I was on videojug this evening trying to learn how to make a kaleidoscope for a multimedia installation that I have in mind. I had been talking about the history of the Internet and the origins of emoticons in my lecture today. When on videojug, I got sucked into watching a video of Stephen Fry talking about the Internet. I liked what he had to said about the Internet being a city. When you get there, you get drawn to the entertainment and the flashy side of things. Over time you learn about the libraries and museums and become a local. He says that leaving would be like leaving the earth. Earlier in the day I had been talking about how, although a lot of the technologies like email, message boards, and chat are around for 30 + years community was one of the key things to it’s growth. After Stephen, I started watching the series that videojug themselves have made. There are a couple of animated pieces. Things like ‘How to get the IT department to do their job”, and how to ’speak geek”. The following was my favorite. Probably because I can relate, or admit to using a lot of the phrases they are giving out about. It’s called “How to upgrade your webslang to web 2.0″
For the past while, I’ve been feeding birds out on our balcony. Over that time, I have bought, grew, and acquired all sorts of different shrubs and flowers. The birds’ diet has been expanded from peanuts, to mixed seeds. I recently started giving them cookies that I bake with oddments about the kitchen, like oats, maple syrup, and all sorts of nuts that are on the verge of going off. It’s been a good way to use up all those ends of packets of dry seeds or nuts. I use a lot of nuts in baking. Similarly, I’m enthusiastic about including seeds in my diet, but I always seem to loose the taste for a particular type half way though. Too much of one thing I guess. Bundling all the ends and odds into some tasty cookies is a great way to finish them off. We usually eat a few, and then when they are chewy, they’re perfect for the birds.
I think a combination of a more varied diet and a safe looking habitat has been key to attracting more and more of the little guys over the past while. I’ve been spotting a group of a dozen young House Sparrows, two Blue Tits, and three or so Pigeons. The Pigeons wait around until the little guys arrive and polish off the scraps that land on the balcony floor. The House Sparrows usually come in the morning and the evening. I wasn’t sure if there were two groups, or if was the same flock in the evenings. I think they’re usually the same, with one or two stragglers, as the behavior between the main group is quite consistent. I’ve learned a lot about the little guys; they’re not as placid and fearful as I had imagined. They go crazy for the cookies, followed by the seeds, then peanuts. Boy, do they fight for their preference. Those that are stronger get their pick, the others either go for the peanuts or wait around until the larger ones have had their fill. The Blue Tits are interesting too, up until recently they only came when the coast was completely clear. Now, one will edge his way in, and if there aren’t too many competitors, he will ruffle up his (significantly smaller) body and stand his ground. He even managed to scare away one of the female House Sparrows this week. I’m going to continue feeding them throughout the Winter. It’s surprising how cheap you can pick up a large amount of mixed seeds suitable for wild birds at garden centers. I’d encourage anyone to do it. The little guys will appreciate it, and you will be surprisingly entertained.
Yesterday, I took part in a competition @eolai was holding on his blog where we had to match a painting in progress to the finished piece. I furiously searched through his paintings on IrishKC, and was pretty certain when I found the right one. The thing that had me nervous was that other people’s guesses were kept private until the next day. So I didn’t know if someone else had whisked in an answer before me. The image below is the painting that I’ve chosen as my prize. You can check out more of @eolai’s paintings at his website, where he’s got a lot of special offers on some great paintings.
We spotted this in our local Spar, where we were making a pit stop to pick up some cinema goodies. I found out from @psycicflower on twitter, that anyone can send in a picture to Jones soda and they will put it on their bottles. Of course not all those make it into the general market place, but this little gem did. Oh, District 9 is a fantastic film. Go watch it. The plot does waver in and out of decent to a bit threadbare, but it looks great and it’s gripping throughout.
I’m off to the BTW (Blogger-Twitter-Whatever) meetup down in the IFSC. I’ve been on twitter for a few years now, but this is going to be my first tweetup. It’s going to be interesting putting faces to userpics. The night sounds to be shaping up to quite a big event. Now, I have just enough time to root out some sembelence of an outfit and wander down. See you guys in a bit!
I’m going to try and get my second #NaBloPoMo posted a couple of hours before the deadline this time. My last post was furiously written at a couple of minutes to midnight.
I can’t really explain it, but there is a strange connection between being a web geek and bento boxes. I can’t help but see them up there with cupcakes, Rick Astley and cats with captions. Bentos are exciting for foodie bloggers, foodie blog readers, or lovers of cute cooking. I guess they even appeal to those strange people who don’t like different food groups to touch. Beans on one plate, potatoes on another? How odd. Me, I’m more of a mix and match kind of eater.
