Internet Neighbors

Because I live in a rural area of Vermont, in a wee, tiny town, I can only get dial-up service for internet acess. So, in order ot do most of my schoolwork, I go to the bookstore internet cafe, buy a latte, get the password for the day and enter into the world of high-speed internet. I sometimes spend over 9 hours a day there. I see the breakfast meeting crowd, the lunch crowd, the afternoon shoppers, the Long Trail School kids who get off the bus at the bookstore for lacrosse practice or to be picked up later by parents who are still working. I watch the cafe slowly start to empty out about 5:30 or 6:00.

Inevitably, I see lots of folks I know - other lacrosse or hockey parents, my son sometimes meets me after school, business people I know. People say hello, chat awhile to catch up on any news, ask what's new. Total strangers help each other with the weird things that happen when the router blinks out. It's a really tempramental router but the regulars know it just has to be reset. These are my neighbors, friends and acquaintances. These are the folks with whom I share a little bit of the world.

At the same time, I'm logged into any number of on-line discussions or chats. I read the news from all over the world through all my RSS news feeds. I read the thoughts and writings of like-minded professionals and students through their blogs and participate in the larger "community of thought and contribution" through various wikis. Frequently, I'm emailing friends and associates as far away as the People's Republic of China or Long Island. I can click a photo of a friend having coffee with me and instantaneously show it to a friend in France. I'm here but I'm there. I'm sharing my little moment in time and space with these folks, too.

Right now, I'm sitting alone in the cafe. It's 5:45 and I'm the last of the die hards, today. The silver is clinking and rattling as it's being taken from the dishwasher and put away for tomorrow. The music is quietly playing in the bckground. I took a break earlier to go down the street to watch my son at lacrosse practice. It was sunny and cold. I was both warm in the sun shining on my face and cold in the wind that blew through my too light coat. It was wonderful to feel the world around me and hear the sounds of boys at practice, siblings play chase to pass the time and familiar parents discuss this year's team, coach, weather, whatever.

Then, I came back here to the digital world. I don't need a second life. I have many lives at any second of the day. They're all valid. They're all real. All these folks are my neighbors and I am dumbstruck with the wonder and reality that we, truly, have become a global village.

And then, the immediate next thought is, "How then, do we really create community in this global village? Or will it happen as naturally as just neighbors passing the time of day?"

Quiet Time

I heard an interesting talk on WNPR the other day as I was driving along. It was the author of a book, The Fourteen Traditions, talking about how children today have way too much stimulation, entertainment, planned activities and passive activity in their lives. The book is a comparison of the present generation to those of previous, quieter, less "entertained" generations. It poses the question, "Is all the stimulation, entertainment and activity that technology affords the young and into which we are all plunged, good for us? How will this change children of this generation from those of the past? How will we develop contemplative, self-reflective adults if the means through which these qualties are achieved is changed?"

This author, whose name I can't recall just now, stressed how he grew up with a strong sense of self developed through quiet, reflective activities. Children were encouraged to read, write, imagine or reflect during free time. There was little in the way of entertainment. Days were spent in school or work or doing chores. What little time there was for play was spent in imaginary games and environments - places where only the mind could go. Toys were made, not bought. Evenings were quietly spent around the dinner table talking over the day. and, if there was any time afterwards, it was spent with reading, a stamp collection or family storytelling.

Now, conversation is infrequent, if at all, among family members. Everyone is tuned in to his or her own mode of entertainment. The television is going, as are the portable DVD players and ipods. Children and teenagers spend free time engaged in playstations, xbox, computer games, ipods, video or other entertaining and technology heavy pastimes. Where and when does anyone reflect on what one is doing? There's so much doing, is there actually any time to absorb it all; to comprehend it all or to see ourselves in it?

This is a metacog blog. So the question becomes, how and when do our children learn to learn about themselves if they are always so busy? Does metacognition exist for them?

