L-derBobEd

Finance
Music
A visit from Chris and Linda 
      
  Chris and Linda
Originally uploaded by elderbob. 
...visiting Webheads from Arizona...

powered by Audioblog.com

It's always great to get a chance to have a synchronous live chat with another Webhead.  In this case, I had a chance to visit with two.  Chris Jones and her associate Linda, had just delivered a great Webhead performance to a conference in Dallas.  Since I live close by, I called them up and we had a chance to break bread together.  It was a great visit and I feel like I have deepened my friendship with both of them.
<br />I<br /><br /><br />
Tuesday, October 25, 2005 at 4:14 PM  
.....sooooo busy...... 
      
Sunday ended my first Open Weekend @ Knowplace,  a session on Connecting Online.  I had a blast and I hope the other participants did as well.  I will be doing one of these per month for a while.  They are free and won't eat up any more of your time than you want them to, and I promise, you will walk away with a handful of resources that you did not know about.  These are designed for a bit more advanced net explorer, so if you are interested, join in.  If you don't feel up to that level of mastery, there are other courses available for the newer folks. 

Also on Sunday, I have the great fortune of chatting with David Warlick of "2 Cents Worth" and "Landmarks for Schools"  at BlogStreams Salon

Tonight I am returning from my second night of virtual attendance at the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, Australia Online Conference.  It is being carried on the net as a premiere for LearningTimesAustralia  There have been a lot of great learning sessions and I love that Australian accent.  In general, there is great excitement in the audience about the arrival of Learning Times and I think we will be seeing good things coming from this alliance.

I am also working hard this week to prepare a program for the DFWCoaches Coachville Chapter on "Blogging for Business".  For the time being, since this is a work in progress, I have made the miniworkshop available to guest.  You can look around but you won't be able to participate in any of the activities unless you sign up for the class.  If you sign up, the class will begin on June 15, 2005.

A couple of other odds and ends.  I am exploring Visual Language and Folksonomy this week, so if any of you have any comments are suggestions you could send my way, please do.  

Until next time,   elderbob
Wednesday, June 08, 2005 at 11:51 PM  
Adventures into East Texas 
      
Listen closely and you can hear the "chug...chug...chug" of the steam engine that powers the paddle boat, Gray Ghost.  You can almost smell the wood smoke as you glide placidly across Caddo Lake and deep into the east Texas waterways.  Spanish Moss sways gently from the ancient Bald Cypress trees, in the cool damp breeze...

No sooner had I returned from the March Webhead Fiesta in San Antonio, my wife suggested that we take an April weekend adventure into the hinterland that is east Texas. So on Friday night, we took off for one of my favorite backroads haunts....Caddo Lake. While there we visited the old Lindsey General Store at Jonesville, and rode on the Grey Ghost steam powered paddle wheeler on Caddo Lake.  

I have started a new blog called Elderbob's Backroads and I will be writing more backroads trips there in the immediate future. It's still a bit under construction, but you are welcome to watch as I continue to add on to it.

The Grey Ghost steam powered paddle-wheeler on Caddo Lake. 
Sunday, April 03, 2005 at 2:48 PM  
Hair cuts and educational technology... 
      
elderbob gets a haircut... 

Virtually, every culture has an idea about the way men's hair ought to look. Oh, we have styles that are acceptable or not acceptable, formulas that adhere to work rules or religious belief, and personal standards about what looks good on oneself and what does not.

There are few places where there is no barber. The barber is the technologist. The person who takes the available tools of barbering and manipulates the strands of hair on ones head into a combination of style, formula and preference, acceptable to the owner of the strands....we hope.

Read more about Hair cuts and educational technology here:
Wednesday, February 16, 2005 at 4:38 PM  
Picante or PIQUANT 
      
Picante: Full of Spice

IBM Research Research Areas Natural Language Processing: "PIQUANT (Practical Intelligent QUestion ANswering Technology) 

"The focus of the PIQUANT project is to explore how best to integrate and balance various technologies such as a knowledge base, NLP, planning and traditional text-based IR in order to build an efficient, modular, multi-agent Question Answering environment. The primary goal of PIQUANT is to improve question answering performance by leveraging knowledge-based, statistical, and linguistic approaches to QA. We have developed a modular and extensible QA architecture that facilitates the integration of independently produced knowledge sources, provides a uniform interface to accessing knowledge from these distinct sources, and enables employment of multiple answering agents that may employ vastly different strategies to answering questions. "

Read more here:
Tuesday, February 15, 2005 at 12:37 PM  
Valentine Smiley.... 
      