Even still, the bento has been on my 101 in 1001 list for the last two years. I’ve yet to tackle that item. The odd time, I’ll take a look at eBay to seee what I could buy, but can never justify the price. When writing my list I though that if I put a bit of effort into the way that I presented my food, it would make me more conscientious or frugal even. The plan was that I would make my lunches for work each day instead of heading to the shop or café. Over those last two years however, I have started taking my lunch to work. I just use tupperware or saved take-away plastic containers. It’s silly really, by not spending 30 euro or so on a fancy lunch box, I’ve probably taken a step towards frugality. If I let myself buy that, what would be next, fancy light-saber chopsticks or a burger phone. (Well, maybe I caved, and bought the last one (; ). So, I’m changing the task on my list, I’m not allowed to buy a bento, and I’ll think twice about falling for cute cooking, but I can still oogle them on Bento Lunches and Just Bento.
It’s day 1 of #NaBloPoMo and I’m tackling a couple of things on my 101 in 1001 list. I was thinking about my list last night and the realization that I have under a year to complete my tasks propelled me into action. I’ve probably changed a lot of my priorities since then. Still, there are some things that mean a lot to me and that I have been neglecting. So, today, I’m starting to
[20]. Participate in each NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo
and today I’m going to talk about my progression into
[14]. Join a horse-riding school.
This evening would have been my fourth horse riding lesson. It’s been about seven years since I was serious about horses. It’s also been seven years since I’ve started college, and I’m still at it. It’s funny, because the first time that I filled out the CAO I had equestrian science and art at the top, followed by computer science. After much arguing with the older folks about at the time I settled on Arts. At the time I was just getting into computers, making websites with old skool applets, and having ping bomb matches with one of my best friends at the time. I figured Arts would let me continue with computers through IT and that I could do some other interesting things like Philosophy and Psychology.
I digress, I guess the first time that I started horse riding I was around 6 or 7. I still remember the pony’s name; Dart. Those initial lessons stopped short, but that’s another blog post. The only thing I remember about them are the big white body protectors that seemed like plaster of pares and learning to trot on a lung rope. Those beginnings gave me the bug. I got back into horse riding when I was around 15, working at a stables with ex-racehorses, and eventually getting to ride out on the current race horses in training. The first time I ever jumped was over some branches on top of a couple of buckets. It was an ex racehorse that had worked on the flat, and I’m pretty sure I was on one of the wee racing saddles. When I eventually got back into the traditional English saddles, it took about two months to relearn how to canter sitting down. For a while back then I was pretty decent at some things, I was riding out young racehorses in training, had learned about everything from nutrition to bringing horses to race meets, and on the other side of things I was able to jump over 1.2m and was bringing on my own pony. Then, disaster, or rather school struck. I had it in my mind that I was going to get my jockey license, but figured I should go to college. So, in my mind I settled for Equestrian Science down in UL, and then, well.. Arts. So, now, years later I’m still in college, finishing up a PhD in the coming months. Even when that’s finished I see myself in academia for a while. I’ve been having strange feelings these last couple of weeks, back getting lessons, it’s like I’ve reawakened something that I guess I though was lost.
To experience. A reason perhaps withstanding circumstances senses, converted to the psyche. A biological basis for allowing a certain twinge of emotion. Get what you can, there is no other sense of accomplishment. Meander around the balance of social norms and personal advancement. Stimulate the mind. No false sense of security in living. So this is it. The end of thought, debate? Not nearly. To achieve, is to fall behind and catch up again. That way you get to enjoy the moments where once breaths were taken. Might as well enjoy the day.
Experience; developed. This is not how you taught me to smile. I got caught up in the fallacy of consequence.
I’d like to think that facilitating eLearning is going to be about creating new connections with research in the user modeling, adaptation and personalization domain. Learning professionals are ideal players for getting involved in state of the art research. Technology moves fast. Learning professionals combine a relentless ability to keep up to date with new, useful technologies, with being able to to apply better strategies for facilitating online learning. Over the last couple of years it has been necessary for them to develop a comprehensive understanding of the theories, and technologies that best facilitate learning and performance. Even still, developing successful online content takes time. So, what are the two things that can help develop this content? Two things: Technology and community.
Currently, Adaptive Learning Systems (ALS) are stimulating a move towards the needs of the individual. These systems support the acquisition of diverse types of knowledge by mediating the conditions for learning according to individual differences. Multiple models, which describe the user, context, system goals, and other individual differences have been composed in order to generate personalized eLearning experiences. Of course, the creation of these models takes time, and course content is often generated with explicit meta-data in order to work within one of these ALS. Although there has been a move towards automatic meat-data generation from open-corpus content, there is much work to be done.
Simultaneously, in Ireland, there has been a shift towards creating a country-wide learning repository, the National Digital Learning Repository (NDLR). The NDLR mission is “to promote and support Higher Education sector staff in the collaboration, development and sharing of learning resources and associate teaching practices“. The NDLR provides an online repository to support collaboration and sharing of teaching and learning resources within the Irish Third Level Education sector. So far, there are over 20 educational institutes involved in this movement.
What is necessary now? What we’re doing right now, only better. These communities are being developed, but are as yet focused on universities and ITs. How can these communities be expanded to start to include other communities of practice from indstry that provide company training? This content is being brought together into a single repository, now how can we harness user modeling and adaptation technologies in order to support those developing online courses? The technology is there, the research is starting to be proven, and the community is growing, now what we really need is real-world application.
