Steaming Ahead

Been a busy old week, with moments of panic and worry about whether I was ever going to be able to see the end of my project. A really useful strategy for coping with this was simply standing up and walking away from it doing something else for a while, rather than ploughing on, when I could no longer see the wood among the trees. I have enjoyed also working on my writing early in the morning, I don't think I am any fresher, just less clouded by other things. Anyway long story short the end is in sight .... (or is it the beginning?) I have forwarded the project so far to my tutor for review, and am now contemplating the concluding chapter. It will be great to have this in a draft form by our meeting on Tuesday, and the promise that all that remains is the final edit, the aesthetics and delivery to the binder.

Today I'm off to somewhere I have been intending to visit for some time. I fancy a ride on the train, and the ride out of Bristol Eastbound, through Brunel's manufactured landscape is quite picturesque. It seems only fitting that this should form the start of my visit to Steam, the Great Western Railway Museum in Swindon.

Lots of folk have been talking about Photosynth over the last week or so too, so maybe I could use my visit not only to learn a little more about the great man and the people who built and worked on "God's Wonderful Railway," but also to frame a Photosynth project. There are a couple of things I want to write about on my Teaching and Learning Blog too, As well as completing the Podcast Series I have begun, I want to get some work done with the Disgo Camera I picked up at the beginning of the holiday, and file conversions for the Podcast Series. Steaming ahead to these I need some context and content, and today will be a chance to play as well.

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Glastonbury Radio | broadcasting LIVE from the mystical Isle of Avalon Index via kwout

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I'm just going out...

and I maybe sometime. I know I have to write today, and that I really need to imerse myself if I'm going to get this thing finally cracked. I think I have everything I need, but now need to reorganise it, and to trim off the fat. Where to go for inspiration?

Pondering a visit to Glastonbury or Wells with perhaps an amble over to Street, before returning home and plugging myself in for the remainder of the day. Glastonbury has a strangely magnetic appeal, and for some reason at times like this, when I am struggling to hold and put together ideas seems to exert an enormous attraction. Well looks like that resolved that one. A visit to Glastonbury it is, camera and phone in hand. Landscapes and Twitpics to share.

Podcast Challenge Project: Learning is playing too!

In between writing and reviewing my dissertation project I have been uploading and writing about the podcast station I started to set up last weekend, and the process I went through in making it. I am hoping it makes sense to the folk who are reading it, and that it is proving useful. It is really important to me to be able to show and demonstrate how I am always learning new things. I feel it is really important for the folk I work with to see that things don't always come easily, and for my students to see that the things I learn about often come from my willingness to play and perseverence.

Guided Interaction

Loving this idea as defined in the Plowman and Stephen paper I have been reading today. The notions of proximal and distal aspects to this concept fitting very closely with the ideas I have been struggling to express.

Pondering

Reading a paper By Lydia Plowman and Christine Stephen from the Interplay Project. Really interesting stuff!

This Morning I Have Been Mostly..

Setting up gear delivered by my new ISP. This was to be a yesterday job, as I sat in all day waiting for the bits and bobs to arrive. The equipment however was a no show. I did spend the waiting time fruitfully, honest, rearranging furniture in my study and having a general clear out. This has been a long time coming, my filing system generally appearing archaelogical with items organised by their position in a geological timeline, rather than alphabetised or even by size.. nothing quite so organised. Everything now looks much more organised. Anyway long story short, thinking the time had passed for the equipment to arrive I gave up the waiting game and decided to pop out for the evening. Surprise of my life then, when at 11.30pm a neighbour knocked and delivered what I had been waiting for all day, apparently arriving by "White Van" round 9. I thought she meant in the morning, "How could this be?" I had been in all day, but no 9.00pm.

Anyway this morning as I said has been spent setting up. I managed also to grab an hour to chat with a friend I hadn't spoken to in ages, and to download some reading I need to do to start the missing chapter in my research project. Now that everything is more or less set up what is proving really cool, is sitting in the garden, to write this post. Its time to go now though and get started with what I really should be doing.

Domestic Bliss

Spent this morning writing, and have the mainstay of 2 chapters in a really solid draft form, or at least so I think. Need to revisit and tie together chapters 2 and 3, before redrafting the introduction and drafting the concluding chapter.

By 2 this afternoon I had had enough, so have spent the best part of the afternoon in a state of absolute domestic bliss (NOT!!) Ironing, vacuuming, cleaning the kitchen; throwing in a spot of online housekeeping too clearing out online mailboxes and downloading half completed blog posts. Now for some tea and a recline in front of the TV.

Setting Up A Podcast Station

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The Buzz

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The Buzz

Setting up a new podcast station for use with my students and as a model for colleagues using:

• Blogger Blog.
• A Flash based Audio Player from Alsacréations.
• Feed from Feedburner
• Files Hosted on School FTP Space

Playing With Another MP3 Player From John

Playing with an Embeddable Flash MP3 Player for my Blog

I found the source code for this Odeo based MP3 Player on the Unofficial blog called the Google Operating System Blog easy enough to install. Copy and paste the code to your blog post, delete the entire [MP3 file address] and adding the URL where the file is located, and publish your post. This player has also been reduced in height by reducing the height parameter in the code from 42 to 22.

I Pondered Lonely as a Cloud

Have spent a couple of hours in the outdoors rereading drafts of my dissertation. I am becoming concerned that what I am writing does not do justice to the semiotic significance and textual role that ICT tools seem to play in the learning spaces I have spent so much time observing. Have I missed the point, I don't think so, since this has been at the heart of my thinking throughout the writing process? So what is it that has me so concerned? Perhaps I am beginning to see a lack of clarity in my description of the links I think can be evidenced between the dynamic role of onscreen feedback and the role of talk and gesture in mediating and supporting student learning in the spaces that evolve around the ICTs. Enjoying a coffee and a spot of wireless access in a local hostelry, my Asus and Ping as company.

playing with comiqs

playing with Comiqs from twowhizzy on Comiqs

Flickr CC Search Toy

Playing with John Johnstone's Flickr CC search toy. This tool searches for images on Flickr, and cleverly generates embed code including attribution information for the image. This photograph of the Angel of the North, is attributed to Paul Cocker, and has been embedded here using example code generated using John's tool.

Photo by pauldcocker
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

Just love the image Paul.

Today I Have Been Mostly Tidying Up and Watching TV!?*

Today I have been organising and synchronising some files on the computer. I have been transfering my albums from vinyl and tape to MP3 for the past few months. I converted most of my CDs ages ago, but in the process the files are saved and stored all over the place, some on the laptop, some on the PC and some on a pair of portable hard drives. Today I wanted to try to get them all in one place. In between the PC doing its thing, I have been a smidge domesticated, tidying my study, vacuuming the floor and watching the odd episode from season 1 of Star Trek Enterprise. I love blobby days, I just don't seem to have enough of them.


Image Source: episodeguides.com

NG Photograph of the Day 02/08/08

Image Credit: National Geographic

Planning a Train Ride Home

Spent a couple of hours, looking at and comparing train fares on the web, and chatting with mum about spending a few days in Northumberland. Am still gobsmacked that two single train tickets to make up a return journey, can cost half the price of a return ticket. How did that happen? Travelling home on the train means a more leisurely journey, being able to watch the world go by and should also be able to get some writing and editing done on the way. Would be good to have a couple of chapters ready to email to my tutor by the time I hit the Central Station.

Picture Credits
Virgin Trains (Top Left)
University of Newcastle (Bottom Right)