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Blogrush phase 2 is active October 31, 2007

Posted by Andy Roberts in : internet, blogs and community, web2.0 , add a comment

After testing my patience for a little too long, Blogrush phase 2 is now active. This means that the silly “under construction” notice has gone from the dashboard and been replaced by some nice graphs and stuff. To me, the statistical charts seem pretty self explanatory but blogrush members are urged to watch a rather long screencast video which explains it all, feature by feature, and promises some more future developments.

blogrush.jpeg

So rather than take the blogrush widget off from this blog, as I was getting close to doing this week, I decided to keep it for a further extended trial period, in fact I’m almost impressed with some of the extra thougt which has now gone into this service. If you have a blog which is focussed on a particular niche topic, then you may have some considerable success in attracting new readers through this widget, so if you haven’t already, you can sign up to blogrush here and become part of my extended referral network.

Backtracking: I first wrote about blogrush on September 16th in mybloglog romlet or blogrush and Linda also wrote blogrush or blogroll

A useful wiki for sharing education resources October 27, 2007

Posted by Andy Roberts in : edublog, Wiki , add a comment

usefulwiki.com LogoAnnouncing Usefulwiki.com - a useful wiki site for sharing educational resources and exploring the use of internet communications for informal learning in educational settings. The site began life as a partnership effort between myself Andy Roberts and Linda Hartley earlier this year, and now it’s beginning to pick up a bit of attention, so we feel it’s the right time to gently launch it into the wider world. Of course there are already some sites providing educational resources of sorts, some by subscription, some pay per download and some for free. Some even ask for submissions but Usefulwiki is the only one which encourages the education sector to submit resources for immediate publication and peer review, without having to wait for some IT, sales or Town Hall person to get around to updating the website.

useful wiki primary modern foreign languages page

It’s a wiki, just like wikipedia but it’s not an encyclopedia. It’s for putting online and organising educational resources, links, plans, pictures, video, writing, pdfs - anything that might be useful to others in education. For teachers, teacher trainers, teaching assistants, learning mentors, parents, school students, ed psychs, sencos - anybody involved in the process of teaching and learning somewhere.

Why would anybody want to give away their hard gathered resources? Well we know there are some who prefer to hoard their knowledge and keep it to themselves, but there are also certainly many others who see nothing but benefits all round to putting digital materials together, available to everyone, for the betterment of education practice worldwide. Thousands of people collaborate to put important information as well as trivia onto the wikipedia, so why not spread the collaboration ethic to the world of learning as well. Those who share will also learn better how to collaborate online, which will stand them in good stead for the emerging world of e-learning which is where a lot of people think the future lies.

So what’s on the Usefulwiki so far?

It’s also the home of the award winning classroom displays blog and is definitely in it for the long term.

So if you are, or know somebody who is involved in schools, or cares about education then please point them at the usefulwiki.com, where they can make a good mark from the beginning, and don’t forget to bookmark the site, and maybe stumble, digg, del.icio.us, magnolia it etcetera along with this announcement if you think it’s worth it. Thankyou.

WordPress for Dummies October 23, 2007

Posted by Andy Roberts in : wordpress , add a comment

Newly written and available for ordering now (out Monday 29th October 2007) is Wordpress for Dummies - and no, it isn’t all about blogspot.

“Create a hosted, self-hosted or multi-user blog, explore plugins and more”

So who is the author, Lisa Sabin-Wilson? According to the flier, Lisa operates E.Webscapes Design Studio, where she designs and develops blogs foe clients large and small. She has worked with WordPress since 2003 and speaks frequently at conferences. But never mind that where is her own blog?

It’s here: Justagirlintheworld.com

Back to WordPress for Dummies, it promises to show you how to:

Hopefully not by listing all the options and going through the menus item by item.

Cool. First find out what is meant by a “template tag”, then which are the common ones, then let’s try and understand them. Sounds like an advanced option which should come much later than some of the others below, or else a problem with nomenclature. The word “tag” is problematic where WorPress is concerned in a number of contexts.

Manage comments? Ok.

That’s all the basic covered then. Find, choose, download and enhance themes perhaps?

Ah the template tags again. So this is a dummies guide to PHP hacking as well, then.

The more the merrier.

