtis. We also run a MediWki install as a content engine for our documentation (using the Wiki Embed plugin).
The database was and is over 600 Mb. More on that later. There was a long list of plugins, active and inactive, quite a few were not in use.
I’ve done quite a bit and hope I can remember it all! An off the cuff summary…
ds106 Class Notes and Stuff
Help Me ds106 Don’t Stop This Crazy Thing
My class of ds106 UMW students are off and running. If anyone sees them, tell them to keep going. The semester start pulls at both ends for me. It’s exciting to bring a new group of (now 26) into the fold; at the same time it is daunting to realize that they are starting from […]
ds106 Class Notes and Stuff
The (hopefully) All Clarifying and Universal Sense-Making Email About ds106
(a copy of this just sent to my UMW students) cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by David Reeves Attention ds106 Bootcampers! At ease. Despite how overwhelmed you might feel 4 days into this class, let me assure you that you are all fine, and either on track or ahead of the […]
ds106 Class Notes and Stuff
Trying a ds106 Open Lab
(lazily copy/pasted/cross-posted drom ds106) cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by mbecher As another open resource for my UMW ds106 students, but open to anyone who is taking on ds106, I am trying a concept of an online open laboratory. Each week I am doing the same assignments I ask of […]
ds106 Class Notes and Stuff
Daily Create as Window to Us
Now a few clicks over a year old, the ds106 Daily Create is a core part of our digital storytelling class at UMW. Almost a year ago, we discovered an accidental attribute; on January 25, 2012, TDC 17 was one shared by @noiseprofessor was to do a video: Show us your keychain and tell us […]
Blog Pile
My Own Personal Twitter Archive
I got tired of checking my twitter settings to see if the link to download my archive was available. I gave up. After all I do have thinkup running. Then I saw martin Hawksey tweet that he got his Final got 'Request your archive button' in Twitter > Settings (took less than 30 sec for […]
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One Tweet. Boom.
Two years ago. One tweet. Thinking abt starting #ds106 radio station that class runs. 15 week experiment. Start it with a show @brlamb and I should've done years ago — Jim Groom (@jimgroom) January 16, 2011 One blog post. http://networkeffects.ca/?p=655 One free-form web radio station born. designed by ds106 student Andrew Wallingham When ds106 started […]
Blog Pile
I am a Teaching Serf
I teach digital storytelling (ds106) online as an adjunct for the University of Mary Washington. I earn just enough doing this to pay for my health insurance. I am not doing this for the money, it’s for the love, and to learn how to teach online. I have my savings and some other things I […]