Pic of the week - Chickadee Bomber

Just caught this one landing after taking off (they are fast little things). Photographing chickadees was a lot of fun, it seemed as if they were playing with me.

From the make up your mind department - Tablet PC Futures

Thanks to Engadget for this (I spotted the positive one, not the other). TechWeb News has a positive and negative prediction on the Tablet PC. It seems to me that Tablets will fail where people want them to be "bigger and better" and succeed wildly where people need them to fill the role of electronic paper and power organizer/light duty computer. My guess is this is the same spiel that was being done about laptops many years ago. A cheap tablet based computer (any OS, but Mac prefered ;)) would really be a hit with students and managers. Maybe even with artists who need quick sketching/review/edit facilities. But for people who want to edit video and "take over the world" with a tablet - the technology just isn't there right now - maybe another few years it may be there. Just look at the laptop market that only recently has been moving into the desktop replacement realm, it will be another few years until the hiptop is a laptop replacement and again a short spell before the palmtop replaces the hiptop. Technorati Tags: tablet pc

Freaking Amazing

Not much to say about this... just that I could watch it all day - MSNBC Interactive shuttle launch. Technorati Tags: shuttle, space

Rock'n Hot Coffee

< hmmm soapbox is starting to look a bit lonely... > When GTASA first came out, I had a feeling that it was going to rock the world in terms of game play and what it would do to those who fear games that extoll violence. I also knew that if I could, I would make sure that if I had any say in it, my younger siblings and cousins (under 18) would not be playing that game - I tried, but one of them got through - . Why? GTASA is most decidedly an adult game - not a "mature" game - which anyone outside the naive ESRB and FTC in the US understands as "this is a really cool game that any shop will sell to anyone" (to the point were the ever litigious people of the US are launching a civil suit against Take-Two Interactive). So now, after modders have found "Hot Coffee" (Google News, GTA San Andreas.net,, GTA Garage, Gamespot), the higher mucky mucks finally clue into this - why? Sex - you see it's ok in North America to show people being involuntarily slaughtered in cold blood, but a little bit of hot blooded "bump'n of the uglies" is way out of line - Think of the children!. Sir Anthony Hopkins commented on this when giving an interview for "Human Stain". It is even so bad that in the US, a nation where sex is being used to sell children's clothing (Canoe story), a puppet movie (Team America) was edited as to not show puppets (yes freaking puppets!) doing the deed. For differing views on sexuality, look to Europe. Page 3 there would never happen here - heck even the soap ads there are "dirty". So why am I on the old box? Just as other media before it (including movable type), games are going to be (and already are) scapegoated for being the root of evil in society. But what is really at issue? I think it is the society that really is afraid of itself. Note to get the mod to work, you need a modded (nee illegal) console or the PC version of the game. < hops off soapbox, admires linkfest> Technorati Tags: games, society, rants, GTASA, mods, hot coffee

Yahoo! some new toys

It seems that Yahoo! is really going after the Folksonomy tools with the recent acquisition of Konfabulator and with it's developer tools open for everyone to use, there are some really interesting things that are coming out. One of these is TagCloud (Wired story) and the other, Flickr Postcard. Both are cool little tools to see "content generated by the rest of us". Technorati Tags: Yahoo!, folksonomy, tools

How deep can you cut a record groove?

One of the things that was evident going through my Masters degree what that for every story out there that said that technology is great, there was another that said it was not. Nothing new there, but neither side really had much in the way of evidence to support it's argument other than anecdotes (which seems to be the case with much of the research into learning - essentially they are ethnographies of a time and place in the academic society). This is slowly changing however, but in the mean time stories are still coming out. I found these two this morning - the first Study faults schools on computer use by Chris Kenning of the Courier-Journal. A district study found that teachers were not integrating technology into their classroom lessons on a regular basis. This is likely as much the story here in Alberta as it is Kentucky (where incidentally there is another Edmonton). The bottom line is that teacher don't have the time and the support to integrate. Another story, Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-olds by the Kaiser Family Foundation says that most students spend up to 40h per week using new media. This is the part that we have heard again and again, cutting the groove deeper - teachers are not integrating, kids are media savy. But how about this idea - are we just trying to force integration - why flow against the current. We have the idea that technology and media is outside the classroom already, why not let it seep in slowly as information as opposed to hardware and software? Maybe the classroom is a place by the nature of it's design that the only proper activity there is discussion, the exchange of information garnered though technology. If we can get the teachers trained up to the same point as the students are, then there is an equilibrium in terms of how information is accessed, once this is established, maybe better things can start happening. Technorati Tags: k12, PD, media, millenials

