bitdepth

Twitter is Made of People

Some of the best things that are invented and we use were created accidentally such as the microwave or things like Blogger or Flickr. Now my latest constantly open and frequently updated service is Twitter, which grew out of Odeo and originally was called Twittr. I started using it fairly early and my first tweet (as we call the beautifully short 140 character messages) was on October 19, 2006.
The two great things about Twitter are the forced concision and the immediacy. By allowing updates to be sent via mobile phone (which is the reason for the limited characters) it means that you can update as things are happening. On my MacBook Pro Twitterific is open constantly and it’s how I send most of my updates. But sending updates isn’t the wonderful thing, but it’s the community of people and the quality of the fun and information that is exchanged. While blog posts can be longer, more visual and more filled with comments, there is an equality to Twitter in that everyone needs to follow the same rules and can’t exceed the 140 character limit.
With Twitter I feel more connected to everyone and by choosing who I follow, I know that I’m interested in what people are saying. I don’t want to follow thousands of people because I don’t want to be overwhelmed with updates. Some people use Twitter as a way to post links, but that’s what I use del.icio.us for. The tweets that I love are the ones where people are saying something profound, something real, or just funny. Right now with the people that I’m following it feels just right and I know that soon I’ll be reading short updates from Cannes, finding out what friends are up to and be able to interact with someone in a few seconds. It’s like passing a steady stream of interesting people in the street, briefly making eye contact and smiling at them.

May 13, 2008 twitter

Seeing the World Through Glass

I’ve just discovered a great technology that has enabled me to see things in the distance more clearly. While I’m usually quite up-to-date with technological trends and I love getting gadgets, for some reason I just never tried this out before. Recently I began wearing glasses. In case you’re not familiar with them, they’re quite ingenious and portable. My eyes can’t focus properly in the distance and the glass of the lenses is shaped in such a way to focus the light on my retina so items in the distance are in focus. When I read I don’t need them, so I can take them off. They arms even fold in to make them more portable, which is a nice touch.
The other neat thing about them is that there is a magnet in the metal between the lenses which lets me attach sunglasses to them without removing the glasses. So when it’s too bright out I just clip the sunglasses on and I’m set. It’s great to have them for driving.
I should have had glasses a few years ago, but for some reason I just didn’t think about it and now it’s painfully obvious that I needed the glasses. The world looks different to me now and I’m becoming accustomed to them. It was amazing when I looked up at the sky one night with my glasses on and saw the stars in the sky. I didn’t realize how much of a difference a simple (and non-electronic) technology could make in the way that I view the world. It also can partially explain my love for photography as it enabled me to see the world more clearly though a camera lens than I could with my own eyes.

March 2, 2008 glasses, me

Super Mario Galaxy as a Model for Learning

I’ve been playing Super Mario Galaxy a lot on the Wii and thinking how it’s quite enjoyable and that I’m also learning a lot (in the context of a universe filled with various gravities, worlds, stars and princesses). In spending time in that world, it’s fascinating to see how you explore and develop the skills that are needed to complete the challenges that you face as Mario in the game. What are the implications for teaching and learning? Could Mario show us better ways to construct environments where learning can happen?

The Nintendo Wii is a beautifully-designed gaming system and Super Mario Galaxy brings Nintendo’s core character to the platform with a complex and richly-detailed world that is fun and filled with learning. To get through the game you have to collect 120 stars (twice!), which means that you must go through 240 different levels each with rules and powers that change. When my daughter completed the game, she said it was the first video game that she had finished all the way through. The game kept her challenged and encouraged enough so she stuck with it to complete things. That’s the perfect balance we need to strike with learners as they expand their skills and apply them.

Continue…

January 26, 2008 games, learning, mario

8 things you probably didn’t know about me

Lisa Rousseau tagged me in the non-semantic way with the 8 things you didn’t know about me meme (hey, that’s me three times…) and after agonizing on and off about who else to tag, I’m going to write my list of 8 things that you probably didn’t know about me.

1. The first film festival film I ever attended was in Montreal in 1986 when I saw the world premiere of Blue Velvet. It was a last minute decision to see the film with a friend and David Lynch and Dino de Laurentiis presented the film and after the film I saw Pierre Trudeau, who was in the audience.