Wiki Wiser

Will's Web II class was a potpourri of wiki's and wiki usage. A little sample of what I did last night in class is just to your left under 'about me."

To see the real thing, here's the link:

http://mat064.pbwiki.com/sheila

Eureka! Audio Clip for Junior Ski and Snowboard School

Here it is!!!! Finalemente! Eureka! Can this be it?
The audio clip has arrived, alive.

Stratton Mountain Junior Ski and Snowboard School
Instructional audio clip #1

My Home Town, Y'all

Believe it or not, I come from a small, coal mining town on the New River in West (by God) Virginia. Every Spring I get a hankering to go there. Check it out. Life in the hills of Beckley, West Virginia.

Can't get there from here...

I know I'm doing something wrong; but what is it?
I got the editing done (Garage Band, Audacity, Itunes),
I got the clip converertedinto an Mp3(Switch),
I got the clip uploaded to Hipcast (tried Odeo, too),
I got it published to our class blog for this purpose(Hipcast),
I even got to the source code and copied it.
But Blogspot will not let me post it into the source code on my blog.

It looks like this:

Well, I can't show you the code because the editor tells me there's something
wrong with it. Sigh. Big sigh..

Just can't get there from here.

Stratton Audio 1

Audio

file:///MCGC/Winter/Web%20Design%20II/Audio:Converted/mp3-Allison/Female%20Voice.1%20merg%20%20merged.mp3

Oy!!! Audio!!

I'm still struggling witht the audio thing. How can this be so difficult? Hipcast doesn't work. Audacity doesn't work. Maybe these things have something to do with the problem. Now, I'm working with Odeo, a nifty new widget that has at least let me get my audio clip into itunes. Has this gotten me any closer to my goal of getting my audio clip actually loaded onto my blog? Oy!! I don't know.

Garage Band Rag

Having struggled with Audacity, imovie and a few other free sound and editing softwares for the last month, I'm still (I repeat STILL) working on a sound clip of about 7 minutes. Perhaps the problem is that I have worked with film and sound editing at a professional level and I'm expecting too much from both myself and the available software. I am accustomed to using FinalCutPro for film and sound editing. I'm a MAC user for those of you who don't know. Perhaps the inherent limitations (or just plain differences) of nonprofessional sound editing software is what's driving me crazy. Isn't there some sort of standard vocabulary?

I'm now working in Garage Band, at the suggestion of a classmate. The editing should be intuitive and industry standard, but, Garage Band seems to have its own vocabulary. In editing a marker is used to note a spot where editing is intended to occur. However, in GB a marker is something else and so far, I've not found the equivalent by another name. I've found this to be true with lots of other "tools." It's hard to do what I need because tools are called things other than the known, industry standard names or names that I, a basic level professional, have come to know as standard. And, there doesn't seem to be any easy way (that I've found) to translate; like maybe an old-fashioned glossary. Why?

At this point, I've finally figured out how to cut, join (no options for transition although GB does a great job of the match-up in joining clips), add audio clips and tracks and with the aid of a sweet little software called Switch, www.nch.com (purchased online for $28 after a 15 day trial period) I've converted my edited sound into an mp3 (Garage Band does not save as an mp3 which seems a bit mean-hearted on the part of the developers) ready to be uploaded by Hipcast, today. Now, if I can only master Hipcast. Wish me luck.

Home, Home on the Wayfare...

There appears to be a plethora of new mapping mashups. It does appear to be the new combo technology to use satelite maps coombiined with map maps and various other new technologies to make it possible to "wiki" mapping. What would old world cartographers have to say about this? How do you suppose Christopher Columbus might have approached the Queen of Spain to finance his trip to the unknown new world if he had "Wayfaring" at his disposal? Wow. Queen Isabella would have been mighty impressed. For those of us int he "new world" however, it's lovely to go home, home on the wayfaring. The limitation is the availability of satelite maps of the area. Since I'm from a small town in West Virginia, there's little available. Too bad. And, now I live in a small town in Vermont. Again, not much available. The problem here is that all those cosmopolitan areas already have tons of points of interest available on all sorts of regular maps. Those small towns are the onew who could use it.