MSN Virtual Earth

Well it looks like M$ is playing catchup and copycat again - they have released Virtual Earth. It's Windows centric (duh), but will still work on the Mac and non Active X supporting browsers. Not overly impressive on my gear, but I'll see what it's like on a Windows machine... On a side note, I was going to do this on Friday when the news came out by Longhorn is now Vista. Is is just me or does anyone else see a problem brewing between WebCT and MS? Especially in the server space - I wonder what Blackboard has to say about the name. - Update since noonish MSDST on Sunday, the link seems to be farked. Technorati Tags: Microsoft, mapping

Run Rabbit!

This week, I got a chance to catch one of the young rabbits on campus trying to get away from me. Not the greatest picture, but something a little different.

And one time, at art camp...

I've been helping out with an art camp here on campus, it's for art teachers in the field to help them try new things and get university credit at the same time. This year they worked with clay, prints and video. The later is where I was helping out. The instructor for the video section, Miriam Cooley, made an interesting comment on the nature of digital media when it comes to art. Essentially she noted that with physically created work, there is that element of touch and feel and innate knowledge of how to change something, but in the digital realm, that is not there. In digital, things are quantized and required additional knowledge that is hidden within the tools. This is pretty much how I think of things as well. There is a lot to know about paints and clay and the sort, but by mucking, you can get something to work, in the digital work, it is the same - mucking works, but only if you understand you are mucking with the information, the data and that the tool is secondary. The computer is not the tool for the art, it's how you manipulate the data that creates the art - much like the camera in the era of film (I know it's not dead yet... but it's wobbling... just look at Kodak last night cutting back) - the camera was on the tool and light was the media that was used to craft an image, brushes are just tools for paint. In deciding how to create a digital art project, you need to decide on the tool first, but after that it's all about the information. Technorati Tags: art, digital, video

ICT Advice

It's a UK site, but check it out. Technorati Tags: ICT

Now Google has the Moon

Not content with all the information on Terra, Google has gone and mapped all the info on Luna. Be sure to zoom in all the way to get the whole picture. Technorati Tags: Google, mapping

Game Learning Resource URLs

While looking up references I found Mark Prensky's selected Game based training URLs and this new blog (Waran's Blog) that quote Sarah Fister from Training Magazine (1999 I think?). How are the current generation of students different:

• They are far more experience at processing information quickly than its predecessors and is therefore better at it.
• Their mind can actually process many tracks at once (multitasking).
• They have learned to access information in a random manner rather than linear (they have experienced ‘clicking around’ and hypertext.
• They absorb information rapidly by visual means (images rather than text).
• They have experience increased connectedness (mobile phones, SMS, email, instant messaging etc).
• They learn by being active.
• They expect instant feedback.
• They accept technology as a friend and are much more comfortable using computers, mobile phones etc.

I'm thinking that this is an overly optimistic view of students (maybe I'm having a more jaded day, a I think on another day I may have agreed to a point). Many students have a hard enough time figuring out how to use a different web browser, to say nothing of being able to survive the torrent of information that they have coming at them (look at how many brainless shows there are on TV... shovelled programming if there ever was). But my guess is that this is the older generation that I'm stereotyping. These students certainly are not "active" (perhaps they are just overly set in their ways and expect programmed feedback - familiar screens and such). I think, that if there is a trend out there is that there is one group that is high functioning "digital native" and another group that is "just enough" and another that are essentially ludites. So why link to Prensky? Fister describes games rather well (and is linked on the URL page). Technorati Tags: games, millennial, Prensky

Blogs vs Forums

Tom Hoffman at Ed-Tech Insider has posted an interesting bit about the issues Moodle is having getting around the conceptual bumps they are having integrating blogs (edit quoting Martin Dougiamas's - thanks Tom): Really a blog is just a private forum, where only you can start the conversations, but others can reply (if you let them). In that light, go here and see the conversations (I) have started: really it's nearly a blog already, right? So the problem is: if you have forums and a blog, which will you use to post to when you have something to say to others? Do you post in a forum where you think people might read it, or do you post in your blog and try and draw readers to you? What is the deciding factor? What is the difference? This is one of the things that I have thought about with the course that I am helping out with. They have access to both a blog and WebCT forum, but what content goes where? On both setups, they have the ability to post, and provide comments. So in their case, the blog is really just a public discussion (in what is otherwise a private -nee closed- forum). What I have suggested to them is that the blog is for things that you want to be discussed publicly and by others who are not necessarily part of your class. The blog is out on the public Internet and will get traffic from just about anywhere. The discussion board on the other hand (a private area with a public -nee open- forum) where you can discuss topics and limit the replies to be from only those involved in the course. This should be enough to guide the postings to the right place (I hope). This may be an overly simple answer to the issues that Moodle is having, but one can also think of it in this manner - a blog is much like a public lecture where the content is presented to those who are interested and drop by and comments/discussion are solicited after the ideas have been delivered. There is really only one person or select group that can lead the discussion or suggest topics. The forum on the other hand is more like a regular class where the community is limited and the discussion may start in one place, but then branch in many directions and (if the students are allowed) new topics can be suggested without "permission". Technorati Tags: blog, moodle, cms

