Moved on to Wordpress - http://www.boora.ca/blog

Well, I've joined the others on my feeds by getting my own domain and moving off of Blogger. It's been good to me, but at the same time, I think having my online presence in one place is a better move on my part. I'll keep this here for a while, at least until my new blog gets picked up in search engines and the like. Continued on my new site.

Tipping Point and Stickiness

I've been reading Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and am currently going through a section on what he calls "stickiness". The elements that make a message stick, and as an example he used Sesame Street and Blue's Clues. Up to the point that I'm in right now, I think it's a great chapter for all instructional designers to flip through, especially those working with younger children. So for those building a reading list (like mine), I would be sure to add Tipping Point.

SimSchool

I'm prepping a presentation on SimSchool that I'll be giving tomorrow and as impressed as I was with it at SITE 2006, I'm more so now that I'm starting to work with it a little more, it is becoming even more impressive in what it can do to help get those sticky classroom situations under control. If there is anything notable tomorrow, I'll be sure to put it up, but in the mean time, if you have used SimSchool or are in the same place that I am with it, please let me know. Technorati Tags: SimSchool

Finally, my own domain... again

Well, this one has email and full on php and all the rest. boora.org is live and I'm trying out the "Google Apps for My Domain" as well as the Joomla Open Source Content Management System. I'm still testing that out so it's going to be a while before that goes live, but until it does, I've just copied over my old site. I have to admit, I did this because I'm getting a really good deal, but in my hmming and hawing about leaving .mac, this may be the impetuous that I needed. The syncing is the one killer app that .mac has, and everything else I can have on other free and paid services. But education wise, there are likely a number of smaller schools that don't have central support looking at doing the google thing and there are many people who are again looking to get their own domain, so I figured, it's time for me to try it all as well. With any luck, Blogger Beta will allow for publishing on other servers. Edit and Update... I've also moved my boora.ca domain over to my new host now as well, and the process was rather easy - though I had to dig out my CIRA information (thankfully there is a button on the control panel of my old host). This is a real boon for me because I really like the .ca at the end. So now that I have these two independent domains, I think I'll have one as the test site and the other as production (.org and .ca respectively). As for the Google for my Domain... well it's felling to me like it's not all that it may be made out to be. They have an option to allow the Google Pages engine publish to the site, but in terms of email, there are only a few hosts that are truly compatible with the Google system. For my part, the issue was with the number of MX records that I have access to. I can change two, but Google needs seven for the hosts that are not listed. Technorati Tags: Google Apps

Pic of the week - Moon

Moon
Originally uploaded by idarknight.

It's not the moon from last night - I couldn't get a decent shot from where I am in the city, but this one is pretty good as well. Hopefully I'll be able to get some extension tubes in the future and up the length of my lens (unless I get lucky and someone gives me a 300mm) to get closer, but in the mean time, I've got a good setup for training.

Some interesting history

A colleague passed this on to me - the MouseSite that shows the demo that was the first use of the mouse a well as many other technologies that we are just now starting to use.

Ahoy! - Bitty (Black Pearl) Berry

I just saw this on C|Net and on Google News. The Blackberry Pearl nee Blackberry 8100 is coming and is pointed at consumers. Looking at it, it seems that it's taken the best of the SLVR and the Nokia Smartphones and rolled them into a RIM package for about $200. I only hope that it will accept files from bluetooth devices (I've tried to send files to other Blackberry users to no avail - it seems that for Blackberry, bluetooth is for headsets only - but now after reading PC Mag it seems that it can send and receive files... now if there was Salling Clicker as well ... ). This is a device that I can really see as the killer device for mLearning. I may have to upgrade early, Rogers says that it is available. Technorati Tags: RIM, BlackBerry Pearl, mLearning

Just a mash of stuff - Google and the Divide

I found a few interesting things this morning - the first an individual playing chicken with a train, the second, a report about the Digital Divide that still exists in the US between "races" (nee melatoninly differentiated populations maintained by social and economic inequity) and the last is that Writely is now accepting new registrations (completing the network based Google Office, no Safari love yet however). So in the way that my brain tends to connect things, there is a link here somewhere. The USA Today story says that things are not all bad. US Public schools have almost got the gender gap eliminated and there is good use of the Internet in classrooms. The issue that they see is the color based gap. This does not lead into the Darwin Award candidate that we see in the video that has been loaded on Google, but rather, it got me thinking that with more students using the Internet in schools, videos like this are much more likely to spread through the halls than they had in the past - nothing really new here, but Google, unlike dirty pictures on email is housing video and is able to send it out very quickly. While I hope more people don't try to repeat what that individual did, it does bode well for kids thinking about doing videos of their own and using Google as a distribution channel - or even the social site that shall not be named (which btw is starting to allow people to sell their own music from now). Hopefully while producing the videos they will take notice of some tips from Wes's post here. So where does Writely fit? Well it doesn't really, other than offering a way for people to get their homework done anywhere and everywhere there is a network connection. Technorati Tags: Writely, Digital Divide