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Author Archives: Rochelle

My parents, caught on Google Streetview

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Max and Rochelle’s Day Out

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
Testing animoto with some pictures of the day me and Max when to Toronto Island.

Google Bingo

As part of my job this year, I have taken on the task of delivering six emerging tech sessions for library staff between October and March, one a month. The purpose of these sessions nominally to introduce the staff to interesting applications or uses of applications on the web, and then talk about them. I [...]

Anticipation

me: are you waiting with baited breath for the apple announcement tomorrow?
me: I swear they leaked those rumours to stir people up
Catspaw: actually, I suspect the media will have blown expectations out of proportions.
me: I’m expecting them to come out with a set of USB speakers or something
Catspaw: hehe
Catspaw: “But wait…there’s just ONE MORE THING……………… [...]

Teaching Twitter

Last Friday I did two sessions with library staff around Twitter. We’ve explored Twitter before, but it was two years ago, before the explosion of use. What I wanted to demonstrate was how people use Twitter in a conference setting. I find it so engaging to listen to something and process it through and with [...]

How to Create a Useful Social Network

The last time I took a written test, I found myself very frustrated. I was sitting by myself in a room, answering questions on a sheet of paper, cut off from the large network of people I have digitally gathered around me over the years. The questions were testing my knowledge, not how I could [...]

Laptops in the Classroom: A Dialogue

Below is an email exchange about laptops in the classroomI had recently with a friend of mine who teaches undergraduates in a university setting. I wanted to share it because I don’t know that we’re addressing these issues with faculty as effectively as we might; people like me, who work with collaborative applications and [...]

Getting rid of Email

I heard an episode of Spark on the radio just now talking about a fellow at IBM who opted out of email (sort of). Instead of replying to the constant stream of email, he uses appropriate social networks instead. I’m envious of this, because I really dislike email generally. I dislike it because of how [...]

The Surprising Science of Motivation

Dan Pink, “The Surprising Science of Motivation”.

This talk is about business models, but I was thinking about it from an education perspective. Carrots and sticks don’t work; faced with creative labour, giving a higher reward for better/faster work fails to produce better/faster work. Grading, then, is the wrong direction if you want to teach someone [...]

Libraries and Social Media

I’m all for social media, don’t get me wrong. Very much. I’m a big fan of and an advocate for things like Twitter and blogs and IM and all that. I follow social media I use social media, I recommend social media to others. However.
I don’t really understand the libraries and social media stuff. I [...]