Archive for November, 2009
I saw the deep blue pre-dawn sky before leaving the house, and watched it become engulfed in orange as I was riding along the Bow river valley in Silver Springs.
we had a belated anniversary dinner at a Moroccan restaurant. The tile work in the table was pretty intense.
a few months’ worth of pocket change, normally stored inside a glass bear peanut butter jar in an undisclosed location to protect my son’s inheritance.
Cateye Velo 5, and 53.5. Any morning where I can crank the bike over 50km/h is a good morning. I’m lucky to start my ride on a short downhill run, so I often get my top speed of the day within a block of leaving my house. This is nowhere near my top speed, but it’s still a fun number 
Jaymie Koroluk asked the twitterverse about the proper spelling of “eLearning”.
I responded back, a bit snarkily:
@jaymiek learning. There is no e.
It’s too much to describe in 140 characters. But I can’t stand the “e” in eLearning. (I can’t stand the “m” in mLearning, either.)
It’s just learning. The “e” is counter-productive. It forces people to focus on the technology. To see it as separate. As an isolated thing that must somehow be fit into the regular flow of teaching and learning.
Bullshit.
It’s all just learning. Technology can provide some pretty amazing affordances – the ability to handle larger scale open discussions, the ability to have every participant in a class to be content producers/consumers/collaborators, etc… Technology is important.
But it is not separate. Viewing it as a separate thing – eLearning/mLearning/whateverLearning – leaves it disjointed and fractured. A class has to shift gears to somehow begin dealing with the “technology section” of a lesson, before returning to the “real” learning. Focusing on “eLearning” pushes the incredible stuff that technology can do into some form of electronic/abstract ghetto.
My team at the Teaching & Learning Centre is often called in to various teaching programmes to provide a “technology session” – we do it grudgingly, knowing that the hour (or two) we’re given out of a week-long programme is likely the only real non-superficial integration of technology and discussion of pedagogy and implications. The “technology session” underscores the “e” in eLearning. The “e” as a separate thing that can be bolted on. A separate thing that is less important than the “real” learning that happens without the “e”.
I understand that “eLearning” is used as a shorthand, much like “Web 2.0″ is a shorthand for a constellation of properties and attributes rather than anything concrete. But, we need to stop treating technology as a separate thing, as something in addition to conventional teaching and learning.
Effective learning requires seamless application of appropriate technologies – or the lack thereof – and when this is done, the distinctions and segregation disappear. It’s just learning.
today’s @dailyshoot challenge was to shoot an everyday object as close as possible. This bike is both an everyday object, and an every day part of my life. this is as close as I could get with the 50mm lens.
unfortunately, I blew the focus on this shot – I must have moved after focusing, and at f/1.8 and that distance from the subject, even a mm or two will blow focus. dangit.
I just heard about TEDxYYC – an independently organized TED-like event to be held right here in Calgary. This should be awesome. I can’t wait.
I have no idea how many people will be able to make it. From poking around on the internets, it sounds like it might be held in the Karo warehouse, with room for ~100 folks. Possibly on Jan. 22, 2010.
If there’s anything I can do to help get TEDxYYC off the ground, count me in.
part of a photo walk I did for today’s dailyshoot project – “Let’s play around with composition. Give us your best rule of thirds shot. Make it obvious.”
the pedestrian crosswalk between Biological Sciences and Social Sciences, leading to the C-Train station
the last rays of sunrise tint the remnants of the chinook’s standing front.