I’m paraphrasing, but I received these three requests today via Twitter direct messages, leading variously to an email, an instant message conversation and a Google Doc.
Can you guess which I responded to?
Request 1
You know someone I know. I’m a teacher and we’re trying to do xyz – we’ve tried everything, asked our techies and we’re stumped. Could you help?
Request 2
Doug, I know you’ve said recently on Twitter that you don’t like doing what I’m about to ask, but I’m going to ask anyway. Could you pimp xyz for me? It replicates the functionality of one of the biggest websites in the world but it’s OK because there’s a competition. Perhaps you could add it to ‘Things I Learned This Week’?
Request 3
Can I twist your arm to join in a conversation next week? Here’s a link…
<follows link to Google Doc>
Here’s the plan: I’m asking a bunch of people I know and respect write a guest post each around topic xyz, also posting it on their blog to start a conversation. I won’t edit your post because I trust you.
Guessed yet?
There’s a website I check every morning after a quick scan of my emails and Twitter @’s and DMs. Yep, before I even find out if the world’s still there (via BBC News or, more likely, newsmap.jp on our touchscreen kitchen PC) I head over to Techmeme. If you haven’t seen it before, go and have a look now. We’ll wait for you. 😉
This morning I woke up to find an interesting juxtaposition of stories relating to the Apple iPad. Notwithstanding rumours of a 7-inch iPad in the works (hastily dismissed by John Gruber) the following couple of stories would make it seem like now is the time to get yourself an iPad:
What does this mean in practice? The ability to play almost any kind of media on the iPad, along with the long-awaited (potentially ‘killer app’) fully-fledged Google Docs.
Awesome.
But wait! What about the iPad naysayers? Those who say that it’s not neutral and that it’s only good for two things? My reply: no technology is neutral, nor is the language we use to describe things. There is no purely objective view/standpoint from which to judge anything. And as for the iPad only being good for two things? See above. 😉
A more salient point might be that this is v1 of the iPad. Although it marks almost a paradigm shift in computing, think of the original iPhone in comparison with what came after. Getting an iPad now, only for v2 with a ‘retina display’ and a front-facing camera to be launched after Christmas would be frustrating to say the least…
Ever since I read Matt Mullenweg’s post How P2 Changed Automattic I’ve been thinking about how I could best utilise a similar system. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch this video:
But then it dawned on me this morning: there’s no reason I couldn’t use such a system for private, me-only stuff!
As E-Learning Staff Tutor last year and as Director of E-Learning this year, I’ve been keeping a record of what I’ve been up to. This is as much about me being able to cross-reference stuff as proving to others (if needed) that I’ve been fulfilling my role. Up until now I’ve been using Google Docs, which looks like this:
Now, however, with WordPress, the P2 theme and a plugin called Absolute Privacy, I’ve got a close, web-based system that should hopefully be a lot more flexible and powerful:
We’re discussing productivity for educators tonight at EdTechRoundUp‘s weekly meeting. Why not join us? I’ll post my reflections on this system next week! 😀
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