Turnitin… or don’t *shrug*
Turnitin Controversy
CTL Blog
Meeting of the Minds (or the OS’s)
In my opinion, one of the reasons that George Lucas’ earlier Star Wars film efforts were so successful is because they portrayed his vision of a ‘used future’–one where its inhabitants weren’t totally amazed at the fact they were traveling by light speed in space ships the size of Texas. They just used technology because it was there. What part of this are we employing today? Which teaching and technology trends are here to stay and won’t evolve or degenerate because the future is here and now and we just use it without geeking out about it?
James brought to my attention that the folks at Apple are up to their old (but good) tricks again. They’ve released a new version of their Boot Camp software that allows MS Windows to run on their hardware. Newly added is support for Windows Vista. I anticipate there will be a day when we will be so used to technology that it won’t matter THAT much what OS (Operating System) a computer has on it. We will just walk up to technology and begin interacting with it. Bad technology will devolve and good technology will progress…much like natural selection in ecology.
Internet Explorer: Top Notch Browser?
Well… Microsoft Internet Explorer does it again! Today I was doing some work on some highly stylized HTML lists. I began to do my normal routine of looking at the web page in various browsers. Everything was looking great, but then came Internet Explorer 6! I noticed that it had placed quite a bit of extra space between each list item. Investigation started! (more…)
I’m Baaaaaaaack!
Yes indeed, your friendly “professional development guru” has returned from a crash course on motherhood. I enjoyed my 12 weeks of “mommy-time,” however, I’m ready to be back at work using my brain muscles for things other than just changing diapers and soothing a crying baby! That is hard work! With that said, I am open for business. To refresh everyone’s memory about what I do here, I’ve compiled a quick list: (more…)
Blogging the conference life…
Fantastic use of blogs for education…tracking your movement through the maze of an academic conference session. “Walk” with Shelley Rodrigo, MCC faculty of English, this week as she attends and documents her experience at the CCCC conference.
Piratey Version of Martin’s Post
I’ve worked with Martin for almost 8 years now (gee I’m not that old), and when we shared office space and were working on some project together occassionally he’d slip into frustration with a growl that went something like “Arggh!!” — Just like a pirate. So anyway for lack of other material to post, and in honor of his style of getting things done under frustration at times, I ran his narrative blog post this week through the pirate talk translator: http://www.syddware.com/cgi-bin/pirate.pl
Read on to see how it sounds on paper…I can’t help but laugh 😀
Digital Content Expanding
A couple of recent articles about the amount of Digital Content in the world caught my eye…
Clean Sheet Day
So there I was… cold sweat running down my left cheek, tingling sensation in my lips, clammy hands, and freezing fingertips. A dim screen in front of me displayed details of the server startup procedures. There were many green “OK” messages scrolling up almost too quickly too read as the programs started up. Suddenly a red “FAILED” slid passed, then another, and another, and then the words that would make any sysadmin forget about all the sand is his shoes… kernel panic. (more…)
Software As a Service and Service With A Smile
More and more traditional desktop applications are finding ways of living on the web via the Web 2.0 hype. (Please bear in mind that I’m going with the flow of people who are classifying the next generation of web applications with this sometimes publicly scorned misnomer). What this means is that software that you normally have to purchase from a retail store contained in a shrink-wrapped box or download an installer file from a website can now be hosted by the developer on a web page. I suppose this is good and bad for a few reasons:
Windows Media In Mac OS X
I’ve not had a chance to fully play with this yet to see the implications, but what it does indicate is a move towards media that just works regardless of your platform of choice. QuickTime, Flash, RealMedia, and Windows Media have been duking it out for a while now. Microsoft is now providing free of charge a component you can download that allows Mac users using QuickTime as their player of choice to be able to play Windows Media Files. It’s actually made by a company called Flip4Mac and you can purchase their full version if you want to CREATE WMV files on your Mac. (more…)