So I have decided that I do all my best blogging at the airport, especially waiting for the plane at the gate. Great people watching, and the end of a vacation is always a very pensive thing for me. So as I sit at the gate for my flight home from Boston and the 9th Sakai Conference, I have the appropriate time to pause and reflect on things.

First off…notice the change yet? I migrated everything to WordPressMU from Drupal. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I am not a Drupal fan, but I honestly just don’t have the time and energy to maintain it anymore: upgrade, patch, upgrade, patch. My old webhost didn’t support PHP5 unless I started up an entirely new plan, so I just decided to bail. Plus we are playing with WPMU at work, so I felt I should live in it a little bit.

But I digress…

The Sakai conference was very enlightening. It was fun to go and actually not present, though a few attendees remembered my presentations from 1.5 years ago in Newport, which was awesome. I got a chance to dig into the concept of ePortfolios and OSP more, and explore some of the alternatives out there. We are exploring WPMU for some of the presentation layer functions, based on the goodness I have been reading at WPMUed.

God I want a cheeseburger.

I also spent a lot of time on Twitter at this conference and found out that I was one of the top three twitterers there. Slightly embarassed, but as you know I love twitter and have been finding it very useful as a backchannel for teaching and learning scenarios. I spent a lot of time catching up on some of the excellent Fluid work and new and exciting news about its applications for mobile devices and accessibility. I will have to watch that a bit more. So many of our students use the iPhone and the feedback I keep hearing is that students want more of a “Facebook experience” in Sakai (or even LMSs in general).

I heard more of the dreaded Digital Native chatter too. I got a chance to briefly compare notes with a few other attendees and my contention is that the terms Net-Generation, Gen-Y, and Digital Native/Immigrant are out-moded. This unfairly separates us from our students and puts them in a box. We are all living in a digital world, whether we use the resources or not. If we are consumers, then we have no choice in the matter. I would not consider the students I come in contact with everyday digital natives. They use Facebook and SMS, and not much else really. Throw a blank Wiki at them or ask them to upload a YouTube video and many don’t know what to do. I prefer the term Digital Tourist (CC ND 3.0, Me). We are all just visiting really… It should be our job as ed-tech/educators to filter through new tools, whether they live in our LMS or not, and help people understand their value. Who knows if Twitter or Facebook will be around in 5 years, 10 years…but the concept of sharing, digital literacy, and utilizing collaborative resources tools will still be there because of the trends in ownership that Web 2.0+ has started. Along with this we need to be cognizant of the proliferation of mobile devices, alternative devices, accessibility for everyone, and lowering the bar to “digital entry” for users that might be more touristy than we are.

Long story short, we need to be aware of these trends and play catch up in our professional lives to meet the needs (and demoands) of our audience. For those that are interested, here are some links for learning more about what happened at Sakai ’09:

• Sakai Conference 2009 main page and presentations
• Sakai 2009 Twitter stream

In a fit of curiosity I took my twitter feed (using Tweetdumpr) and exported all my twitter feeds into a text file. That’s about 1060 updates and I had joined a little over two years ago in May 2007. I thought it would be a great waste of time to take all of my twitter updates and string them together in a narrative style, taking out all the RT and @replies to protect the innocent but leaving content and links intact. What you get…well…is a lot different from my typical blog entries I guess. What began as a nice little bit of introspection turned out to be more disturbing and funny than I thought. So here are some excerpts if you care to read, I picked the funnier ones out here. Not that I am under any impression that anyone will find this interesting, but after graduating, I am in a bit of a “looking back and forward” sort of mood.

Need to test test test! Chrome logo – damn thing looks like a poke-ball. Looks like Pikachu is going to jump out and crash my computer. http://is.gd/2948 pika pika! My lady wants a Pomeranian, thoughts? you’re back online! and she shall be named Madam Tiki! Just to clarify, no we didn’t get a Pom… yet. Off to Las Vegas today Going to METALLICA!!!! with scary-ass bands opening, previewing on MySpace first, lots of blood/religious imagery, maybe we’ll be late. nah, they’re over it now, in fact I got the album free from iTunes with the presale well Diana’s the big fan, not me so much. The things I do for my wife… I love those little video slot machines, don’t know what I’m doing then I win $100!! w00t1! Go Goldfish Dream!! The concert’s in December so I’ve got some time still home again home again jiggety jig Home alone and sick, but kitty don’t care… http://snipurl.com/3q6c3 My wife, an investment broker, is comparing this to 1990 and Milken as far as bloodbath-potential goes… got it…you’re posting okay tired, too tired to stay home. tee-hee On LA time myself and I was late to my job in LA…wrah! left the nicotine gum at home accidentally. Trying to fool myself with Eclipse Mightnight Cool gum. It’s actually working.

Question: If there was no internet, what would you be doing today? If the internet never happened? Social Work probably kitty??! I want to see pictures! Resting long week… aaaahhhh! slow down turbo! yeah, it’s everywhere except SOUTHwest…just expense that too Ugh, still here at work, half hour training swelled to two hours, trying to leave! #fb RT Flutter is the new Twitter: http://tinyurl.com/ces3wo My iPhone playlist went from Raffi to Megadeth…given the day I had, it felt oddly relevant miss sassytwitterpants Lovin the new TweetDeck Hooray for http://sitorsquat.com! have a safe flight! Woo fat dog!! #fb you know it! http://bit.ly/PP84i reads the manual so Marge doesn’t have to! looking forward to a nice 3day weekend. I wish I could be this excited all the time: http://bit.ly/21zlEi Another day downtown, another labor demonstration… http://twitpic.com/327tl hate those damn parrots, they terrify my dog I’m drinking at home Trying to motivate to get to the gym this AM, time to sweat out my angst… yeah yeah on my way Ah, much better #fb hey! can’t wait! room service! feeling like a bloated pig, ugh…Easter gorging, happy though and buy one, get one for $5, don’t forget! new year, new conferences, new courses to build, oi