It sounds well worth the ten and a half quid for WordPress for Dummies doesn’t it, or I believe there is also a download version. Obviously all of the information in the book can also be found through trawling the web, countless blogs and forums about wordpress but sometimes it’s useful to have a visual quick jump into a topic. Here’s the amazon link again:
WordPress For Dummies® (For Dummies)

Explaining the crack at Tate Modern Museum London October 21, 2007

Posted by Andy Roberts in : Art, video, London , 8comments

Explaining the crack

People walk up and down along the length of the crack, and sometimes they cross it. Bending over and peering down into the abyss is popular too. Children like to walk with one foot on each bank of the gorge, like giants playing at trains. Those with a logical literal nature are puzzling out loud as to how the crack was constructed. Some are chatting about other times in other worlds, not really conscious of the art, but still acting and behaving in a manner which betrays a spatial awareness of it. A couple holding hands over the crack, whilst ambling down to the end and back, like a promenade along the seashore. Shibboleth

Doris Salcedo’s “Shibboleth”

This is Doris Salcedo’s “Shibboleth”, the latest in a series of memorable, grand modern art installations in the enormous Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, London. The first in the series being Louise Bourgeois with the huge enclosed spiral staircase sculptures, and another famous one being Olaf Eliasson’s “The Sun”. What all of these installations have in common, apart from being huge and important works of art, is the way in which the audience participates in the art. Watching the way that people interact with it is as much a part of the experience at Tate Modern as is appreciating the art itself.
LouiseBourgeois

Tate Modern Museum of Modern Art, London

The Turbine hall is immense, and that makes it a specific challenge for each of the artists in the Unilever series. One tried to fill it with sound, and failed in my opinion. Another with white cubes, an intriguing effort. The crack is almost as effective as the Sun for initiating strange behaviours in the London mob, although the extent to which the artist’s intention to say something about the foundations of imperialism and racism is achieved is anybody’s guess.

I took some short video clips which just happened to capture one man amongst many waving his arms about explaining the crack in belgian. There are other things going on in it as well, but he is clearly the star performer. Watch:

Blog Action Day - individual action is not enough October 15, 2007

Posted by Andy Roberts in : blog action day, blogs and community , 29comments

Today is Blog Action Day which means that lots of bloggers will be writing on one general topic for one day in an attempt to see what might be achieved through coordinated posting, and I am one of them so my humble contribution amongst the hundreds of thousands is entitled “individual action is not enough”.

The topic for this year’s blog action day is “the environment”.

“Bloggers Unite - Blog Action Day”

The idea of bloggers mass action as a concept is not yet proven by any means, but it’s certainly worth participating if only for the “blog carnival” effect but it’s also quite possible that a critical mass of blog posts on one single day will have some sort of lasting effect which cannot be exactly anticipated in nature, but will almost certainly be different to the normal flow of conversations in the blogosphere.

The aim is to push an issue onto the table for discussion, the issue being “the environment”.

If I have time, I shall attempt to synthesise between the idea of thousands of bloggers uniting to take visible action for one day, and the type of uncoordinated individual action which is most usually promoted as the best means to deal with environmental issues. I’m not sure I’ll be able to pull that off though, and I may just end up quoting from a book review which I read recently which puts it very well:

He criticises Tim Flannery for his emphasis on individual action to stop global warming.

Pearse writes: “The reality is that even if every Australian totally eliminated their residential emissions it would not result in significant absolute cuts in Australia’s emissions; by 2050 emissions might rise by 60% instead of by 70%…the changes we make at the personal level would account for at best 20% of the change required.”
…
High and Dry is the best book yet written on the climate change debate in Australia – especially because of its emphasis on the dominant role of industry in doing the polluting. Strongly recommended

So apart from the odd personal post about the song thrush in my own garden, how does ‘distributed research’ relate to the environment? Well I can think of many ways, not least of which is the subject of home working which I have been writing about for some time. Home working or telecommuting is hugely beneficial to the environment in terms of energy, materials, carbon emissions and congestion but of course it will take a major transformation in the economy before homeworking can become an option for more than a small minority of people who happen to work in the “information” industries. The technology already exists for a low impact economy to be viable without loss of quality of life, indeed it will be greatly improved, but first there is a mountain of vested interest in the status quo which needs to be shifted and for that, individual action is not enough. There needs to be a fundamental policy change, which in turn requires a thorough regime change on all political and economic levels. Taking steps towards bringing about these political changes are the only actions which will actually make any progress towards the eventual rescue of the planet. Changing the bathroom light bulb, all by yourself, and then feeling better about it may on the other hand, be a step towards allowing the present system to continue on its path of anarchic destruction of everything.

Blog action day is a form of collaborative mass action, even if it only consists of writing. The important thing is that the mass action can become self-conscious. The online equivalent to being able to feel the strength of a quarter of a million people in Trafalgar Square will be the results of tracking thousands of posts tagged with the words “blog action day”, the recognition and mutual commenting which will go on between bloggers, and the continuation of the developing conversation for days and weeks after Bog Action Day is over.

London Weekend Breaks - Shadowlands October 12, 2007

Posted by Andy Roberts in : London Weekend Breaks, London theatre breaks , 1 comment so far

Following on from the idea of theatre breaks in London, weekend breaks are slightly trickier when you work all through week and need to unwind fast. My suggestion therefore is to sneak away as early as possible on the Friday, arriving in plenty of time to get settled in at the hotel and then go out and see something light and uplifting such as one of the popular comedies or musicals. Spamalot, Chicago, Lord of the Rings, Cabaret, Mama Mia, Fiddler on the roof etcetera. You can book the musical, hotel and train tickets all in one go to save a packet. Shadowlands Then on the Saturday afternoon or evening, if you are a true theatre lover then why not take in a second show, perhaps a serious play this time. Just opened for example, is Shadowlands.

