Updates on del.icio.us in left column
I've updated the del.icio.us in the left column, you'll see a link and then a slash (/) and the link after that is the tag that I've given that particular website. Now I think you may get to see more good information on what the link is about and not just a random name that's sometimes not clear. Also, I've only allowed 15 links to show up because it's starting to look like a lot of links on my blog. You can just click on the link, my del.icio.us (right there or in the left column) to see all of my links! I hope it's interesting to you!
[EDIT: 3/3/06 9:44PM] I got an email with Scott's comment (since I set up blogger to email me whenever a new comment is posted on my blog) and definitely knew that I needed to respond to his question! So, his quesiton is, "Now what I want to hear is: was it worth it? is it helping your to think/share/create in new ways?" I believe that the effort I've put into trying to figure out del.icio.us and trying to keep it up is being worthwhile because I'm keeping it up. If I just dropped it and stopped working on it (like I have done with many blogs), I would feel annoyed that this tool took me so long to understand and it wasn't even that cool for me to want to keep using it! But I feel that this del.icio.us tool is proving worthly of my time for various reasons. Since there is a button I installed into my Firefox browser that let's me 'tag' a website right at that moment (if I'm already signed into my del.icio.us account and I'm using my Firefox browser on my computer), I can easily click the button and 'tag' a website as quickly as it would take for me to cut and paste the url into an email that I would send to myself (my old way of keeping track of neat websites). I can also have an organized and easy way of keeping track of WHAT website it was that I was looking at, what person or place led me to the website, and whatever else I want to be in the notes of the tag. So this really helps with looking back and trying to find a blog that I found on Scott's ePortfolio Research blog.
Another great thing that I've tried out is putting all of my del.icio.us links onto my blog. I'm not sure how well this is working (so comment and tell me if you're looking at what I'm tagging!) but I think it's a neat thing to put on a blog. Also, I've started a blog for my Tech Challenge team (The Tech Museum in San Jose sponsors this challenge every year.. read more about it here). Scott, see how your seminar is seeping into my WHOLE life?! : ) During team brainstorming meetings we have been looking up different kinds of things (mainly by googling "sand" and "sandbag filling devices," check out the Tech Challenge link to see what exactly this challenge is about.. HINT, it's related to sandbags) and as we look through them, I've been tagging them on my del.icio.us site and making sure to tag them 'techallenge06' as well as saying what meeting we found this particular site during. Now that we have our own blog, I added my techallenge06 tagged del.icio.us sites (you can choose which tags you want to include on your site) and now we can see all of the links we've looked at! I think this is even more interesting and helpful than putting all of my links on my own blog because there's more of a direct purpose and reason for why the links are on the blog.
So, to finish up answering Scott's question; yes it's helpful for sharing and creating, but I'm not too sure about the thinking part since I think the two main purposes of the del.icio.us site is to keep track of sites you link and to see what others have linked to. No, actually I do think there's a good thinking part because if I look at what others are linking to and what they think is interesting I'm going to definitely go to the link and learn new things and think! Yes, okay, now I think I've answered your question as fully as I want to at the moment (because of course I could go on and on and on even more.. but I won't right now).
Since the Internet is now fixed at my house I can think about how we depend on it so much!
Good, I think something finally worked and I could successfully get to the Assignments Blog and post my assignment! I don't think I should delete my previous post because I think I may just write about how my family, I, and others rely so much on the internet and email and we think it should ALWAYS work! You should see my house and my family when a computer, the servers, printer, or any other electronic device we depend on doesn't work! Or the power's out! Wow, you don't want to be around us when something like this isn't working. But the really cool thing is that we always put our heads together and figure out a way for something to work. I put my Life Quest assignment on a thumb drive so I knew that I could take it to the library and post it from there (WAIT, actually I'm not sure if you can plug a thumb drive in.. well anyways..) if I needed to. Or worst case, I could go to a friends house or neighbors or my Dad's office. Even though we think it's always the 'end of the world' it's actually not! There are ways to figure out how to do things and I don't always believe this.. but we can live without email and internet (people have done it for a long time).