Revolutionary Power of Blogs in Education

I found this while surfing out there looking for references: Peter Meurer's The Revolutionary Power of Weblogs in Education. It is a Breeze presentation and his blog is in German - a great use for the Translator widget :) Technorati Tags: blog, Education

Multiple Literacies

While I try to work through a bit of writer's block on a paper that I'm trying to write (and have been trying to for a while), I came across two posts today that are rather interesting when you look at them together. The first is from David Warlick over at 2¢ worth who suggests like many have that we should stop trying to integrate technology, but rather improve technology literacy in schools. From the post: For educators, information means a lot of things. What I’m talking about is its shape. There’s all kinds of information around us. We live in an information environment. But more than anything else, the shape of that information has changed — dramatically. There are three ways that the shape of information has changed. It is: Networked, Digital, and Overwhelming. Each of these changes has had a dramatic impact on how we access, use, and communicate information. When information is networked, then its direction becomes an issue. During most of my life, information traveled in one direction, from points of assumed authority to the consumer. Now it travels in all directions, from millions of sources — from points where we cannot assume authority. Digital information doesn’t sit still. It glows, grows, shrinks, travels at the speed of light, and in its abundance, information is simultaneously diverse, and at its roots, very much the same. Digital information is also gloriously malleable. With the skills and tools, we can shape information into almost anything we want — or need. Information is also overwhelming, where managing that information is not a biggest problem. It is having your message compete for attention amongst a growing glut of other messages. I think David has hit the nail on the head. While even here at the U of A we try to increase the use of technology in the various courses that compose the B.Ed., we are also trying to improve the technology literacy of the instructors who are having to use the technology in their rooms. Slowly introducing them to new tools that we think they may find helpful seems to be working for many people. David also frames the malleable nature of the digital realm rather well. It's a tidal wave of information that can be changed by those in the know and that changes those it impacts (especially those who are not as aware that what is in print or on TV is no longer the truth, and really hasn't been for a long time). The other posting is from the Multiple Intelligences blog. There is a listing of the various types on intelligences that one may encounter and some of the technologies that can be used to explore them. If one were merely trying to integrate technology into the classroom, it may be difficult to find specialized tools for each of the categories, but if one were literate about technology and understood how different tools could be used, it is very possible to cover more than one intelligence and come up with creative ways to do so. Technorati Tags: literacy, computer, integration, digital

Goodbye Flickr - Pic of the week - Rainbows

Well Flickr has been having issues, so that makes moving off that system much easier. Now I just have to find a way to remove that account from their system. This picture was taken just after a story so the sky was orange - I shot in RAW and then edited it to get what you see.

Blogs = Newsgroups 2.0?

This is just a wild stab out there, but way back in the infancy of the web, around the time of .plan files and gopher and it's kin, there were newsgroups. Essentially community blogs that are still out there today, but because they are "out of the way" they are ignored by most people. These places share all the same things that blogs do, but with a user base that seems to be much more "geek". -edit: Shoulda checked Wired - they have an article on Jorn Barger - the protoblogger - (by Paul Boutin) who seems to have fallen on hard times. Technorati Tags: blog, newsgroups

It Came!

Finally, it came - my first published chapter: Boora, R. (2005). Comfortable Computing. In S. Powers & K. Janz, Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing in Higher Education (pp. 153-171). Terre Haute, Indiana: Curriculum Research and Development Center. (I hope my APA is right).

