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The new dog

James — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:14:18 +0000

Originally uploaded by manz1964

We made the big decision to get another dog 1 1/2 years after Hannah died. After a couple of months of looking and talking about it we contacted Adoptalab.org and within a few hours we were signed up and decided to take Hera aka Pudge who we will call Willa. She is a yellow 4 year old lab and we could not have picked a better dog.

Netvibes in the classroom

James — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:55:37 +0000

I have had a Netvibes account for about a year, ever since Will Richardson demonstrated it at a conference I was at. My interest in Netvibes was increased when I saw how Michael Wesch uses it in his classes, but I never took the time to really learn it. Now that I have read how Jeff Utech uses Netvibes I want to dig in and really learn how to use Netvibes. Give Jeff’s blog post a look and see what you think.

Eldery Parents

James — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:04:30 +0000

I am visiting my 96 year old father and 85 year old mother who are both in poor health. It is important to stay mindful of the drama that plays out in families so that divisions do not become wider. It is amazing how quickly children can divide into camps about what is the right thing for mom and dad to do. Spouses of children are not spared the trama and can be deeply involved also.

Moodle math course

James — Sat, 23 May 2009 16:28:32 +0000

I have been working on developing an online geometry Moodle course as part of the grant that I am currently working under. Every time I develop another Moodle course I learn more and more about the power and versatility of Moodle. The Assignment block is a Moodle function that I was familiar with but had not used. It allows you to design the course so that students can not proceed to the next lesson unless they pass a quiz at the end of each lesson.

I am also using Geogebra, an interactive math website. This will give the students real experience in constructing geometric shapes. They will be able to discover geometric rules by manipulating the geometric shapes they build.

New Media Literacies

James — Thu, 07 May 2009 23:55:02 +0000

On Saturday, May 2, I was fortunate to be able to attend the New Media Literacies Project conference at MIT. When I first saw the email about the conference I was integrated, but little did I know how important this conference would be.

At NML’s May 2nd conference, we will share our new web-based learning environment, the Learning Library, and host a series of conversations and workshops about the integration and implementation of the new media literacies across disciplines. Workshops include “The Complexities of Copyright: Shepard Fairey v. the AP,” “Mapping in Participatory Culture: Boundaries,” “Using Wikipedia in the Classroom” and many others. Henry Jenkins’ closing remarks will address the future of NML and participatory democracy.

As happens in most conferences the workshops were great but too short. Most of the workshops were based on research that is current or ongoing so I feel like the participants were exposed to a scholarly discussion. At times the workshops fell into research jargon that you had to listen carefully to to gain understanding.

I was also struck by how young many of the researchers were. MIT does attract some of the brightest young minds in the world. The Learning Library and teaching resources they have created will help the classroom teachers and tech directors begin to infuse new media literacies into the curriculum.

I had heard of Henry Jenkins, but I had never heard him speak before. He is leaving MIT for USC so it was a gift to be able to hear him in. Here is a link to a talk he gave at USC in 2007. The MIT conference was recorded and will be available on MIT’s Techtv.