But I wonder how many people are like us? Could these kinds of people live without online calendars, emails, phone conversations, iTunes music? Obviously, we CAN, but do we want to? It wouldn't be easy but it's possible. Sometimes I need a kind of reminder that yes, windows can crash, computers and servers may not work all the time, and printers can jam but life does go on and there is usually a way around the problem (but maybe I could be spared being reminded of that at 1AM and I have a paper to turn in??)
I'll write more tomorrow. I hope I didn't rant too much : )
[EDIT/ADD 2/26/06 7:30PM:] I've been thinking more about this idea and how the internet, computers, and other electronic devices are such cool devices and there are so many neat ways to use them. But we need to find some in between place to be so we don't JUST use all these cool devices and totally depend on them. Some examples of the ways that we use computers and internet are Groove, this tool that you can have meetings by using a chat, a whiteboard that everyone can add to and you can have as many boards as you want to. My mom is communcating through Groove with a coworker in Germany and has communicated with others in England, Texas, and Mexico. And she couldn't have done all of the meetings she's having over the phone or in person all the time that would definitely not be feasible. And she sets up all her online meetings through email and has only met the person she's working with once! But since they are typing constantly to each other they're still getting to know each other very well. And there are so many other devices and programs that are using the internet that wouldn't be possible through phone calls and having to be in person all the time. There are online classes, online schools, online shopping.. some of these tools are just for making these easier for users (like online shopping) but there are other tools that are totally new and being invented because of the internet and computers! With all of these amazing and inventive ideas being used on computers and through the internet, it's hard to remember that we need to have backups and remember that the internet and our computers are not totally under our control.
Also, another interesting thought is what about people in other countries? They don't even have access to all this neat stuff! Or they aren't allowed by their government to have access to it even if they have the resources. Now that there is all of these devices that we can connect and communicate with others all around the world (not that we couldn't before the internet was invented but just that there are easier ways now) and not everyone has the money, the freedom, and the places they can use these resources.
Today I went to the Stanford Cubberly Education Library to do my math homework since my parents were going to a concert at Stanford. And I was looking at all of these interesting books and magazines briefly and I saw TONS about blogging! Also, as I was reading a teachers magazine I found this article about this Global Classroom that is happening in a high school or middle school in Maine and schools in Russia. The schools in Maine had computers with high speed internet but unfortunately the schools in Russia didn't. BUT one school ended up getting money from this group called Project Harmony (I'll add the links to my blog soon) so they could buy a number of computers, high-speed internet access, a printer, and a scanner! A teacher in another school even brought his students to his house or to internet cafes so they could communicate with the students in Maine. This shows that people can find the resources or get help from others.
I think this is enough for today but I have some other neat things to blog about tomorrow (Groove, these teachers magazine with how blogging is being used in the classroom, and a talk I went to last week that was all about learning)!
LifeQuest assignment -- Couldn't post on Assignment blog!
I'm going to post my assignment for the LifeQuest assignment on my personal blog for now. The internet, router, typepad.com, something is not working but for some reason blogger.com and google.com ARE working.. my dad and I are trying to figure out the problem, but I've posted this here and if I can't post it by Sunday 11:59pm at home, I'll go to the library and post it there, hopefully one will work.
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Life Quest assignment - Week #6
I’ve decided to focus on my journey to accomplishing and completing my Girl Scout Gold Award project.