Technorati

Wired has a cool article on Technorati. Being a dynamic and real time version of Google, Technorati gets to see the web as a living read/write space (especially if you use the tags, which I don't :( ). Something that it's founder, David Sifry really seems to enjoy. David makes a good point on the nature of blogging, it is a portal into the "exhaust of the mind" and with tools like his allows people to track the development of ideas over time. Like Danny's article in his comment on the last post, this is one more indication that the next stage of the information age - that of connectivity - will also see the rise of the non credentialled Pro-Am. Technorati Tags: blog, Pro-Am

Podcasting doomed? Nope - Dude just threw a brick

Well according to Mark Cuban (owner of the Dallas Mavericks - not Larry Cuban, the noted Stanford Education Prof and technology critic) in an article from Forbes by Gregory Levine it is (commerically). Cuban says that podcasting will be like streaming ... not commercially viable. I would say that is correct. It, in my opinion was never meant to be. It is a way for the "anybody" out there to get their message out. Just because there are a few businesses that are hopping on the bandwagon, it doesn't mean that there is going to be an entire revolution in media. Podcasting is much more like being able to get your own mix of talk radio from the sources you want, something that has been available to video and music for a while. It's great for education and the great unwashed "anybody", just not too cool for millionaires and other businesses who only look at things if there is a dollar to be made. edit - Here is the original post. Technorati Tags: podcast, distance, education

Even more on AonI

Jon "Hannibal" Stokes from ArsTechnica posted a few days ago another take on the reason for Apple moving to Intel. His take is that it has more to do with the XScale processor powering iPods in the post "PC" era than it does with network technologies or performance. Technorati Tags: Apple, Intel

Good Luck Discovery

Good luck to the crew and rest of the Shuttle team today (C|Net pics). -edit: No luck today, they will try again later.

WiFi Security - Shame and Fame

George Ou on ZDnet has posted on the WiFi Hall of Shame and advice for securing a WiFi network. Most of what he says makes sense, but he also has a couple scary (clicky, clicky) posts to back up some of what he says. Naivety currently suggests that to most people these warnings are a good measure of FUD, but if there is anything that you do on your wireless network, take note. Technorati Tags: WiFi, security

TV Bad!

Committed Sardine has found another TV related article - this time saying that TV is bad if over 2h/d. I'm thinking, that if a child is watching more than 2h a day while growing up, the time in front of the tube is not being spent in sports and other activities that aid in achievement. That to me would be a pretty simple explanation for why more than 2h in front of the tube would be bad. Assume a child gets home at 4 and goes to bed at 9. That child really only has 4h of productive time to do anything with. If half of that is passive, then it seems to not be a stretch that if you spend more than half that time not learning to be active (something that university degrees certainly require), then the child is likely not going to be able to succeed. Technorati Tags: TV

Twice the Core - Twice as Nice

Yesterday PC Pro reported that IBM is releasing a dual core and a low wattage PPC 970 class set of chip (things that Apple fans thought would never see the light of day), but neither of them function at the magical 3GHz and the dual core chip is targeted at servers. Meanwhile Intel is pushing out dual core chips to the low end - Including Celeron (Register). Since Intel is no longer quoting speeds as part of the chip description, I can only guess that they are over 3Ghz. Apple's move may have had more to do with marketing and a change in direction for IBM. Technorati Tags: Apple, Intel

From the Fingers of 8th Graders

EduBlog has posted on how 8th graders view blogging (in one class). It seems that being able to write for more than MDT (Mom/Dad/Teacher) is really empowering for these kids. My guess is that blogging could be a great vehicle for students self motivation, writing and expression. This enthusiasm would hopefully help support their other classes as well. Technorati Tags: blog, Education

Social Computing

Wade Roush has posted quite an interesting article (done in an interesting manner as well) titled "Social Machines" on Technology Review. In it he talks about how we are getting closer to ubiquitous computing (if I ever get my copies I'll plug my chapter here). He points out that we are now in an era of constant connectivity and tagging of data to enable it to be found and organized by machines (that work to enhance communication and collaboration) and accessed by users in such a way that it becomes part of their lives as they use this data to socialize. This is made all the more possible by gadgets that are becoming "smart and fast" (cell phones for the most part) and that we already use to support our social lives. He also points to the movement toward "web2.0" where people are finding it easier (read: not needing to know more than how to send email) to publish online and make the web a bi-directional medium. This ease of publishing creates more to publish about as information is moving faster and faster - the recent bombings in London had the first footage from a cell phone video (maybe they are useful ... hmm... pics of the Intel Macs, and now "cell ENG") are evidence of this (interesting Wired article). So with all that going on... what are we doing when we are not using technologies like handhelds and blogs/wikis in the classroom? -edit: Here is the link to the original blog form of the story. Technorati Tags: blog, social, computing

Why Wifi Nie Free?

