It may not seem like a big thing. I have generally preferred clients (apps and RIAs) to browser-based Internet tools. But, yesterday after years of Outlook, Eudora, Mozillamail, Thunderbird and MacMail I closed my mail client and am using the Gmail interface in FireFox. Partly this is a self-enforced discipline to see how well the … Continue reading I turned off my mail client

Who is using social media at Brookes? Twitter? Facebook?We are going Google nowhttp://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/cs/google/Ever wanted a blog. We have a blogging platform. Easy to set up. Just go to: http://brookesblogs.netWe are upgrading this to WordPress mu 2.8.9.1There is the wiki at:https://wiki.brookes.ac.uk/What will the impact of all this be? I will be writing about it here... and … Continue reading Social media at Brookes?

After an enthusiastic introduction it seems the frost has melted on this pumpkin. Google has not stopped rolling out the developments, with new features such as "Read only participants", and "Restore from playback" (http://googlewave.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-features-read-only-and-restore.html) and "Waving with groups" (http://googlewave.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-features-read-only-and-restore.html); though it is not clear what happens if some of your group are not Wave users. … Continue reading Is anyone Waving anymore?

I am reminded of an old (and kind of grim) Country Joe and the Fish song, Who am I, (thank you YouTube, when Spotify Fails and LastFM gives you an annoying 30 sec preview). I have been doing a lot of work on identity, community and third-spaces while working with a group of adult learners … Continue reading Been working on new one-day @ocsld online (Elluminate) course on Online Identity happening on 20 Jan #digident

If we were all the same this wouldn't be an issue. My social networking practice has diverged. I use Twitter for work and professional commentary with the occasional policy-related excursion into fields beyond learning technology. I use Facebook for personal, mostly local, Oxford-based social and political activity. Although I have a LinkedIn account I don't … Continue reading Maintaining “dignified difference” in multiple SNs

"The best and brightest take a detour" Enrollment in honors programs at community colleges seems to be growing faster than overall enrollment at the [colleges], which surged by about 10 percent this year in the Washington region, as students of various age groups and socioeconomic levels sought affordable higher education. via Daniel de Vise washingtonpost.com … Continue reading Is this a signal about the direction of Foundation Degrees in the UK?

"Individual citizens and public interest groups do periodically urge us to remove particular links or otherwise adjust search results. Although Google reserves the right to address such requests individually, Google views the integrity of our search results as an extremely important priority."Sometimes Google search results from the internet can include disturbing content, even from innocuous … Continue reading Google hypocricy? Racism OK in the west; Tibetan politics a reserved right requested individually by China?

Dave Cormier appears to be arguing for a particularly strong form of cultural determinism in his post, "Does the PLE make sense in a connectivist context?" and in his reply to comments. He is troubled by the use of the word "personal": ... why call it personal? That’s the thing that i keep coming back … Continue reading It’s nothing personal: Identity, learning environments and covert curricula

I wrote the following as a comment on Dave Cormier's blog post, "Does the PLE make sense in the connectivist context?" The reification of the PLE is for me the problem. We all have personal learning environments in the sense of from time to time framing our world around “learning”. What’s in the frame? That’s … Continue reading Thoughts on a PLE

The number of Americans who lack dependable access to adequate food shot up last year to 49 million, via washingtonpost.com Put aside the swipes at super-size meals and easy obese targets, this Washington Post article about a US Department of Agriculture report makes shocking (to me) reading: "Among people of all ages, nearly 15 percent … Continue reading 49M (15%) of Americans lack dependable access to food; this is not good. When people go hungry they get pissed off