Just as a little background, the Girl Scout Gold Award project is the highest award a Girl Scout can earn (like the Eagle Scout Award in Boy Scouts). The Girl Scout has to spend at least 60 hours on the project and only Senior Girl Scouts can do the Gold Award. I’ve also completed the Silver Award (for Cadettes, the second to last level by age in Girl Scouting) and there is also the Bronze Award for Junior Girl Scouts (third to last level for Girl Scouting), which I didn’t do. For my Gold Award project, I’m creating a documentary about connecting youth to youth. I spent a week in South Africa filming a drama group who creates and performs skits, dances, and songs with the idea of raising awareness of AIDS in an engaging and inspiring way. This group is amazing and they are such great actors, dancers, and singers. I also spent a week in Luebeck, Germany filming a German friend of mine and her friends. I got to know my friend better, go to school with her, and I got to know lots of her friends very well. In the spring, I will be going to Chicago to film my German friend again since she will be staying there for a student exchange program. Additionally, I will film one or two groups in California. And eventually when I’m finished with the filming, editing, and getting every single permission form I can think of, I will distribute my documentary to youth organizations, schools, and the Girl Scouts. When I am awarded my Gold Award I want to have in some way successfully connected all of the groups I filmed with each other as well as the viewers of my documentary with the groups in the documentary. The main reason for my interest in this project is that I want youth my age to be more aware of other youth in other countries. I think youth and people in general would enjoy finding the many similarities they have with others in other countries and cultures and would be able to connect through their similarities. At the same time, youth need to be aware of the differences between everyone. These differences shouldn’t divide and separate people but create awareness of everyone’s uniqueness.
The Call for this journey happened when I completed my Silver Award. I had a really great time doing my Silver Award project and I knew that I wanted to do a Gold Award project as well. I had no idea what I would do for my project, but I knew that it would end up being something I really enjoy doing.
I think the seven stages to a journey Dr. Noble stated are more intertwined than ‘stages’ are usually thought to be. The Call, The Return Guardians, and The Homecoming or Completion are most often first (The Call) and last (Return Guardians and The Completion), but all the others in between are all going on at the same time. I’m going to be forming alliances throughout my whole journey to completing this project as well as stumbling into many ogres and threshold guardians on the way. But I also believe that I and anyone else on a journey need to start forming many alliances with others right at the beginning to help me or anyone else on a journey get started and keep going. The Road of Trials is probably going to be happening throughout my whole journey from writing my project proposal to filling out my completion form and finally to The Completion when I go to the Girl Scout awards ceremony.
At the moment, I’m forming alliances with people as well as running into ogres and threshold guardians. I have always had my family as allies and I have started forming alliances with my digital video teacher, digital video students, Girl Scouts, activist youth organizations, and friends. Everyone has been very interested in my project and happy to help me in any way they can.
I’m also having to deal with running and stumbling into random, annoying, and frightening ogres, threshold guardians, and many huge tree roots in the ground. When I started this journey I could already foresee some ogres and threshold guardians like having to deal with traveling, packing so much camera equipment, and being searched so many times in airports. And I knew I would have difficulties with the digital video part of the project with trying to learn as much as I am able to edit, film, and produce my first own documentary.
What makes this journey so exciting and absorbing for me is that I truly want to accomplish it and reach The Completion but at the same time I am really enjoying the journey itself. Having more allies and more engaging parts of a journey than ogres and difficult parts to have to go through makes this journey so enjoyable. This kind of journey could feel like the complete opposite if I had approached it in a different way. If my parents or Girl Scout leader had forced me into doing this project to be able to put it on college applications I wouldn’t have the endurance to push past the ogres and I wouldn’t have enough urge to reach The Completion because I wouldn’t really want to make the effort to do the project! But fortunately, that’s not the case and I am having many great experiences and eye opening ‘mini-journeys’ while I travel and explore through this journey.
My blog updates
Also, if you look in the left column you'll notice I've made some updates over there. You can see all of my del.icio.us bookmarks and some other new links. Please tell me if you have any suggestions about the look or layout of my blog!
And I know Benedicte asked in one of her comments on my blog how I got links up. Here's a how-to if you have blogger: here
I think this link is also in my del.icio.us bookmarks in the left column if you want to check it out there and there are some other blogger help links too.