For educational purposes, the new map technologies present some pretty fabulous opportunities to get students excited about geography and history. I can definitely see applications for all sorts of education. How about touring around the parts of the world from which famous literature or art has originated? Fabulous. Maybe the post should have been called "Art, Art on the Wayfare...".

ARCS, IDDE, ADDIE, Piaget, Bruner, Gagne, Fink!

LBJ took the IRT down to 4th ST USAAAAAAAA. When he got there what did he see? The youth of America on LSD.

Remember the musical, HAIR? I sometimes feel that I'm singing another version of the above song when I have to recite my favorites in the educational theory arena. It goes like this...

ARCS a favorite of mine, useful and found in IDDEEEEEEEEEE. When you get there look and see; does this have something to do with ADDIE?

Favorites? Well, should I start with Piaget? Bruner? Gagne? Fink? I find it hard to say who or what is my favorite theory or theorist. As applicable to what? All are important. All have application. All are stepping stones to the next or reflections of the past. What about Maria Montessori? Her name hasn't come up. We study some, we ignore others. There are simply too many to do them all. But we cover the basic concepts. And, in my book, the best is a combintion of them all - whatever theories apply to the need and give the student the tools needed to achieve. That's my favorite.

Furl It!

I've been furling and bookmarking and social bookmarking and generally explorig the world of furl, delicious, and RSS feeds. Has this gotten me anywhere? Not yet. I've read some really interesting stuff. I've been thinking about the meaning of social bookmarking (to be explored furter in another post). But, generally, I still prefer to save articles as web archives on my hard drive in files that I create and organize according to my own eccentric heirarcical system.

There is a very good reason why this works so well for me. I live in rural Vermont where there is only dial up available at my house. For high-speed internet access, I go to the Spiral Press Cafe at the bookstore, spend $4 on coffee and get the password for the day. But there are many days when there is no internet access at all. This is (believe it or not) a reality for many people. windstorms, snowstorms, electrical failures, human failures. So, on those days, I have information on my hard drive to be read at leisure.

Yes, yes. It does sound old fashioned. But I like it. It works for me. I will continue to explore the world of furl, delicious, RSS feeds and lots of new sites that are showing up to help me wade through the slog of information available on any given subject at any given moment. However, I don't find it a slog. I don't find it a chore or an inconvenience to organize my own information. It actually gives me an opportunity to think about the content - sort of like hand writing. What is a chore, is having to learn a new system, software, procedure, etc. when all I want to do is read an article. If I have to do all that everytime I want to read an article, I probably won't bother - unless it's really important.

Subscribe to ME!

Hey, you can now subscribe to ME!!! How about that? I'm working on that audio thing. It will be here this week and then you can subscribe to my blog and listen to me ramble on every week. Maybe, I'll even sing. All sorts of possibilities. Singing blogs. Could be a beautiful thing.

Check it out in the left column. There's a link to subscribe.

Podcast from Will's Class

Podcast

MP3 vs Podcast vs Hipcast vs Feedburner

1. Record and Produce your MP3 file (includes editing)
2. Host your MP3 on a public server.
3. Publish as an RSS by publishing in a blog (automatically turns your MP3 into an RSS)
4. Syndicate by using Feedburner.

This gives me a podcast instead of an MP3. In my blog I will see a verbal connection that when pressed shows me the same image that I would get from hipcast (which turns my MP3 into a flash visual; which is why I get the "tuner" image)

Wow. This was a lot to understand and I'm not yet sure I do.

About That Audio Clip

I'm still working on it. I've been having lots of problems and distractions. But...I AM making progress. It just seems to take forever to get all the bits and pieces and then put them all together. It may be that I am something of a perfectionist. I can't imagine doing this at least as professionally as I did for Public Access TV. But I had equipment and software that was made to do what I needed, and not a bunch of freebie softwares that don't work.

