jaiku Archives - Tech Stuff

September 11, 2008

Hood 2.0 – It lives!

Hood 2.0: it’s a Web 2.0 world out there

This workshop will explore how using Web 2.0 can rethink the digital divide.

Gloucestershire College has been using Web 2.0 to enhance and enrich the learning process for a wide variety of learners across the breadth and depth of the curriculum. They have developed a range of learning scenarios and activities that are integrated into the learning process and support a diverse range of learners.

This workshop will demonstrate how Web 2.0 can be used to solve some of the issues facing diverse learners in this era of Facebook. YouTube, Twitter and then some…

The concept of Web 2.0 services in addressing the tensions between formal and informal learning, and empowering learners to take responsibility for their own learning will be examined. Then, how we need to address the pedagogical needs to drive the use of Web 2.0 services and not be blinded or awed by the technology of Web 2.0, will be explored.

During the workshop participants will be able to discuss and debate different learning scenarios and activities which utilise Web 2.0 services. Web 2.0 services will be used to demonstrate these scenarios.

Participants will discuss and debate these scenarios in small groups, covering how they could be utilised within their own institutions, examining the potential conflict between formal learning scenarios and the informal learning scenarios that Web 2.0 offers.

The groups will also discuss how the pedagogy needs to drive the scenarios and not the technology and address how Web 2.0 can empower learners to take responsibility for their own learning. Each group will provide feedback through either a blog entry, an audio podcast or a video presentation. These will then be made available online to allow participants to comment and continue the discussion beyond the workshop, and also allow other conference delegates to participate in the discussion.

After the workshop, the participants will have a greater understanding of the role of Web 2.0 in addressing the digital divide.

They will have considered how Web 2.0 can help resolve the tensions between formal and informal learning; discussed how Web 2.0 technologies in themselves mustn’t drive the learning, but support the pedagogy; and debated how Web 2.0 can empower learners to take responsibility for their learning.

The participants will have presented the results of their discussion and debate, through the use of a variety of learning technologies, to other participants and to other conference delegates.

I ran the workshop at ALT-.

Session seemed to go well though I did have about sixty people in a long narrow room.

Hood 2.0 - It lives!

The feedback from the session can be found here:

http://altcworkshop.blogspot.com/

Please feel free to add comments to people’s blog posts.

Other stuff from the workshop can be found on

Flickr

http://flickr.com/photos/jamesclay

Qik

http://qik.com/video/285383

Seesmic

http://seesmic.com/jamesclay

Jaiku
http://molenet.jaiku.com/

Recorded Gabcast podcasts from my sessions at #altc2008 today. They are online now at http://tinyurl.com/hood2feedback

A few comments from other people’s blogs and links mentioned as part of feedback.

http://www.projectwhite.com/tag/altc2008/

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2286799/Can-we-use-Twitter-for-educational-activities

http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2008/04/04/live-reviewing-a-book-on-twitter-here-comes-everybody-by-clay-shirky/
and here’s a reflection
http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2008/04/07/twitter-reviewing-some-reflections/

http://ashleywright.org/2008/09/09/hood-20-its-a-web-20-world/

http://www.projectwhite.com/tag/altc2008/ – loads of stuff , excellent

Thanks everyone, some great feedback and ideas.

May 17, 2008

Pleaaaasssee be a little faster!

I have no idea why, but my iMac can be so slow at times…

This is a 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac with 2 GB of RAM, so I am guessing that this really should be a fast computer, certainly faster than my old G4 PowerBook!

However at times it slows down to a real crawl, so slow that all I get is the spinning beachball of death!

However all is not lost I know why.

I run too many applications at once and I run them hard.

For example I will usually have three browsers open all with multiple tags. I also visit sites which have lots of javascript and ajax in them (such as WordPress blogs and Jaiku).

I do run a few PowerPC legacy applications (namely Word and Firefox).

I will have iPhoto and iTunes running in the background as well.

I would suspect that running EyeTV and EyeHome in the background also adds to the load.

So it’s not really the iMac’s fault, I know it’s all mine!

In theory what I should do is run a single application only and then open the others as and when I need them.

In theory that is a good idea.

In reality I don’t work that way.