2. I’ve shaken the hand of three Prime Ministers of Canada – Brian Mulroney (before he was PM), Joe Clark (after he was PM), and Kim Campbell (after she was PM).

3. My earliest memory is of watching the landing of Apollo 11 when I was about 3 1/2 years old.

4. In the 1980s I saw Apollo 15 astronaut James Irwin speak in Fredericton.

5. I have a scar on the back on my right leg from a non-malignant cyst that was removed from behind my knee.

6. I was the first Macromedia Authorized Flash Trainer in Canada in 1997.

7. The first email that I sent was via a computer terminal in 1989.

8. While I’m an extrovert, I can be very shy at social events.

To change things a bit since I’m agonizing over who to tag, I’m going to add a goal to 43 Things to get 8 people to share 8 things that I (probably) didn’t know about them since it’s a wonderful community filled with interesting people.

January 2, 2008 blogs, lists, meme

Valleyschwag

Today I received my first shipment from Valleyschwag. It’s a fascinating idea of subscribing and have a random package that includes at least one t-shirt and a range of other promotional material from Silicon Valley companies in the mail. I signed up as soon as I heard about five weeks ago it and a lot of other people did too which seemed to slow things down a bit. I was also billed for my second month before the first month arrived, but now that I have a new t-shirt, it’s ok and next month should be much better. For me it’s a great way to get some more t-shirts and other promotional stuff that I collect like a pack rat. I documented my opening of Valleyschwag Issue 2 and in my first package I got a Rubyred Labs (the people who created and run Valleyshwag) t-shirt, a couple of stickers (including a FeedBurner one!), a temporary tatoo, a Livejournal pencil and Movable Type keychain, as well as some neat-looking puzzle cards from Perplex City. The whole project is being written about and documented through the Chronicles of Valleyschwag as well as all over the web. The team that has pulled this together seems like a great group of people and it’s neat to watch how the popularity exploded so quickly and how they are responding to it.

June 10, 2006 schwag, valleyschwag

Changing Seasons

It’s a beautiful day and I’m starting to get in a more contemplative mood. At work it’s now the Spring term, which means that the graduating learners are out working for 5 weeks on work placements and the first year learners have just begun the process of making 6 short films over 5 weeks. It’s a lot of fun and since only half of the Screen Arts class is around, it’s a bit less hectic. With the seasons changing it makes for a very nice time of year.
I like being organized, but this past school year has probably been one of my more organizationally challenging years. The course load was a bit heavier, so I didn’t have a lot of time to file things, so my desk is covered with stacks of paper. I’ve been really wanted to implement Getting Things Done and with the help of Merlin Mann’s tips at 43 Folders I’ve been able to some things, such as keeping my email inboxes fairly empty, which makes me happy. I’m also on the verge of getting a more comprehensive GTD setup going with the wonderful kGTD system that is built around OmniOutliner Pro (which I recently upgraded).
I’ve given up on one unified system either electronic or paper to keep it all together, but there are some things that I will keep using and some that I’m moving away from. I really like OmniOutliner and I’ve been using it for a few years to organize all of my lesson plans, presentations and thinking. I also use it for keeping all my marks together thanks to the wonderful summaries that it can calculate.
One of my uncompleted goals was to organize my courses more through Basecamp. While I started to put some things in, I just didn’t have enough time to set it up, but I should be able to for the Fall. Planning and calendars are always fun for me and I have been sporadically using my Moleskine weekly organizer and I’ve stopped using Entourage after a server upgrade lost my address book and made the neat integration of address book, calendar and mail stop working because my address book somehow was lost. Now I’m using Google Calendar a bit, but I will probably spend a lot more time in iCal, since it works with kGTD. With Basecamp and iCal and Google Calendar I can share information through the iCal format and subscribe to various calendars, which is very handy. I don’t like to have my data locked up.
So while it was a busy term with a lot of unfiled paper, it was also a lot of fun. A class filled with some very cool people is going to graduate in June and next year should be a good year too as the filmmakers move from year 1 to 2. I’m happy with a lot less stress right now, and as usual, I’m smiling.

April 29, 2006 43folders, basecamp, google, gtd, moleskine, screenarts

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