Audacity is completely useless and I wasted about two solid weeks trying to work with that! I'm actually too depressed and tired to go into all the details of how I find myself a day before my audio clip is due with nothing more than I had last class. That's because I needed to put some time into my other classes having spent the prior two weeks almost solidly on Web II.

Now, I've more or less caught up with Ped II and Networking Environments, but I'm behind on Web II. There just isn't enough time this trimester to do it all. Perhaps that has something to do with all the personal distractions, like sick kids, sick me, legal stuff still having to be done for the divorce that will not end, etc, etc.

Yikes. I love working on my projects. I just wish there was just more time in the day to do it.

All My Prior Posts

March 7, 2007 Noodle Head By sselden Part two of claim feed is to use this in my template. What template might I ask? And while I'm at it, where do I change the preference that lets someone comment on my blog? I can't find it. I've searched everywhere. I'm once again feeling like a noodle head when I thought I was finally making some progress. Posted on: Wed, Mar 7 2007 8:20 PM

Claiming my Feed By sselden Hey, I think I've become the equivalent of a landowner in cyberspace. I'm now a feed owner. Having posted the above "key" I have done the equivalent of sticking my flag in the ground during the land rush. MINE. This spot is MINE. Now I have to go look at the directions to see what's next. Posted on: Wed, Mar 7 2007 8:10 PM

February 24, 2007 Substantive Posts By sselden "Substantive Posts" I definitely goofed here. My posts have not been substantive based on the current class definition of it. OOPs. Reference to readings? Not really. "Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer, now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision." Thanks, Elaine. Posted on: Sat, Feb 24 2007 11:31 AM

Processing vs Posting By sselden I'm finally just getting it. My questions and queries and puzzlement was supposed to be expressed her, in my blog. Well, why didn't I get it before? Making sense of the information. Learning about learning. But why here? Why on my blog. I do it on inevery other form, including actual, verbal, physical coonversation - perhaps my favorite form of processing. Processing. Yeah. That's it - Hopw do we porcess? I, for one do NOT process on a blog. I don't like it. I don't process by writing in a diary and I don't "process" by writing in a blog. I thought the exercise was more about learnng to use a blog. If you want to know how I'm processing information, listento men class. That's where it happens for me. Processing happens while I'm interacting with PEOPLE! I accept and even honor that others procesws o their blogs. I do not . On my blog I POST. Posted on: Sat, Feb 24 2007 10:29 AM

February 19, 2007 Random Thoughts By sselden I've been wondering about the poweer of the blog and how many millions of blogs might be out there. How many folks like me, post their thoughtds and feelings on a blog? Is this like the new wave of diary writing? If it had not been an assignment for class, I would not be doing this. Havings aid that, I have found myself enjoying the experience and slowly, but surely exploring the possibilities of blog world. I wish I could post photos, but on the other hand, I don't really want the world looking at my silly pix. I realize that the primary purpose of a blog is "publishing." However, it's this personal aspect of it that's got me wondering. Posted on: Mon, Feb 19 2007 11:12 PM

February 17, 2007 Bad Technology / US Cellular By sselden US Cellular is the absolute worstl cell phone service provider you can get. When it comes to customer service and, well, service in general, if you want a company that gives false information (verbally) and misleading information, keeps you waiting for no less than 20 minutes anytime help is needed (of any sort because all calls go through the same cue), then US Cellular is for you. Did I mention that the service is not clear, that is , when you can get service. Mostly the calls are on Roam, so all the free minutes you get from US Cellular, you still end up paying extra, even though they work so hard to get you that "family plan." And, just to make it extra wonderful, if you need to cancel your contract for any reason (in my case it was due to a scheduled move to an area where US Cellular doesn't work well - like it works well here...) it will cost $150.00 per line (even "family lines") to terminate no matter where you are in the contract. They seem to be very proud of their policy of no negotiation on this point even though every other carrier will try to do something to keep your good will. Not US cellular. They don't care. And this last bit sums it up pretty darn well - they just don't care. In this very competitive world of mobil technology service, remember US Cellular doesn't car about you, the customer. Is that a company you want to work with? Posted on: Sat, Feb 17 2007 2:40 PM

