Technological Delight?

D2D D Day

2006-10-02T01:38:00.000-07:00

It is almost symposium day and several months ago it was only a random thought that we might have made it this far and got to the point where we could share out experiences of learning technologies with others. Tomorrow we do the final run and hopefully everything is all ready to go and the flow works. We've done the prep and now we just do it! No performance anxiety at this stage even!

Tired posting

2006-09-21T03:34:00.000-07:00

It is too late at night for me. I am behind the eight ball in many things and I want to go to bed. I have one sick daughter and another miles behind in an assignment due tomorrow and still lying on the lounge floor one whole essay to go before she can go to bed. This is what days look like for me. I've done a full day's work, chaired a diving committee meeting tonight till 8pm (dealing with some conflict with the national body) contacted my mother and two sisters who are all dealing with strife, supported the kids and here I still am. No wonder it is hard to find time to do everything.

Nothing at all feels flamboyant like fireworks tonight. It just all seems a chore and explains why sometimes I don't get to this stuff. Oh well. Tomorrow is another day.

Heating Up

2006-09-19T18:37:00.000-07:00

It is so good to have a goal to focus on. I have found myself slipping behind in recording on this blog and in working my way around the various technologies lately. I am reminded how important it is to keep using the technology or it is gone! Busyness really is the enemy of this and any other learning. You have to be disciplined and that is really what this project has offered to ensure we keep current and active - that we are not peripheral participants but are fully fledged members of our learning community.

Preparation mode

2006-09-18T13:44:00.000-07:00

Today we are in preparation mode to try and bring everything together. I've had to do a bit of research about blogs so that I can do my section and found out some stuff I had no idea about. I knew about the personal and educational use of blogs but had no idea that they were such an important political tool. That was helpful research. It brought me up to speed with blogs in a way I haven't done at all yet. It is interesting to collect my thoughts around these in terms of how they are educationally useful.

Use it or Lose it!

2006-09-12T01:02:00.000-07:00

It is very cliched, I know, but that is the realisation for me. I looked back and saw that it is more than three weeks since I last posted on this blog. Busy, tired, distracted, doing other things, can't be bothered, there are so many reasons one can give for not keeping up with the technology. Time is most definitely the enemy of learning technologies. However, the outcome is the usual use or lose it as the title suggests. If I don't keep practising this stuff I forget how it all works. Thankfully, blogs are pretty foolproof.

With only a few weeks till the symposium presentation, the pressure came on today to get the format and script sorted. No more excuses. I need to get this underway.

It wasn't me!

2006-08-20T17:11:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't you know it! The issue with messages from cell-phone to the blog appears to be one of Telecom's making rather than anything I did wrong. There is some issue with the use of the + sign and that is causing the texts to leave my phone but never end up on the blog. I am still trying to work it out but it is nice to know it wasn't my incompetence - especially when I am starting to feel more competent with the technology.

Why?

2006-08-16T21:34:00.000-07:00

I can't figure out why my messages from my cell phone are not going to my blog. Seems everyone else has worked it out. I must go try it all again and see if I can make it work. I can't be making such good technological progress and be beaten by something so seemingly easy.
Now my kids are into myspace. Is that something new to learn?

Very remiss

2006-08-01T22:48:00.000-07:00

It is quite some time since I have been in here and posted - mostly because I have been focused on other technologies and tools or just plain busy. I am inspired because I came in through newsgator and my feeds indicated Penny had been testing out sending a blog message from her palm. How clever. Then I checked my BBC RSS feed and read something about Castro in Cuba mand that reminded me too of my trip. So the technologies are the catalysts for writing again.

I've struggled with staying connected and enthused with D2D over the last few weeks but keen to start to put together our presentation starting next week. I must see if I can copy this message to our shared wiki as it is a good indicator of progress.

Never too late

2006-07-18T00:24:00.000-07:00

Like my buddies I am now creating a blog posting from inside Flock. I only downloaded this yesterday and am now figuring out how it works. I currently have my blog and flickr open. I wonder can I drag and drop a photo? Let's see. Well fancy that!

2006-07-12T02:06:00.000-07:00

This is an amazing photo I captured one night in Jamaica a week or two ago. It is the middle of the rainy season and every afternoon or evening there was an electrical storm of some sort. One night at dinner I tried to capture a photo of the lightning as we don't often see this type of lightning in New Zealand. I am quite proud of this image.

I am feeling a little distanced from our D2D after a three week break and looking forward to feeling immersed in the technology again. Aside from the RSS feeds I feel pretty competent with all the early things we learnt and am using them regularly. Currently in the middle of an MSN conversation with a friend overseas. I also use my newsgator to keep up to date with any postings from my buddies. I need to try out flock to see how it works. I picked up podcasting easily the other day but don't feel very excited by it currently. It will be good to start putting together some sort of chronicle of all of this.

Trinidad update

2006-06-30T15:34:00.000-07:00

Well technology does it again.
Technology has been my saviour over here as I have been able to keep in touch with home through email. Phone costs $7 a minute! I am so looking forward to catching up with D2D again when I get home in a week or two. I feel you are all getting ahead of me and

Hi from Jamaica

2006-06-25T15:36:00.000-07:00

Hello team
I have been thinking about our project while I am here and have picked up some more ideas for us from some of the conference presentations. I look forward to sharing and talking on my return.

