technology

"Texting When There's Trouble"

This Wall Street Journal article describes a safety aspect of text messaging that may be more valuable than any other type of alarm system because of its individual outreach.

Facebook History

I just enterered the world of Facebook by joining the Cliopatria group.

Digital Humanities

A recent summt in Washington led to the creation of a wiki that represents the center of the larger initiatives in Digital Humanities technologies. As wikis mature as a technology, this example demonstrates an important and vital use that goes beyond group collaboration without boundaries as many early wikis did. With limited funding available and various digital humanities centers having only informal collaborations and sometimes developing competing rather than complementary tools, this site holds some exciting possibilities - especially for those of us at smaller universities that don't have these types of possibilities.

Blogging Helps Job Candidates

This post references another blog post and a free WSJ article about how recruiters are starting to check out the blogosphere to get a more accurate picture of potential job candidate than interviews or resumes provide. Will that mean people will now set up blogs with a facade or alternate personality? Just wondering. On the surface, it can be an excellent tool to really understands if someone will fit within an organization.

2nd Trip to 2nd Life

I made my  2nd trip to 2nd Life last night and met two new friends although I'm still not sure I want to make 3 Linden Dollars dancing - so I may have only met one friend last night.

Most importantly I more fully toured the Greenbush Second Life site and viewed one of their movies from the rainforest. Really great technology to immerse students and teachers in an environment. It's more than just an add-on to podcasts although I will have to talk to them about getting some Dr. Pepper in the face of the several Coke machines (or Pepsi at least) that dominate the lounge areas.

The basic learning in Second Life is learning how to move - not only gracefully but without smacking right into someone else before you realize it. Someone took me around last night to some places to get some clothes - I am a classic newby with my outfit. I also met a computer programmer from Austin. How he finds times to hang out in 2nd Life with 5 kids, I don't know but he seemed to be a safe acquaintance. It's good that certain areas of 2nd Life specificially restrict the lower elements from taking over all of 2nd Life. Now it's back to other work.

Second Life

I just finished my first trip to Second Life. I had heard people talking about it and knew it was something I needed to explore. My home internet connection has been unreliable lately (my dear friend Cox) so I have been somewhat deterred but I decided that part of this being a holiday weekend (after all the appropriate observances, including family time in my hometown), that I could actually spend some time exploring.

The ed. service center I work with has begun building its presence there and I "bumped" into one of the developers while I was there. Last week I was at a meeting where a fellow committee member had given a lecture the week before in Second Life. So that was the final prod I needed despite all of the other looming responsibilities and travel right now.

My avatar is okay but I will be glad to perfect her later down the road - I don't have my belly showing in real life, for example, although I do wish I had the abs this avatar does. I "unjoined" the quilters' gropu since I did not want to go around with "Quilter in SL" on my head for everyone I met to see.

In the orientation area, I "talked" with someone from Australia - they multi skill instead of mulit task - I like their term better. One of the biggest challenges will be working to move smoothly. I also need to try to join the next podcast session by the ed service center.

I want to use Second Life in my classes next fall but will have to figure out what obstacles there might be for student use. On the other hand, it may not be a big deal given that most of them access the internet at home anyway. And, as I've done with other technology experiments, I'll try it with the methods class first. There is apparently limited education space already that is freely available in Second Life. I went ahead and bought a $72 yearly membership so I can go beyond the basic functioning levels.

My PowerBook was my first access which I think made it more awkward so I will download it on the desktop and laptop tomorrow. I'm thinking I'll chronicle my experiences in Second Life here first and wait to mention it on my Blogger blog.

So, blogging since 2002 and in Second Life sinced 2007 . . . .