Internet
Before my mom and I went to South Africa last September we tried to tell everyone we knew that we probably wouldn't be able to check our email during the trip (like we do on every other trip). However, we hadn't told one person who happened to email me about a volunteer thing that she thought I would be interested in doing. We were actually able to check our email once and I noticed that there were two emails from the woman. She had sent me two emails because she thought I hadn't gotten the first one since I hadn't responded in a couple days! Now, this isn't because this woman wants to hear five seconds after she sends the email or anything, it's because I check my email like every 10 minutes every single day! So this story sort of flows into what I want to say about how everyone expects everything to go fast on the internet. I keep checking this blog to see if anyone's commented and I think it's been so long but I posted my last post just last Monday so I shouldn't expect to have like 10 comments or anything!
If this was an in-person seminar then I wouldn't expect Scott to return all my homework assignments to me early or anything, it's just because it's online and I'm online practically all the time so I expect everyone else to be as well!
Another thing that's interesting in this online seminar is seeing when students do their work. It's easy to tell since when everyone posts their assignments in the comments area you can see the time and day they posted it. If this was an in-person class would everyone who posts early now do their work early even if the teacher didn't know they did their work a week early? And do people care that the times and dates show up on when they turn in their assignment? I know that recently I've been posting the assignments usually on Sunday when they're due Sunday, but that's mainly been because I haven't been at home any weekends recently (I don't mean that as an excuse, it's the truth! : ) ).
Also, something else that I'm wondering about is how many people in this seminar have computers at home? I shouldn't assume that everyone does. And if there are any people who don't have computers at home, how many times a day or week do you check your blog and Scott's blogs? What's really nice about having a laptop is that if I'm at a cafe or library with wireless I can just hook up to the internet, but not everyone has that privilege and most libraries with computers with internet aren't open that late. I know that with signing up for this seminar, or any online class, the student is saying that they have access to a computer with internet so I know that everyone in this seminar does have access some way.
I've sort of been rambling, but I think that's the way the best ideas come out!
[EDIT: I just wanted to say that I'm typing this in the UCSB library right now and I typed my assignment for the Blogosphere yesterday in the Santa Barbara city library and in Borders!]
Testing out 'Moblogging'
I looked at the blogger service called 'moblogging' for blogging from your cell phone awhile ago and Scott just reminded me of it in my annoyed post about how it's really hard to keep up a blog. So, I've tried it out as you can see in a couple of the previous posts. I'm not that great at thumb-typing but I think I can get the hang of it.. but my thumb starting hurting after only one sentence and I have to think long and hard about which key to press and how many times to press it to get to the letter I want. I found some neat links on the webpage about moblogging. I'll add them to my links column on the left of my blog as well as to my 'del.icio.us' site. If you haven't heard about del.icio.us, you should know now. It's a pretty neat idea.. it's a social bookmarking website. A user has their own website with all of the links they have bookmarked or 'tagged' and everyone can see their links. The 'social' part of this comes in when you can see how many other people have 'tagged' the same website as you have. I found this random computer sand game and I bookmarked it on my del.icio.us site and I found out that like 2,000 other people have bookmarked it already! It's neat to find out that the internet isn't just some billion million number of random websites that you only know of.. there are other people out there who find neat websites too! But back to the moblogging... I found these two sites that can be found under the 'blog links' part of the left column here and can be found on my del.icio.us site (which is also in the left column and it is HERE) that look pretty neat.
I'm going to also try out audio blogging and see how that goes, I can definitely talk faster than I can thumb-type.
im not very good at
im not very good at this thumb typing but i think i can get the hang of it! im going to try out audio blogging as well
Im testing this cell blogging
Im testing this cell blogging
Problem with my *NEAT* Idea
I posted a groupblog post about this math blog I recently created. I created the blog to help me be able to remember the math I'm learning and to keep track of what I'm learning. I want to be able to look back on what I did in a math class 3 quarters ago and see if I'm using the math in a math class I'm taking now. But there's one problem with my neat idea: I NEED to keep updating so I have something to look back on! Practically everyone who commented on my post in the groupblog said that it would be hard for them to keep up with a blog like the one I'm trying to use. And I'm figuring out that it IS hard!! I wanted to update my blog after EVERY class, and EVERY assignment... hmm that was pretty ambitious of me!
