Inner Dialogue

Posted by Debby at 12:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This video

led me to do a little more indepth research into a very serious disorder.

http://www.curecd.com/

Posted by Debby at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So on my way up the hill last night I get a call from Dan wanting to know if he can get the laptops from my office for a little project they are working on at his house. Sure I say. I trust Dan. He's a good guy. He actually reminds me a lot of Andy... gets that sheepish grin when he wants something that is hard to say no to. You know he's up to a little bit of mischief, but nothing to serious, so why not, right? lol. Gavin and I got back to the house around 8:30, gathered up a few things, and headed over to Dan's around 9. Dominick, Josh, Erik (the new guy... the linux guy), and Dan were all on machines working hard on trying to hack into a secure router (or "rooter" as Dan would say) on the table. Seriously, does it get any geekier than that? Breaking encryption codes, on machines booted with linux, just for kicks? As for me, I mostly played in Second Life and completely enjoyed observing the mental gymnastics that were taking place around me. I love being around people that you can see think, that have such passion and ethusiasm for the challenge of figuring something out, and that are able to have a great time doing it :)

Posted by Debby at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The world of design can be a ruthless one; not only do you spend most of your time pondering and tweaking minute details that most people find insignificant – and most likely won't even notice – you also get lured into developing anti-social habits like font-spotting and source-code peeping.
Geek

Learn to spot the warning signs in time
– you know you're becoming a design geek when:

1. You giggle whenever you use the colors F0CCED, EFF0FF and 44DDDD
2. You’re in the sun and you look around for a Drop Shadow to sit under.
3. You give your relatives a lecture about color spaces and profiles when you email them your vacation photos.
4. Seing someone use Lens Flare or Comic Sans adversely affects your blood-pressure
5. You maintain a grid system for your refrigerator magnets.
6. You organise your CD collection according to the Pantone chart.
7. You sit at work for eight hours straight just looking at your monitor, waiting for a spark of inspiration that doesn't come.
8. You're up 'til 5am because you came up with the best idea ever while brushing your teeth.
9. The hottest dream you ever had was "Trace contour... Find Edges... Pinch... Extrude... Smudge Stick... Motion Blur.... Sprayed Strokes..."

Continue reading "23 Signs That You're Becoming a Design Geek" »

Posted by Debby at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We took a break today while working on the KRV project to check out SL. A couple of the group hadn't been in there yet so they set up accounts and I brought all of us into the Obscure Sandbox where Dominick and I hang out a lot. One of my Pepp students, Leila Hawthorn (her SL name) was in there so she came over to meet us. It was fun watching the newbies play with editing their appearance, trying things out to get the virtual look they were after. I asked Leila is she could get the others over to Malibu Island and we all teleported over there.

It was a blast! They were like kids in a virtual candy shop. We ran (and flew) all over the island, played on the swings and merry-go-round, explored different buildings, and had a great time. In one place, we all were able to get a bunch of different hats, including an Indiana Jones hat, a magic bunny hat, an army hat, and a Pepperdine waves hat. When you put the hat on, music started to play, a different theme to match each one. We flew over to the other side of the island and found a castle in the sky. I teleported everyone up there and we played in the hot tub and then jumped around outside on the clouds. Joshua and Dom shared their Celtic Swords with everyone and somehow Josh discovered that he had a rocket launcher that set off a really cool rocket. He also found that he had a paintball gun and he started clobbering all of us. Ocho was messing around and somehow pushed me off the cloud so I went tumbling to the ground below. Ouch!

Pretty soon everyone came down and we found a dance floor. Ever see me break dance? It was so much fun. We did the chicken dance, the geek dance, some salsa thing, and who knows what else. Ocho flew up to a rooftop and we all followed, joining him on the treadmills for a group shot.

What I loved best is that everyone was exploring, discovering, pushing all the buttons, trying out all the options, asking questions, laughing, playing, learning... it was high energy, high octane fun!

l to r: Dom DaSilva, Ocho Nykvist, Montebear Baxter, Kilgore Antelope, Joshua Blackhawk

Posted by Debby at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone,

I would like to thank all of you for opening up your labs and taking the time to meet with my students. It is hard to put into words exactly what Friday meant to all of us. So often education is disconnected from the real world. Students bubble in scantrons, memorize dates without making connections to the larger themes, run through hundreds of math problems with no context or relevance to anything they are interested in. For many it becomes about what they need to do to pass the class and move on to the next one. For a lot of students, traditional education kills their curiosity and their desire to learn. That is a sad thing indeed.

I believe that education should be hands-on, should be relevant, and should be a process of self-discovery within the context of a community of learners. As I am sure most of you have experienced, there is nothing more exhilarating, after hours or days or weeks of wrestling with an interesting problem, than the "ah-ha!" moment when it all suddenly comes together and works. It's hard fun. It's purposeful play. My role isn't to give them everything I know (which would only take about 5 minutes!). My role is to set up the learning environment, give them the tools, and get out of their way. I strive to take away the boundaries of the impossible and to give them the opportunity to self-direct their own learning, mentoring others and being mentored by others along the way. When I do that, I am always, ALWAYS amazed at what they come up with.

Continue reading "A letter to our tour guides" »

Posted by Debby at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finally, the moment I have been waiting for all of my life has finally happened. The love of my life is strong, intelligent, handsome, creative, and gentle, ready to meet my every need. We communicate incredibly well and I love learning how to turn him on. Maybe if you are lucky you'll get a chance to meet my darling Mac. Yes Mac. Mac B. Pro. Everyone should be so blessed!