Maybe I need a stack of computers with multiple spaces on a single monitor that allow me to work the way I want to without loading the lot so much so slow it right down to a crawl.

March 21, 2008

Web 2.0

I thought I would use this Hood 2.0 blog to mention and blog about various Web 2.0 sites and services that can be used for learning (or for just plain fun).

I will mention the classics such as Flickr, Facebook and Twitter, but also want to cover the less familar sites such as Wakoopa, Jaiku amongst others.

Watch this space.

March 16, 2008

Hold your breath…

Generally upgrades and updates go smoothly, but not always.

As jonmul posted recently on Jaiku, sometimes if not always you hold your breath.

Although Apple have made firmware upgrades a painless process I still hold my breath every time. Bricked to many devices in the past…

He’s not the only one who holds their breath…

I do it quite often, especially with firmware upgrades.

Having said that, I actually now rarely upgrade unless I am “forced” to. Sometimes I have been “forced” into an OS X upgrade as a piece of software I want to use is only compatible with a newer version.

If it works I generally leave it well alone. In the main as updates sometimes just do weird things.

Good example, I upgraded the iPod touch to 1.1.3, but I ain’t upgrading to 1.1.4 just yet.

March 11, 2008

Bill on Twitter

BBC News’ Bill Thompson gives a nice overview of Twitter and the impact it had for him with SxSW.

Unlike many of my friends and colleagues I wasn’t able to make it to Austin, Texas for this year’s SXSW interactive, the four-day technology conference and festival that is currently firing the imagination of the technology world.

So I wasn’t in the ballroom when the keynote address by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg went awry under the less-than-forensic questioning of technology journalist Sarah Lacy.

I didn’t see the crowd start to get restless and heckle Zuckerberg about the deeply-unpopular Beacon advertising system, or get a chance to grab the microphone and ask questions when Lacy threw the conversation open to the floor.

And yet I was there in another way, listening to and even interacting with some of my friends in the audience, picking up on the vibe in the room and even tuning in later as Sarah Lacy loudly defended herself.

I was there because I was plugged into Twitter, the instant messaging service that lets users send short text messages to anyone who cares to tune in, online or on their mobile phone.

Really nice article which demonstrates how Twitter is changing the face of communication and the web (to be honest mainly in the geek/tech world, but still causing change).

I do Twitter however I much prefer Jaiku, in the main as there is more of a community with Jaiku and Twitter is much more about the audience.

Twitter though is simple and tidy, whilst Jaiku has the functionality that allows much deeper discussion and the integration of RSS feeds.

They are similar, but they are also different. Though I use both I generally do not post exactly the same stuff to both. I do feed my Twitter feed into Jaiku, but my friends can choose to ignore it if they so wish

January 15, 2008

“Think Jaiku is losing to Twitter? Wait till Android Devices Start Shipping”

Excellent blog article on though Twitter is winning the battle in the numbers game, Jaiku will win the war once Android starts shipping.

What if Google where to build Jaiku into Android as the standard phone Address Book? As soon as Android devices started to ship, Jaiku (whatever form it takes in the future) would gain hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of users rapidly. This isn’t as crazy an idea as it sounds. As I’ve posted before, Jaiku was originally conceived as a location and status aware address book; many Nokia users who have the Jaiku S60 client application installed already use the service in this way.

Read the full blog entry, makes for interesting reading.

Personally I much prefer Jaiku over Twitter, the RSS and the comments allow for me a much deeper richer experience, more importantly as well it allows for interactivity much more easily than Twitter.

Of course I don’t like the 504 errors (who does) and that bird, but hopefully with a day off tomorrow (what am I going to do) Jaiku will get better and we’ll see less of them.

Follow me on Jaiku.

November 22, 2007September 27, 2023

Installing Ubuntu 7.10 as a Guest OS on Parallels

After having a few problems and reading a variety of guides on installing Ubuntu as a guest OS on my Parallels installation on my iMac I finally managed to get there after a suggestion from KevanV on Jaiku.

Go to the Ubuntu website and when you download the ISO ensure you that you check the box which says Check here if you need the alternate desktop CD. This CD does not include the Live CD, instead it uses a text-based installer.