This morning, I found another followup by C|Net about "mooching" WiFi. It is a bit of a followup to the posting earlier in the week. Technorati Tags: WiFi, ethics

A Simple Complexity Paradox

As in all other parts of life, what is simple is often seen as being complex (is that really all it takes??) and what is complex is often seen as being simple (you only have to do the root of the integral and the obfuscate the wangenstien...). The great problem is of course knowing when you are stuck in this paradox. Computers are certainly complex machines and they can be simplified quite a bit, but regardless of the simplification, they will have a certain layer of complexity (part of the transactional distance) that needs to be penetrated and regardless of how it is approached, the first time this layer is tackled it will take time. If computing is to become ubiquitous, one of the things that needs to happen is that people need to understand that the complexity involved with these systems will never really go away. At best it will be masked and hidden temporarily, even on my beloved Mac (check out the Chris Howard article). I had a good chance to see this paradox face to face this week with several events at work and at home. And the picture of the week seems to get it all in one stroke. The dragonfly is an amazingly complex insect, but seems to have a very simple life - hang out at the pond and eat, mate, repeat until dead. (the pic is small - if you want a larger one, please let me know).

LMS/CMS Comparisons

Sakai 2.0 has been added to the Edu-Tools site now so comparisons between the various systems is now a bit more complete.

New Basics of IT

Stephen Downes posted quite an article on his blog and commented on at elearnspace and Seblogging. Most of it talks about a variety of theories that impact instructional design (including transactional distance - one of my areas of interest). But the last part of the article is a little more interesting for me (and seems to be the crux of the article): What online learning does is not merely to communicate information but to create such a network [of distributed knowledge]. Prior to the advent of online learning, all such networks were local - they were, even in instances of distance learning, physically constrained. But with online learning comes not only a much wider, more diverse network, but also the idea that (a) the network may be based on non-physical (or emergent) properties, (b) that the individual may choose to belong to or not belong to a network, and (c) that an individual may assume multiple identities or memberships in multiple networks. The theory of distributed representation has a profound implication for pedagogy, as it suggests that learning (and teaching, such as it is) is not a process of communication, but rather, a process of immersion. Put loosely, it suggests the idea of teaching not by telling or even demonstrating but rather through the creation (or identification) of an environment into which a learner may be immersed. Indeed, pushed further (as the concept should be) it suggests that the traditional distinction between teaching and practice ought to be collapsed, that there is no distinction in kind between, say, being a 'practicing physicist' and 'practising being a physicist'. Learning to be a physicist is to place oneself inside the community of practice (as Etienne Wenger would say), to learn as if through osmosis how to solve 'the problems at the end of the chapter' (as Thomas Kuhn would say). In contemporary learning theory, it involves the design of such environments as games or simulations (Prensky, Papert, Gee, Aldrich) or the explicit immersion of the workplace into the communty (Cross). After all is said and done, it seems that the article suggests that the new IT designs should really look into the social elements as well as paideia (life long learning) to succeed in a world that is becoming increasingly saturated with information. One of the things that this article suggests and understands (as it seems to me) is that one person does not and effectively cannot know everything there is to know about any given topic anymore. At best individuals can know the essentials that allow one group of knowledge holders to communicate with others. Designing for this environment is certainly going to be a challenge, but looking at MUDs/MMORPGs there may be an answer in how quests are designed. These quests are designed so that a group of specialized content experts can get together to solve a problem. This is (or may be) another area where games are leading instructional design (as Downes mentions in his last sentence).

Can I hop onto someone else's network?

When talking to students about wireless networking, one of the questions that I often get asked is - "after I have a [wireless] card in my computer, can I get onto my neighbour's network if it's not protected?" I often reply that there is nothing really stopping you, other than knowing that what you are doing is a form of trespassing (enough that people have been charged with "gaining unauthorized access to a computer network"). This as we know is not ethical (one of the points from the 20 things post yesterday). This morning, I found this article from the St. Petersburg Times by Alex Leary. In it, Leary quotes Jim Guerin, technology director for the city of Dunedin (soon to be one of the first if not the first WiFi city) who says: "The information age is over. The information is out there ... Now it's the connectivity age. It opens up a whole new area for ethics, legal boundaries and responsibilities. It's a whole new frontier." So, in this connectivity era, we have to be sure to educate students about network safety the same way that we taught them about virus safety and home safety, if not for them right now, for their parents now and themselves later. This (computer and network safety - for both the user and the hard/software) is a good candidate for a fifth point on David Warlick's list.