Fabulous progress

2006-06-12T14:20:00.000-07:00

Well I finally have a sense of us working collaboratively on this mission. We are now all up to speed with IM and I think we are almost all there with the wikis. We have an agreement to work on a project together that will showcase what we have learnt and have links to the various things we have achieved. We will also use our blogs as reflective tools and have links from them to the collective wiki. This feels great and will encourage me to keep on with the project. I'm just a bit worried now that I will lose the impetus while I am away. I'll need to find time in funny places to do this.

Patience pill

2006-06-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

I think I need to take one! I am champing at the bit to do some more collaborative things online now that we have so many new skills. I feel like I have mostly mastered many of the things Thom has introduced us to so far but I really want to see how we can utilise them to the max. I'm not sure what is stopping us from doing this collectively. Is it absolutely a lack of time on everyone's behalf? Is it the difficulty of catching up when you miss things? Is it still anxiety on many of our parts? Is it not a priority? Is it a combination of these things? Or is it something else altogether? I am now sitting in the lab in splendid isolation (not including Thom who is beavering away) and wondering where to next.

Quintessential Switzerland

2006-06-05T13:50:00.000-07:00

Quintessential Switzerland
Originally uploaded by keesingstyles.

I have just been trying out the different options and discovered I could 'blog this' in Flickr. So that is what I am doing.

2006-05-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

I am posting this for no other reason than that I am practising working my way around the various tools. I uploaded this on to flickr and now I have copied the image location and posted it in here to my blog. What am I doing? Is this me? What fun? I wish I had more time to do this and correspond with friends around the world.
I was here - at the Matterhorn, walking in the Swiss meadows. If you didn't know me as a kid you wouldn't know how meaningful that is. I always wanted to go here and last year I did.

Progress

2006-05-31T01:05:00.000-07:00

It is very easy to let the words roll off your tongue now. At the BoS today, I listened to Ray talk about Blogs, Flickr, RSS, Newsgator, Wikis etc as if they were words and concepts we had known forever. The words are easy. Some of the concepts are easy. Some are still complex and, while I can achieve some things independently, I am still not 100% clear about working my way painlessly and seamlessly around these. I can only assume that, like other technologies I have mastered in the past, it will become second nature with use. There is no doubt we've progressed enormously. But in helping Malcolm with some updates yesterday, I realised that I'm only just remembering some of the concepts. It is the use it or lose it concept.

At last

2006-05-29T01:58:00.000-07:00

After efforts to do this yesterday in Melbourne and on my work computer this afternoon, I can finally access it. It is very frustrating getting all these technology blocks to being able to do things. It seems to me to be server or cookie problems but I don't like being defeated by the technology. Every now and then I have been able to overcome the barriers and feel positive but then it kicks in again and I feel annoyed with it. That doesn't happen with the old pens and papers! I am looking forward to doing our revision tomorrow because it may give us the opportunity to find some ways of linking things together and working on a project.

Week three

2006-05-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

Hi All
Well what a morning that was. I have been keeping up - just - until this morning. You said it perfectly Ray. I managed to get to the end of the session but I felt like I was just 'going through the motions' without a full understanding of what I was doing. I understand what we were doing and why but I'm not sure I will be able to repeat it all in the comfort and safety of my own home. We will wait and see. I think it is perfect that we will do a revision session next week and bring Malcolm up to speed. That will be an excuse for me to catch up too. I do think it is fab though that we are all struggling and support each other.

Malcolm

2006-05-15T14:18:00.000-07:00

malcolm
Originally uploaded by keesingstyles.

Even in Canada Malcolm is a member of the team.

Linda

2006-05-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

linda
Originally uploaded by keesingstyles.

This is a member of our delightful team

Week Two

2006-05-15T13:38:00.000-07:00

Hi Team
Well here we are on week two and it seems we have all encountered some difficulties with remembering what we did last week and what the links were and which page we were on and which site we were on and who we are and ... ! It is a bit of a minefield for the novice but lots can be found out by playing around. I remember when I first starting using computers I was terrified to do things in case the computer crashed or I lost information. Years on it is easier to play around without that fear and know that, generally, nothing drastic will happen. However, it can be frustrating when we can't remember. Interruption imminent - come back later.

Hey what progress!

2006-05-09T22:32:00.000-07:00

Hi Team
Well what an awesome morning we had going from zero to the achievement of a whole heap of personal blogs. Even when we met for the first time last week and shared our ideas about why we were technological dummies and wanted to be delights, I certainly had no idea that so soon into the journey I would have my own blog and the capacity to talk to others. It is awesome that we can now talk to each other through this particular technology and record our journey and our reactions. It is equally awesome that others have the capacity to look in on us too. I must get my kids to have a look at our blogs so I can show them I can do this stuff. I remember years ago when I showed them my first tentative attempts at powerpoint and they said 'yeah... we do that at school (primary school!!) and I was so demoralised! I don't think they've blogged. I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to learn and to take some time out of the busyness of the day to progress my own thinking and learning.

My Pikkie

2006-05-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

Day One

2006-05-09T14:46:00.000-07:00

This is my first visit to a blog and it is my own one! How extraordinary. I am part of a wee group who are upskilling in technological skills and the creation of this blog is a communication tool for us to keep in touch and record our progress. I've heard all about blogs but never been to one so I find this amazingly exciting. I can't wait to develop my skills in this area and to keep a record of my journey.