Better stop it. Taco Tuesday at Pepe’s ftw cute and a little disturbing: http://bit.ly/3AGbYK aww she’s all growns up! just had my first SL meetup with my CTER cohort! great open content post from Cole Camplese: http://tinyurl.com/ao7wud My baby’s getting outfitted for her part in Cold Case today…1950s hottie secretary! rrrroaw! n00b move…upgrading WordPressMU with a plain WordPress zip…fail gone from looking at kittens to chihuahuas, wtf?? yes, as long as you’re working I am going through a Sex Pistols phase myself RT New post on Metblogs, LA Traffic on Twitter http://tinyurl.com/dmeobw just got Total Recall transcription of lectures here, pasted them into Wordle…awesome graphics for class Greg Pahl I am really really trying to give Heroes a chance. bentley exiting freeway! #slowspeedchase what’s in the trunk? is Rihanna in the trunk? who is the mystery sidewalk woman? NBC…not a high-profile suspect okay los angeles…as you were now., move along there’s a guy in the Toyota parking lot calling NBC right now…hey dude, wave!!! KTLA….we won’t speculate, because that is dangerous, but if we were to speculate

Here’s a picture of my baby getting her power mowing on!

 

Sooo…yeah…hi there…um (shifty eyes) come here often?

I am in Eugene, Oregon right now. Did you know Eugene is the Anarchist capital of the United States? It is. I think it is because there is simply nothing much to do other than check out the scenery or drink We saw a mud person too! No, that is not a hate term, it is an anarchist thing. Geez, I want to go home.

Links for the week after the jump.. >>

• Hula renaissance
• Corporate web standards
• FIDM selects CampusEAI to host Sakai installation
• Peanuts characters as manga
• Building Blocks for Technology Integration: A Strategy…
• 50(+) Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story (or 50 ways to…
• Palmercash
• Weirdomatic’s collection of odd vintage ads
• Futuristic cars from fifty years ago
• Dudeism [Digital Daily]

I see the benefits of blogging in the education space, but not with what Blogger has to offer. Thinking back on the required readings for my CTER course, there are concerns about the privacy of such blogs. Namely our generation’s mistrust of anything big and corporate, and wanting freedom within limits; and the younger generation’s willingness to post anything and everything they want without filter…I wonder if there will ever be a balance. But then again, as that article pointed out, it’s the adults setting the bad example.

The thing I like about my own blog and software is I can’t tune to a fine detail what I want and don’t want the outside world to see. Some users need to log in. I don’t usually allow comments on my blogs, someone has to sign up for an account with my permission and then they can post if they want. No one has…they usually just call me.

I wish the open source arena supported SIMPLE interfaces like this. It makes it super easy to get out of the box all the quicker. But I guess if you want control and governance, then you need to work or it a bit. My own blog is based on Drupal, but there are other softwares like: WordPress, Expressions Engine, Moveable Type. Other blog tools are available in LMS’s themselves: Moodle has a tool I believe, as does Sakai and others. There is a solution out there for everyone I think. I am still working my own solution out here.

Image courtesy of Craphound via Boing Boing.

I am waiting at the gate right now at Chicago/Midway airport after a long day in my orientation for my Masters program at U of I. It was pretty fun, getting to meet all the people the I will be studying with for the next couple of years. I am excited to get started…but I can’t get started until I get home.

See, I waltzed through security and dropped my driver’s license at the checkpoint. I can’t go back and get it since I will need the ID to get back through. The picture above is my holy grail right now, my parking space at LAX.

Update: I found it…I am waaay to tired…

See, I told this would keep me posting… Been real busy with school and work stuff. My bad. Check out my little Quicktime video. These are the coolest. The FIDM Scholarship Store sells these little squeeze toys. You squeeze them and they poo. But they are obvy having some sort of issue since it sucks right back on up there. We have a little farm in our office, sheep, cows, hippos. Hit < Read More > for the nice action vid and the link food for the week.

What’s new in Dave-Land? I think I am going to buy a Mac.

• Mudhoney, Melvins, Sonic Youth, Steel Pole Bathtub from lamestain
• NYT on BB on Google Street View from Boing Boing
• Morphing history of female portraiture from Boing Boing
• Pac-Man skeleton from Geekologie – Gadgets, Gizmos, and Awesome
• Video: Wikis in Plain English from Common Craft – Social Design for the Web
• RSS in Plain English from Common Craft – Social Design for the Web
• Idolator
• Mp3: Do Be "Cruel" from Idolator
• Jump Into My KARR: KITT vs. Airwolf! from Jalopnik

The best part was meeting the ex-drummer from AC/DC, Chris Slade. We tried to take a picture of him, but the camera somehow got put into movie mode. We must have looked crazy, four overgrown kids, with a six and a three year old tagging along screaming at each other in front of this poor guy signing autographs. Whatever, just drama I don’t need to share here.

Next Di and I went to Hawaii to our lovely little Kauai condo. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. If you know anything about me, you know that we loooove Hawaii. Kauai in particular. It is in that nice pristine state right now, before it gets overrun with timeshares and resorts. I love all of the islands, but especially the ones where you have to watch out for chickens in the road still. It was great to overwind. After about a week, we hopped over to Oahu to get some love at the Kahala and gradually reintroduce to civilization before heading back to the grind.