From the "really?" department - TV is good and bad for tots

The Committed Sardine posted a comment on this Seattle Times article about TV and younger kids. It seems that this is one of those case studies I looked at in my Masters courses - media is seen to be good and bad, biased and unbiased ... . More recently it's been games that are the target of the reviews, so it's interesting to see some research done on "classic" media as well. I think we have all used the TV as a surrogate "friend" to provide background when alone or when eating to provide "a person". or as an escape after a hard day. This is the same thing that it does for younger kids according to the study - it can teach basic literacy and social skills if used properly at the right age (between 3 and 5 in the study). But it can also be detrimental to those skills if used too early. In the end, it's still up to parents to monitor what their children watch and do, regardless of the media that is being used to provide delivery - as Donald Shifrin, chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Communications is quoted as saying: "All television teaches — the question is what we want our children to learn".

20 Basic Skills for Teachers

David Warlick, in his blog today posted a reply to Laura Turner's Every Educator Should Possess these 20 Skills. David distils the 20 into 4 points to be integrated into the curriculum: 1) Selecting and Accessing digital information. 2) Processing digital information. 3) Producing and communicating digital information. 4) Ethical practices in using digital information. The other group that also needs these skills are the instructors in the teacher training institutions. These are the people who are modelling to the new generation how to use digital media, install hardware and manage files. But the unfortunate part is (and this is where the generation gap seems to be) that with some exceptions, these people have no clue how to do these things in the classroom because they never had to and it's only in the past few years that they have been asked to know how to do this, after they leave the K-12 classroom. May of them who are able to transmit this knowledge do so from their experiences not in K-12, but in the post secondary schools that they are instructing in. Even then it is difficult, as they are trying to get across the essentials involved in the art of teaching (regardless of technology), curriculum, assessment and classroom management. From what I have seen, it is often the case that even the best "meta teacher" teacher of teachers can do is to emphasize the use of technology tools and perhaps make them the focus of one or a hand full of assignments over the semester. This makes sense as teaching is not only about the technology. One approach to solving this problem (and the one that we are attempting to use at the U of A) is to integrate technology across the BEd curriculum as well, so it is not seen only in one type of class. It's likely too early to tell how this approach is going, but if we are to get new teachers to have the 20 essential skills, they should have seen the skills displayed by their instructors a few times as well. PS - you'll notice many of the links point to the U of A in the THE article.

But where is my file??

Now that there are two ways to put pictures into blogger, a question comes up. Do you choose the built in Google solution, or an add on solution somewhere else? Both have their advantages and disadvantages. But one of the things that I'm thinking is a major disadvantage to the Google solution is that you cannot manage your images once they are posted. They become part of the "Great Google Ether". It matches the way Google thinks - never throw anything away and try to ensure that the Interweb has a very long history. Other services like Flickr let you manage your images, but because they are not part of the Google family, their compatibility may be disrupted at any time. The last solution is to cook your own with a little big of HTML magic. This way all you have to do is find a place to host the files. This last solution doesn't really get around the issue of "Google's Great Ether" because chances are that the file would get put into the Google Cache. In the end I'm thinking that I'll just use the Google service and put watermarks or some other manner of identification on my images, knowing that if anyone really wanted to get them, they still could at whatever reduced size I provide.

And then there were two - VOIP gizmos...

Gizmo, another computer based VOIP implementation is available. It looks like it's very capable competitor to Skype (I haven't tried it). One thing it does allow (and I haven't checked if Skype can do this) is call into other VOIP networks. The question then is - how could you use this service to call someone with Shaw Digital Phone or Vonage (these are not listed in their list of networks). Edit: Business 2.0 has a write up on the app.

AACE EdMedia 2005 DHS and SP

In an effort to get more grad students interested in conferencing, I am part of a committee that organized the DHS and SP - Dissertation Help Sessions and Student Panels at the EdMedia 2005 Conference this year. Two of the three planners/organisers couldn't make it (myself being one of the two), but the third, fearless Laura is there and says: DHS went swimmingly - good turnout for all talks, and decent conversations afterwards ... [SP was well done also and it] did seem [to be like] something like what we'd envisioned. The help sessions are self explanatory, but the Student Panels were to focus on completely blue sky ideas that are non traditional and that could shake up IT/ID - something that would piss a supervisor off or would be too crazy to get funding for. It seems that we have started something. Hopefully the next EdMedia will be better, it seem the DHS are going well, we just have to get more on the SP side.