Be My Valentine! 

My Valentine! 
When I get older losing my hair,
Many years from now.
Will you still be sending me a valentine 

Sing along here:
Monday, February 14, 2005 at 8:41 AM  
Don't Foget to Wear Your Gloves... 
      
A few days ago, I posted a response, on another list, to some thoughts about kids learning to type, and when and how that occurs. I have re-posted my comments and some additional thoughts here:

(Read the rest of "Don't Forget to Wear Your Gloves" here.)
Sunday, February 13, 2005 at 8:25 AM  
Disconnected 
      
It's Friday night, and I have my keyboard back in working order. I had felt as "disconnected" as the phone above. It's nice to be back on line.

elderbob
Friday, February 11, 2005 at 9:55 PM  
Zat U, B? 
      
Could this be, Bee?

The photo was taken with a Motorola Cell phone in a craft store then sent via a cellular service directly to Flickr where I had the account to post the photo automatically to the L=derBobEd blog. Actually, I had to go back to the Flickr site and change the size of the photo, as the first posting was much too large. All that took was coping a piece of HTML from Flickr and then editing it in to the HTML window, here at Blogger.

elderbob
Thursday, February 10, 2005 at 4:53 PM  
 
Here is an audio post that hopefully answers some of your questions about audio blogging .

The WholeWheatRadio site that I discussed in the audio post is here.  You may need the Winamp player software intall for best quality of the WholeWheat Audios.  The Blogmeister site is here.  Finall

Elderbob

Wednesday, February 09, 2005 at 7:10 AM  
On the road again! 
      
*Baby You Can Drive My Car

Place a small fan somewhere near your monitor screen. Now turn it so it blows in your face. Put on your finest sunglasses and your best driving hat. We are going for a ride.

The idea behind the video on the left, is that too often, we are overcome, by the visual to the point of not being aware of the audio. I believe that the language instructor has to walk a tightrope balancing the learners desire for both audio and visual input in order to teach the finer points of language. So here, I have tried to force the viewer to pay little attention to the visual, and much greater attention to the audio. I’ve done so by creating a blurry repetitive video and an audio that requires one to listen very closely to hear the actual words of the song..

Finally, I have printed McCartney’s and Lennon’s lyrics in the text message of this post. That gives the listener and increased opportunity to focus on the words of the song without getting embroiled in the meaning of the video.

Elderbob 
Lyrics for “Baby, you can drive my car“. By John Lennon and Paul McCartney:
Asked a girl what she wanted to be 
She said baby, can't you see 
I wanna be famous, a star on the screen 
But you can do something in between
Baby you can drive my car 
Yes I'm gonna be a star 
Baby you can drive my car 
And baby I love you
I told a girl that my prospects were good
And she said baby, it's understood
Working for peanuts is all very fine
But I can show you a better time
Baby you can drive my car...
Beep beep'm beep beep yeah
Baby you can drive my car...
I told a girl I can start right away 
And she said listen babe I got something to say 
I got no car and it's breaking my heart 
But I've found a driver and that's a start
Baby you can drive my car...
Beep beep'm beep beep yeah

Thursday, February 03, 2005 at 6:30 AM  
Blogging or Boring 
      
In the EFL/ESL class I am currently in, there seems to be a re-current theme regarding what to have students "blog" about or how to get them to "blog", or other matters relating more to class-time than "blog-time". I guess in that sense, I am a very poor "blogger". I "blog" when I want, and usually on a subject that I desire to "blog" about. I think that is why I find it enjoyable. Writing, in it's essence is good for the soul. The ability to put one's inner feelings in words or in print, is a skill that ought to be desirable for all of us. 

It is one matter to feel a thing internally, but it is another to be able to proclaim it out loud in such a way that others would understand that feeling. "Blogging" (at least to the "blogger") is just another way of putting one's thoughts into print.I can't help but wonder, this morning, if we are not destroying the very tool we are studying, by making it a "required" mode of communication.
 