Posted by Debby at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

"The most important thing any teacher has to learn, not to be learned in any school of education I ever heard of, can be expressed in these words: Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of learners.” ~John Holt

One of the reasons I love teaching the types of students that I do is because I love to watch them think. When you put an interesting problem in front of them, you can actually observe the thinking process as they work through possible solutions. They work it out kinesthetically by manipulating real or envisioned objects, they verbally work through the problem through active discussion with peers, they think so hard that you can see the wheels turning by the look on their face.

That's all cool... but the part I like best is when they take an interesting problem and make it their own. That's when they start asking "what if" and "I wonder how" and say "let's try this". That's when they move beyond the problem in front of them to discover and solve other interesting problems. They are the ones that poke all the buttons just to see what they do. They put things together just to see if it works. Failure isn't a roadblock, it's a means of testing out a hypothosis, of gelling a theory in their minds. They aren't motivated by an external reward (ie: grade, although chocolate sometimes works!). They are motivated by the challenge of doing something they don't know how to do and by the thrill that comes from the discovery process of learning. How cool is that?

Posted by Debby at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I almost can't help it. Toss a new tech toy in front of me and I just have to play with it. Nevermind that I haven't even been in the shower yet! I saw the headline about wordpress.com hosted blogging and just had to check it out for myself - so here I am!

One of the things I didn't like about Blogger was the inability to create categories. That was a major limitation. Now I'll admit, I haven't played at Blogger for a while so maybe they have upgraded a few things since then (that will be my next stop). I do really like the flexible interface here and the full range of features available. The ability to upload and drag/drop images into the post is very nice. There seems to be some limitation on the ability to tweak the design, but most users aren't hard core geeks and will be happy with the available themes (although I can get into the post code and tweak to my heart's content). I also like the ability to create and organize static content pages not driven by the blog engine. That will make it easy for people to create a full-blown website around the blog. Very cool.

Ok, enough writing here. Time to go push the buttons some more to see what else it can do!

Posted by Debby at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A CEO with hotel chain A found himself having to spend a night in a hotel from hotel chain B. Naturally, he was very curious as to what kind of information systems they had, and resolved to keep an open eye for competitive use of IT. As he approached the reception for first time, the woman behind it smiled at him and said "Welcome back, Sir!"

Flabbergasted, he said "But...it is 12 years since I was here last! How could you know that I have stayed here before, what kind of advanced information systems do you have that can store and find the fact that I was here 12 years ago?"

"Well, it is really very simple", she said. "When the doorman opened the door to your cab, he asked if this was your first stay with us. You answered no, and as you walked through the door, the doorman looked at me through the window and touched his nose. That told me that you should be welcomed back...."

Moral of the story: Information systems don't have to mean information technology....

http://www.mcgeesmusings.net/2005/10/30.html#a4716

Posted by Debby at 7:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

See the Washington Post for more details:

10. VoIP's Big Leap: Vonage, Skype and other companies offering Internet telephone services proved in 2004 that the Web is about to revolutionize the century-old telecommunications industry.

9. Merger Mania: The technology sector went on an M&A binge in 2004, especially in the last three months.

8. iPod Nation: The iPod digital music player not only boosted Apple's bottom line in 2004, but also gave a big boost to the popularity of MP3 players and the commercialization of legal music downloads.

7. Pay-For-Play: As Apple succeeds in getting people to pay for music downloads, the underground world of swapping copyrighted material online continues to grow.

6. The Song in the Sky: It wasn't that long ago that it was an open question whether the two satellite radio companies -- XM and Sirius -- could lure enough customers to stay afloat.

Continue reading "The Year in Technology" »

Posted by Debby at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now that I have one, I don't know why I waited so long. It's making my life so much easier... why was I afraid to use it? It saves me a couple of steps and will make my bookkeeping much more streamlined. What is it? A check Visa card! I just love it... pulls $$ right out of my account. I can use it like a Visa to pay bills online, like a debit card to get cash back. Just log on to the bank and download the transactions to Quicken, and away I go! Lovin' it!

Posted by Debby at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is what I wrote for an essay today. I had not seen the topic before arriving for the interview. Note: I resisted the almost overwhelming urge to edit this just now. I just copied it here as written this afternoon.

You have 30 minutes to complete an essay on this topic: �Describe computer technology trends and their implication for the development of community college computer information systems curriculum.�

There are a number of computer technology trends that may impact the development of curriculum at the community college level. It is almost impossible to predict where computer technology will take us five years from now, but there are some emerging themes that seem to be strong and hold out promise for the future. Game and animation design, web database technologies, and the increase of wireless �anytime, anywhere� computing may challenge us to rethink how we are training students to become competitive in this fast changing field.

Continue reading "The Essay" »

Posted by Debby at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Came across Zempt on another blog and thought I'd try it out. It lets you create blog entries offline and post when you connect. I'm still trying to find where it lets you upload an image. I love little tools like this!

Posted by Debby at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As you can see, I am playing with the style again. It's something I like to do in my *spare* time ;) . It might take a day or two to work out all of the kinks. What do you think about this one?

Posted by Debby at 6:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

"Says Alan Cohen, a V.P. of Airespace, a new Wi-Fi provider: "If I can operate Google, I can find anything. And with wireless, it means I will be able to find anything, anywhere, anytime. Which is why I say that Google, combined with Wi-Fi, is a little bit like God. God is wireless, God is everywhere and God sees and knows everything. Throughout history, people connected to God without wires. Now, for many questions in the world, you ask Google, and increasingly, you can do it without wires, too."

Any idea how much I love this concept?

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/29/opinion/29FRIE.html

Posted by Debby at 4:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)