I need to somehow put posting on my blogs into my daily routine of brushing my teeth, showering, taking vitamins.. things like that. I guess the only way to get it into my routine is to do it regularly and religiously.
Connecting this to ePortfolios, maybe there would be some automated kind of message that asks a user how they're doing in their classes or on a project in school. I know I would want an ePortfolio with everything I have done in my whole life just like I want my math blog to be like, but I want some easy way to just CLICK and I've updated. Like in my LifePort sci-fi ePortfolio idea, a user would have a mentor that would ask them to briefly update on their life with maybe some questions like: what are you learning in your math class or are you reading any good books right now? Questions that could get the user thinking and maybe start typing about other things that they are doing right now.
I bet if children had an ePortfolio from birth they would update their ePortfolios without even thinking about it. I always turn on my computer and check my email at least once a day, that's part of my routine. I'm going to TRY and update my math blog at least every other day and hopefully it will become part of my routine. And my incentive is that then I will have something interesting to look back on next quarter.
Girl Scout Conference and First Impressions
Right now I’m at a Girl Scout leadership conference. A big topic of all of the workshops and a big topic on my brain is first impressions. The first workshop I attended today (Sat. 2/4/06) was called “Putting Your Best Foot Forward.” The speaker told everyone something I’ve heard many times but it’s useful to keep remembering: everyone forms impressions of you during the first 30 to 60 seconds of meeting you. The speaker also talked about ‘elevator speeches’ and how when you only have around a minute tops to talk to someone “in an elevator” and make a good impression, say at a place you just got a job at and you see a manager in the elevator or hallway, you definitely want to make a good impression on them.
Also, one of the organizers of the conference and who I also consider a mentor of mine for the Girl Scout project I’m working on, told some of the Girl Scout council women about my project and that I could show them a short movie I have about the South African group I filmed. I HOPE that they were interested in what I’m doing and that I made a good first impression on them.
To relate this to blogs, ePortfolios, and websites, first impressions play a big role in online interactions and connections. Even though there may not be a real front page or cover of your ePortfolio, you’ll still have a first page and you want to make sure that it looks interesting but also somehow connects with your audience, whether they are potential employers or they’re college administration staff. I just started thinking again about what the speaker said about what you need to be aware of when you’re communicating with another person or a group of people. These communication skills I learned work perfectly for blogs, ePortfolios, and websites as well. I just wrote two of the many different things covered in the workshop to be aware that you’re doing while communicating with someone (make sure that you seem interesting and interested and be aware of your audience). Sometimes I don’t like these kind of workshops when the speaker says: “You SHOULD do this! You CAN’T do that!” Some of the things that have been discussed in the workshops are personal preference. But back to first impressions, people are forming impressions of every new person they meet; at this conference, I have three roommates, one I know already but the two others I didn’t. At first I didn’t know what to think of them because they’re friends and they weren’t talking to me or the girl I know. But today we started talking and getting to know each other more. [EDIT (1/5/06 2:46PM): Actually, they did end up seeming like I thought they would once I got to know them more.. but you never know!] So, sometimes your impressions change, and sometimes I think you should let them change. On the other hand, if you have a gut-feeling that something about a person isn’t right, then I would definitely go with my gut. I went off on another tangent, but I’m going to get off my laptop and go to sleep!
Edit (1/5/06): Also, to add to what I said last night. I think when I’m creating ePortfolios, blogs, websites, movies, and any other things I can create, I really need to remember first impressions. I know you can’t “judge a book by its cover” but a person still might not look inside a book or continue looking through a blog or a website or stop watching a movie, if the book, blog, website or movie doesn’t create a good impression.