Obviously, a "blog" can be a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but I have a concern about making kids "blog" when they don't like to "blog". And even within the "blogosphere", where does it say that I have to print what I feel? Why can't I post a photo or a drawing? Or maybe I had rather sing a song or play an instrument to express myself? Maybe we have forgotten about Gardener and his different modes of learning. The technological set of tools that we have come to know as "blogging" allows for at least this much latitude.I think it is marvelous that so many instructors are willing to explore the limits of technology and to think about how it may play a role in the classroom, but let's not forget, that not everyone will find "blogging" their desired mode of communication. It has to be seen as just another tool. 
 
I keep going back to Tze's idea of attempting to put a language course on a cell phone.This seems like a real leap to me. Not only in the sense that it uses a technology that so many young people already have adopted, but also because it requires us to re-think communication all together.
 
Sometimes, I wonder if we adopt tools not because of their effectiveness or efficiency, but because we want to be in the early adopter group. Is this tool as great as we think or are we just impressed with the newness or uniqueness of the tool? When I see instructors say that they had trouble getting their students to "blog", I want to ask, "then how did you get them to communicate?" Does this mean that if the student didn't "blog", then they didn't do anything? Does it mean that there was no alternative manner in which to speak or express their thoughts? If I gave a class a choice between making a video, making an audio disk, or producing a blog to express themselves; how many would choose which one? And what if I made communication even more open ended? What if I said, you have to have a project in which you express your inner feelings, but the medium in which you wish to work is strictly up to you. Would I have a greater level of participation? What if someone had told Da Vinci, that he could ONLY keep a blog? Or maybe we told Wagner, that the only way he would be allowed to express himself was in a blog. Or Frank Lloyd Wright. Or Mother Theresa.
 
Now, I suspect that there will be those who read this post, who will respond that they are not teaching the expression of feelings, but instead that they are simply teaching the techniques of language. Well, you are indeed correct, and perhaps "blogging" is an appropriate tool to use. But shouldn't we be going beyond technique? I remember years ago, going to see the Rolling Stones in Berlin. The German youth loved them. They sang every word from every song, but didn't know the meaning of any of the words that they sang. I would like to think that the reason that they sang with such gusto, was not because they understood the technique of the language, but that they instead understood the emotions behind the language being used. Maybe teaching a language is beyond the technique. Maybe teaching a language is to teach it in such a way that one can express their emotions through it.You see we are all seeking our own path here, and if that path is too constricted, then we will be less likely to travel down it. By allowing for a wide path, we encourage others to traverse it.
 
So explore the use of blogs to your hearts desire, but please be aware that they may not meet all the needs of all of the students all of the time....they are but one of many tools. 

elderbob
 at 4:32 AM  
 
Here is today's audio blog.

elderbob

Sunday, January 23, 2005 at 7:05 PM  
Mobcasting 
      
Ethan Zuckerman and Andy Carvin had an early morning chat while at the Berkman Blogging Conference, Blogging, Journalism & Credibility Conference at Harvard.  You can listen to it here. And now that your mental juices are flowing you might also want to take a look at Karen Schneider's (Free Range Librarian) take on the conference or listen to her comments.

Have a really thoughtful weekend, and give your brains a holiday....

elderbob
Saturday, January 22, 2005 at 4:25 AM  
Privacy Redux 
      
I've been thinking a bit about privacy and whether or not it should be much of a concern for the EFL/ESL instructor. To start with, most of you and/or your students will not be posting information that would have much to do with private issues. If your blogging is limited to issues surrounding the learning of a language, then I don't think there will be a great deal of private material discussed. And there are always the technological tools included in most of the software you will be using that will allow you to keep the post private or least visible only to your small group.

G'day! 
But then I come to Bee's post yesterday that the "best way is to explain what to do and not to do and why." (regarding privacy issues) In other words, Bee takes an approach, that if a student is given the proper information about a thing, they can learn how to best take care of themselves. While, there is much wisdom in what Bee says, I think there is also the implication, that for many students, the instructors efforts at teaching them to blog in ESL/EFL may be the students first exposure to this type of internet narrative. It seems to me, then, that the instuctor may need to model to the students the most appropriate approach regarding blogging and privacy and confidentiality.