Shadowlands at the Wyndhams

Shadowlands is a serious play about the life of author C.S.Lewis and his relationship as an older man with Joy Davidman, an American poet. It’s an extraordinary love story which is both moving and intense, somewhat tragic but also uplifting on some level. The film version won a BAFTA and the West End play is a rare treat, showing only from now until the 15th of December, 2007 having opened on the 3rd of October.

Wyndhams TheatreWyndhams Theatre is one of the grandest of the old West End theatres, which are all grade II listed buildings, both exterior and interior, on the Charing Cross Road, near Leicester Square tube station.

Guardian Review:

“I found myself more moved this time round than by the 1989 production: partly because it is rare now to find a West End play that addresses the issue of mortality, and partly because of the quality of the acting.
…this is a play about a man whose Christian faith is severely tested”

Blogger Lloyd Davis enjoyed it enough to twitter about it afterwards:

Lloyd is home having thoroughly enjoyed Shadowlands at the Wyndham’s.

Matinee theatre performances

The main performance is at 7.30pm but there are matinees at 2.30pm on Thursdays and Saturdays. If one were to book the Saturday matinee in advance therefore, or else chance being able to pick up same day tickets, then that might fit in perfectly. A full programme of theatre, comfort and sightseeing to make truly stimulating London weekend breaks with Saturday night still free for relaxing around town and Sunday afternoon to begin making a leisurely path homewards.

Theatre Breaks

The evolution of language October 11, 2007

Posted by Andy Roberts in : theory , add a comment

I can’t help feeling there’s something of possible significance outside of the field of linguistics in the findings of this research into the evolution of Indo-European language patterns.

Mindhacks: Following the evolution of language

The researchers found that the more frequently the a verb is used in the language, the less quickly it becomes regularised in the language.

A similar technique was used in a study by Mark Pagel and colleagues, who found that in Indo-European languages, the more frequently a word is used the less likely it is to be replaced.

This pattern, which applies in the evolution of species as well as language and in other complex systems such as markets and technologies is that the mainstream populations are more stable, almost calcified, whilst innovation takes place more rapidly at the edge, together with higher attrition rates of course.

Scarlett Johansson in Chicago rumours October 11, 2007

Posted by Andy Roberts in : randomness , 1 comment so far

It seems there is absolutely no truth at all in the rumour that Scarlett Johansson is going to replace Kelly Osbourne in the London Theatre production of Chicago. I mean, where do these ideas come from?

EBay paid too much for Skype October 8, 2007

Posted by Andy Roberts in : Community , 2comments

Good news for those of us who held out against the movement towards skype as a platform for internet discussions. The great promise of skype was to enable people who like telephones to carry on using something in the same way, whilst pretending it’s got something to do with online community and web2.0.  It hasn’t.  The whole point of the eBay marketplace is that it’s asysnchronous and searchable, which of course telephone chats are not.

eBay says it paid almost $1bn too much for Skype
eBay has admitted it paid far too much when it bought internet telephony company Skype for $2.6bn (£1.28bn) in 2005.

The web auction company said it was writing down the value of Skype. It is also paying $530m to several former Skype shareholders including founder Niklas Zennstrom, who is stepping down as chief executive.

This payout is significantly less than the $1.7bn that eBay could have handed over to former shareholders if Skype had hit various targets. When it bought the business in September 2005, eBay claimed it would integrate its web telephony services with its own online auction site.

Analysts speculated that buyers and sellers could use Skype to contact eBay customer services or talk to each other. This could have encouraged more people to use Skype.

The idea of reproducing the telephone network as a substitute for asynchronous computer enabled communications was always a retrograde step, a non starter. Use Skype to save a few pounds when you would have used expensive international phone services to call your relatives or colleagues overseas. Don’t use it to short-circuit community discussions or to invite favoured individuals into a subset of the conversation.  Some people enjoy having the opportunity to talk at others, but that doesn’t anybody really wants to let themselves in for listening to sound of their voices for an extended period with no fixed end and no useful record of what was said.

SearchCoP: a Yahoo group October 7, 2007

Posted by Andy Roberts in : COP , 2comments

This may be of interest to at least two different sections of my readership. Those interested in search engines, intranets, and those who care about communities of practice.

I wonder how many practice communities would include the acronym “CoP” in the group name though, apart from the meta ones. But why not.

SearchCoP: a Yahoo group about intranet search « interviews with content managers and other IT professionals
SearchCoP: a Yahoo group about intranet search
October 6th, 2007

In June 2007, Seth Earley and Avi Rappaport founded the Search Community of Pracitice (SearchCoP) Yahoo Group