Thursday, February 3, 2011

Flickr

My first foray into Flickr, today.

I wanted to find a photo of a contraption that would allow a small dog to ride on the front of a bicycle, because this is something I am thinking of creating for my little dog, Bodie. I found several interesting photos but, alas, the first 3 were not share-ware. I finally found one. (It has beautiful colours don't you think?)

One day I will build a wooden platform over the cross bar on my road bike and let Bodie ride my bike with me by standing or sitting in front of the handlebars. The design here is really cool - I like how the dog can lie down - but Bodie will want to ride between my arms. When she was a puppy I tried to teach her to ride in a trailer behind my bike but she didn't like being that far away from me. If she can see where she is going and I can talk to her I think she will learn to like riding with me.

Flickr is cool but I am not (yet) a person who seems to have all the time it takes to play with/learn all these things. I find it an incredibly slow process for the end product. But if I stick with it I will be faster and more efficient, obviously!

Photo by ambergris Amber MacPherson. This photo was taken on August 18, 2006 using a Canon PowerShot A520.

Friday, January 21, 2011

grrr

Okay.

I was deeply into writing my second post when I lost all the information.
That's what I hate about technology - it is soo time consuming to learn what to do and what not to do.

I had inserted a quote from the article and then I tried to cut-and-paste the citation information from the article site. When I tried to return to my in-process blog entry, it was gone.

Trying again. Here's the citation:

  1. Shane Nackerud1,
  2. Kurtis Scaletta2
Article first published online: 16 DEC 2008
DOI: 10.1002/ss.296

The ease of blogs make them attractive tools to some instructors for posting
announcements, facilitating discussions, or linking to class resources
(Downes, 2004; Oravec, 2003); that is, they are used as teacher-driven
administrative tools. Other instructors may require students to post to their
own or a shared blog, with required (or recommended) structure and content
for entries and grading rubric (Krause, 2005). Such assignments seem
to be in conflict with the nature of blogs as most students understand
them—that is, as personal and experimental writing spaces. Moreover, the
Scaletta (2006) survey suggests that the real benefits of blogging are gained
slowly, over several years, as students find their voice and become more
comfortable with public writing.

I love the idea of students "finding their voice" and "becoming more comfortable with public writing." The very interesting thing for me will be, wil becoming more comfortable with public writing in the furute look like this? where students are writing informally, fast, for their friends, without a great deal of ocncern for old fashioned things like spelling punctiatuion grammar etc? you can read what i have written here withiut it being perfect right? excpet for not capitalising my is i am not trying to worit ebadly here - this is how ai really type. if this is my jounal i cna wirte the way i woan tto right? and since we know that language is a living thing htat changes with time, maybe writing in the future iwll look like this. Properly worded and punctuated and spelled writing will be referred to as 'Written in the formal style' or 'Old English'!!

Here is a quote from a syllabus that is currently in use at UNBSJ (I don't have the professor's permisssion to 'publish' it here, so I won't say who wrote this.) Here it is:

E-mails. When sending me an e-mail, be sure to include (course number) in the message line or I may not open your message (due to the large amount of unsolicited mesages that I receive). Use standard letter style, punctuation and capitalization in your e-mails. If I have to decode it, I won't read it.

I know I am tired of the informal e-mails I get from students. They seem to me (and I know this is age-culture) to be rude. Here is a real example:

>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 11:46 AM
> To: Kris Trotter
> Subject:
>
> i am making sure by what time was my metting with you
> >
>
Quoting Kris Trotter <ktrotter@unbsj.ca>:

> Do you have a name? That would help me.

For the sake of time I will blog-off now, but more later!  K

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Blogtrotter

Hey. My first blog.

Um... the photo I posted shows my poling the Tobique Rivre in northern NB on a very windy day. It was my first time poling a canoe and really the conditions were not even great for paddling, but I was really keen to try poling. I loved it and can't wait to try it again. to pole a canoe, you stand up and push, and 'paddle', with a 16-foot long pole. It requires good balance! It is trickier than you'd think.

I am also a Soka Gakkai Buddhist. http://www.sgi.org/


On this blog I will be writing about what I am learning -  and how I am learning - about technology. Time to get me into the 21st century eh?!

So far so good.  The biggest problem I have with technology is finding the time to start at the bottom of the learning curve.

peace out, K