February 15, 2007 Audio Tool By sselden Hmmmmmm. Fear strikes. I should be all excited about this new tool and this new opportunity to learn. However, I feel like I'm about to take apart a motorcycle engine (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, for those of you from another era) and I'm paralyzed. I sat in class paying close attention. I heard every word. I know I'm smart and can get this. So why am I paralyzed? Prior programming? Yikes, new thing = Fear, automatically. Get a grip. It's just a few electronic zig zags. One foot in front of the other. Get going. Posted on: Thu, Feb 15 2007 10:52 AM

Technology Overload By sselden OK. I've been trying toget into my own blog for over a week, now. Sometimes, I think my brain just shorts out. Yesterday I couldn't find the new post button (although I've done this many times) and this morning, I can. No Problem. I'm wondering if all this new technology I'm learning isn't convincing me, once again, that what I really think works in education, is living in the present, real and physical world. I've come back tothis many many times over the years. I discovered a Quaker boarding school in New Hampshire. last night while researching assessment and evaluations for Ped II. Now, I might never have known about this school had it not been for the internet, but it's the values of that school, which have to do with HUMAN compassion, and HUMAN intraction and HUMAN stewardship of the earth and self-responsibility that have meaning for me. We learn by doing and creating and living. All these things can happen on the net, with technology, but is it the same? Is it life? Posted on: Thu, Feb 15 2007 10:48 AM

FLUMOXED By sselden FLUMOXED. Yep Flumoxed. That's the best word i can come up with to describe my pb experience. There are not enough hours in the day to play like I'd like and get to know all the wonderful tools available on the web. And they are truly wonderful. Changing all the time. Everyday I discover something new about something that was new yesterday and so on and so on and so on. So HOW to keep up? HOW to be a MOM inthe everyday physical world and sit at my computer (where my bottom is getting bigger and bigger) while my kids are yelling "Hey, Mom, what's for dinner?" and I'm trying to figure out some sort of code or just even what's expected from me in a class, let alone the technical aspects of it.....So what world am I in, today???? It's like that, you know. World hopping. At any given momnet I'm a kid with a new toy, and then I'm mom with the responsibilities of guiding my young ones through the daily joys and hazards, and then I'm a partner who's trying to dig out some adult time. And, then, because technology is not reliable (is anything??) I have to back it up in a Word doc because at any moment my precious thoughts could disappear forever into WHERE? WHERE do the lost words go? Where do the lost thoughts end up? Are they like crushed fairies under stones - or are they electromagnetic nano sparks that are just less than momentary blips in the electricity of the universe. Or are they just nano blips in my own imagination Posted on: Thu, Feb 15 2007 10:40 AM

February 9, 2007 Eureka Moment By sselden Here's a eureka moment for you... I just realized that in the heading to my blog I said this was for Pedagogy II class. Whooooooaaaaaa. This is WEB DESIGN II class. Holy Cow! Huma Huma! Oh, my gosh. I have goofed big time. Eureka moment. o.k. So it's not exactly enlightenment. But it is a discovery all the same. Sheila Posted on: Fri, Feb 9 2007 2:43 PM

January 31, 2007 By sselden 2/1/07 Is it really February? Aha! I get it! It happens invisibly. It's there...but it's not there. I'm expecting too much by wanting some sort of sign that my new blog has actually been posted. It's confusing, the fact that a single word can be a verb, a noun, an adjective and countless other things. It's a web tech sort of thing... a different language, really. Based on English, but not English as was traditionally taught. Permalink Posted on: Wed, Jan 31 2007 7:58 AM

