Monthly Archives: July 2007

Social Networking Videos

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I came across two wonderful videos about social networking this past week that I have shared elsewhere but want to keep on sharing, since I do believe that this wave of technology is still on the way up and is gaining more footholds every day.

Here is one in general about social networking from Common Craft folks:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/6a_KF7TYKVc" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

And here is one made by Chris Sloan, a Writing Project friend and fellow musician from Utah, about using Elgg networks in the classroom:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=5911907492375806153" width="400" height="326" wmode="transparent" /]

I’ll write more this week about my own forays into social networking (as a participant and as a creator).

Peace (with you, and you, and you …),
Kevin

What We Do Online

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This graph comes from a report in BusinessWeek and is kind of interesting to think about, particularly in terms of generational divides, but also in terms of the amount of time people are using to create their own content online.

(You will have to follow the link to see the actual graph — this one came out too small to read unless you wear microscopes for glasses)

Here is a link to the article itself.

Peace (in ever growing numbers),

Kevin

Back on the Grid

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I’m crossing my fingers here but I believe I have finally regained access to my Edublogs. It’s a long story that has to do with technical stuff that I don’t even understand but it seems to have been resolved (although now I see that James is doing more maintenance this weekend so I will hold my tongue).

Anyway, last week, I received my latest issue of Wired Magazine and, there, on the cover, was … me.

Back in February, the magazine had said it would personalize the July covers for the first 5,000 readers who sent in a photo. So, I did it, and then forgot all about it until it came in the mail last week. My sons were quite impressed and thought I was famous, although they could not figured out what Wired meant and why anyone would use that word for the name of a magazine.

It’s great to be back blogging again.

Peace (with consistency),
Kevin

Radio Silence

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It’s been days since I have been able to blog and even now, I had to move from my desktop to my laptop and tap into a neighbor’s wireless network. The updates to Edublogs by James, combined with some lack of updating the cache system through my Internet provider, has left me staring at error messages at my blog sites for the last week. I am still trying to get my provider to help me out and I hope for progress today. Ahhhh.

But it is strange — this desire to want to write and blog and share, and being unable to do so in a way that has become second nature and comfortable for me — via this blog site, and I miss it terribly. I don’t know why, but I do. I guess the daily act of writing and sharing and thinking has become part of my world in a very natural way, and so the disruption of technology in that process is a bit jarring for me.

So what have I been doing?

I’ve been touring through the Ning network a bit deeper, writing some poetry, and starting a self-publishing venture through Lulu — Later this week, I get a proof copy of a novella of a story called The Note Who Got Lost in the Masterpiece and a book of poems inspired by a vacation trip to the coast of Maine in 2004 that I published yesterday on Lulu. I don’t expect to get rich off this venture but at the very least, I want to have bound copies of my writing for my sons to have and be able to read, and think: my dad is a writer.

Plus, I need to start thinking of my claymation camp that starts next week. I began a blog for that camp to share the kids’ work (http://masswp.org/claycamp) with family and our network of teachers in the Western Mass Writing Project. Which reminds me — I need clay! And markers! and other materials!

Oh, and I began to use Bubbl.us concept mapping tool to conceptualize how the new blogs in our Massachusetts Writing Project network are interconnected. Here is my Map of the Blogs.

And finally — we are off to see the Boston Red Sox play ball on July 4 in Beantown on a mini-vacation (says the Yankees fan in a family of Red Sox lovers!)

Peace (with patience),
Kevin