With that in mind, I am posting some suggested links to readings on the FAQ page, to help the instructor who wants to use blogs in their classes, to help sort out their own thoughts about how to approach the issue. I hope that all of you will give the matter some consideration and perhaps post your thoughts on how best to handle privacy and confidentiality for your particular situation. If you have additional links to add, please feel free to do so ....this ought to be a constructivist approach to learning.

One last thought. After yesterday's comments on privacy and blogging, I decided I wanted to see just how "public" my blogs were on the internet. Though not an all inclusive method, I "googled" my name to see what came up. I was shocked with the number of references. Not only did I find the Google had listed all of my posts, but I also found where other people had listed my post in their own blogs. It was a real surprise to actually see how even a picture may have attracted enough attention to cause two or three or more folks to comment about it on some other blog.

I hope you all have a great day

elderbob 
Thursday, January 20, 2005 at 3:28 AM  
Whaaa....it's early.  (Some thoughts on Mobcasting) 
      
Whaaaa....it's early here. Looks like the Mac difficulties are being xplored...and bloggers are beginning to blog. I couldn't help but but think about what would happen if all six million bloggers started moblogging their day all at once. hmmmm....

Here is what our own Andy Carvin put together yesterday on Mobcasting.

Mobcasting To me, the political implications are awesome. I hope you dont mind me posting your message here, Andy....

"Thanks" 

Oh, and by the way, the pic above was published using Picasa 2, an amazing little free blogging device you can download from here. (Mac users, you may have to use Flikr instead.)

elderbob

Wednesday, January 19, 2005 at 3:33 AM  
MacBlog 
      
So, I am reading about the difficulty the Macsters are having utilizing the Blogger ware. It brings to the fore one of the on-going difficulties of most things technical...that is proprietary ownership. As long as there are Macs and Non-macs, there will be software confusion. Blogger, bless there little pea-pickin' hearts, has at least made an attempt to bring the Mac-happy family into the Blogger fold. There are some Mac users who have found work arounds to the programming difficulties of this wonderful blogging tool. But for some, that is either too much work or beyond the skill lever, or maybe just more than they want to put up with.

Unfortunately as you can see from this search link, there is not much that can be done about it. One option might be to go to a paid "Ecto Blog" account, which gladly accomodates Mac users.  There may even be others that Mac users are aware of, but for some reason, don't talk much about.  It even crossed my mind, that Mac users may have decided that "blogging" isn't all it is cracked up to be, and have given up even looking for the software.  I am also wondering if open-source PC based software is a better answer than looking for server side software...

If I were a software publisher or an advertiser who uses blogging as an advertising vehicle, I would at least want to assess the potential for blogging by Mac users.  Perhaps as a group, Mac users don't ordinarily read blogs or maybe they just dont care to blog at all.

In the end, it is going to be interesting to find out what the Mac users finally settle on.

One last thought before bed.  I am a real beleiver in collaborative intelligence...with this many minds (all the folks in the Weblogging Yahoo Group), I suspect that answers will be revealed that individual Mac users hadn't thought about (and the Microsoft folks didn't even know there WAS a problem).  So hang in there tonight, Macsters...tomorrow may arrive with a new program to match your machine...or maybe not.

elderbob

Monday, January 17, 2005 at 10:46 PM  
Its a brand new day... 
      
Day 1 - Ok, before you go hitting the "back" button, look closely.  You have found the "L-derBobEd" blog site.  Yes, it looks a lot like a Yahoo page, but that's the point isn't it?  Things on the net are not always what they appear to be.  

So with that in mind, I am planning to stretch the idea of "blog" as far as I can without breaking the tool.  I don't have to teach a class, nor do I care who all reads this, I am just trying out the limits of what can be done with a bit of creative smirk and a little bit of technological savvy.  I want to see how much fun, you and I can have here.

Copyright?  Well, as far as I can tell, all the appropriate notices have been posted and if I get a letter from Yahoo, then I will take it down.

So let's get blogging.
 at 11:49 AM