1/30/07 and 2/1/07 AGAIN By sselden 1/30/07 experiencing difficulty in posting. What's up? It all looks so easy until it's time to actually use the damn thing. Have been exploring and setting up accounts in various communications tools - blogs by the dozen, voice enhanced blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc, etc - Everyone wants my M.O. but once they have it, I'm on my own. O.K. let's try to post, AGAIN. Posted on: Wed, Jan 31 2007 6:51 AM

January 30, 2007 Sheila Says... By sselden 1/30/07 Some thoughts after spending an entire day looking aat blogs and wikis and other communications tools: It's certainly easy to give away information about yourself. Seems everyone is so interested. But no so easy to get back in to edit or post once you've given the info. Geeeeee. I've now got to get a notebook to write down all my user names and passwords. It's really confusing, even trying to keep them all the same. Posted on: Tue, Jan 30 2007 9:01 PM

Switching Blogs Midstream

I've been inspired by my classmates classy blog layouts and writings that are far more significant than anything I've done. I somehow thought my blog entries were to be treated like a diary. So I posted the silly things I would have put in a diary. I didn't get it that we were supposed to be writing, literally, an essay on each week's readings. Why didn't someone just say, "Write an essay about the week's readings and post it to your blog." Geeeee. Then I would have gotten it. And my posts would have appropriately been essays.

So, I am, at this late date, inspired to do something about my ticky tacky blog and start over. Ta da! I've switched from wordpress to bloglines to, now, blogger. But the question remains, how do I get all my blogs from bloglines over to blogger? Is there a way to "stream" them? Or is it the old cut and past? If I cut and past, I lose all my dates and bits, unless I add them into the blog. Heeeeey. That could be a good work-around.

Now, I need to inform everyone that they can find me at my new address, wwwsheilasays.blog.com. And, I need to move my less than substantive posts to the new layout.

Then...I need to write like hell.

New Blog, New Thoughts

I started teaching "technology in 2000 when I designed and taught the elective curriculums for two classes at Burr and Burton Academy in Manchester, Vermont. I was hired to teach a graphic design course (I am a self employed graphic designer of over 20 years) and to turn the previously extracurricular yearbook club into a class and teach that as well. No one had any idea how to do these things, including me. But, given my adventuring spirit, I figured, "Why not?" After all, that was what design was, as far as I had experienced it, taking an unknown thing with an objective and create a known thing that accomplishes that objective. "Why, not, indeed."

Without the benefit of any formal education in education, I put together curriculums to teach my students industry standard softwares that would allow them to do the work needed. I provided them with concise backgrounds in composition, marketing principles and journalistic design. Then, I set them loose and let them run with the tools of Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and QuarkXpress. And you know what, they surprised not only me but themselves as well with the level of thinking, skill and imagination. I guided them by making them come up with their own parameters and critical thinking. The exercises I designed for them pushed them to think before using any technology and then use that technology to achieve an objective. Then, we judged the finished work with critieria that they, the students, self-determined.

What I discovered was that instinctively, I understood the what , why and how of the education part. Perhaps because as a designer I was trained to speak specifically to the message. that is, I think in terms of what are we trying to accomplish here, and how do we know we've done it? This is pretty much what designers ask. And, frankly, this is what teachers ask. What needs to get done, what is the objective I'm trying to reach, what tools do I need to do it, and how will I know if I've achieved my goal?

So. I have to say, I am somewhat perplexed by the continual pounding to express and re-express, the concepts of assess, evaluate, reevaluate, make objectives, make goals and then do it again from the point of view of yet another theory. OK. I get it. I got it. It's not new and it's not exciting or even intriguing anymore.

I am one of those teachers who does it while standing on one foot. The joy comes from figuring it out as I go based on the students I have and what they individually need from me. Sometimes, all the theory in the world doesn't match up to plain old compassion and caring. I care about my students, each and every one of them, the bad ones and the good ones. the ones I teach on the ski slope and the ones I teach ion the classroom.

What I'm wondering right now is how do you express caring and compassion on the internet?