zhè gè & nèi gè

A little of this and a little of that.

BTW, the photo has nothing to do with anything. It's just a pretty tree that I saw in a cemetery in Mt. Pilot, NC. (actually Pilot Mountain).

Catching up on my blog reading now that I'm back home. Here are a few of the gems:

Recommended add-ons for Firefox 2 from TechCrunch

Web 2.0 tools for classroom use by Solution Watch. The link is for Part One and then there are links for Part Two (web office) and Part Three (blogs, wikis, photos, video, etc.) on the right side of the page.

Web Accessibility article from the BBC. If Target Corp can get sued by a blind student for not being able to shop at their website, what makes us think that we won't be sued for inaccessible web courses? That's one reason why I've made an issue about this (again) lately.

At the MnSCU CAO/Dean meetings this past week I was again opining that the Cluetrain Manifesto should be required reading for all higher ed administrators. I found a little video where one of the authors David Weinberger talks about the common misconceptions that people hold on to about the conversations that the book promotes as essential.
"(Cluetrain stuff:) We've confused building a business with building a fort. The walls try to control customers/ employees/ partners by controlling the flow of information. But the Net has knocked those walls down." (From Weinberger's blog)

Would you buy fabric if you couldn't sell the clothes that you made from it? This is a good example of how the whole idea of property (intellectual or otherwise) is getting totally convulted. This whole flap is just another example of the whole World is Flat discussion. One person posts an opinion about something and soon the whole blogosphere is chiming in and choosing sides. That's much more fun than having the discussion at the local coffee shop with three uninformed patrons. Thanks to Stephen for the heads up on this one.
Cory Doctorow's original post at Boing Boing
Response from the fabric seller
A rant from a culture author who appears to have a very interesting book.
Another rant from a fiber expert (check out the comments for much more fun)

Thanks to Wesley for a pointer to the Persuasion Map for helping students write an essay.

I'll be checking out Toufee ASAP for making flash video and presentation files for free.

Lastly, a tip of the cap to the excellent blog Creating Passionate Users by Kathy Sierra. Her post titled "Better Beginnings: how to start a presentation, book, article..." is really good. Her points of not starting at the beginning and not starting with the history are right on target. I had the good fortune of missing a session at the CIT where one of my friends said the presenter spent the first 20 minutes telling all about herself and her school. OMG!! You have to wonder how many people walked out during that 20 minute period. I would have after about five minutes.