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A Blog about Blogs.
I've never been much of a writer and I still don't like to write though I'm much better at it now than I was doing Civil War assignments. I don't think it's just writing either because I tend to be a quiet person when gathered around people and often have a hard time jumping in. Sometimes by the time I've collected my thoughts the conversation has moved to another universe. Mostly it's a matter of I don't have (or think I have) anything important or exciting to share or start a verbal or written conversation about.
I've been OK with writing this blog because it's something I have to do. Time will tell if I will continue this or create another one when this program is over. I'll probably try to continue this one to maintain a professional presence. If I were actively teaching I would most certainly have one for my courses/classes. I think I will need to find my voice for a blog. What is it that I know well? I'm good at How-To's but for me to do this sort of thing I wouldn't be satisfied unless I could fill an empty niche. No need to be redundant.
Another thing about blogging as well as following blogs is the time I spend at the computer. A lot of the work I do is on the computer. Working on this program I'm on the computer. I'm already on the computer enough as it is. I don't have the time right now to invest in actively interacting professionally with Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Linked In, Diigo and the like. I'm also not a very networking kind of a guy. I know I should change this but it's not going to happen at the moment. As for following Blogs and getting feeds, I just haven't done it yet but know I should probably give it a try. I usually don't have much of a problem finding things that I'm looking for on the Internet and quite often I get to meandering and find cool things by chance. I suppose the chances of finding interesting things are a bit greater if you follow a trusted or favorite source.
And as like always, I wish I was actively involved with teaching or training so I could begin to share the wealth. School audit coming up. Nope no time for my teachers. My posts for the reading of Will Richardson's Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts were a bit skeptical about how well blogging would work with a lot of the students at my school but I'd still love to have my teachers give it a go. But first I'd have to get them blogging.
No Cost to You Information for Free:
Actually, I saw this perchance on my Google+, right on top as the page opened. I didn't peruse anything but it was just in my face. I want one!
USB stick size computer. FXI Cotton Candy Android and maybe Ubuntu Linux. Plug into any monitor or TV with a USB or HDMI and you have a WIFI enabled computer. Will run in a separate window on any PC running OS X, WIN or Linux as well. Coming soon! $200.
Or how about this one? Raspberry Pi. A $25/$35 credit card size PC board. Vendors are anxiously awaiting final specs so they can build cases. It will run GNU/Linux and a few other open Source OSes. Sorry, no Windows yet as they don't have an OS for the ARM processor.
The product is intended for education, hence the price point. There is a lot of interest in this project and developers are working on software to make this thing ready to run for education. One of their main goals is to try to get a return to learning programming in schools. Since office productivity software came of age and now with Web 2.0, the focus has moved to learning how to use apps. They are working on getting the operating systems and available software geared towards programming. Of course you can use it for anything you would normally use a lightweight computer/tablet for.
Small but capable. Here's a video of it playing 3-D game Quake.
I keep thinking the same thing about whether I will continue blogging after this program is finished. I think it is possible if I can find the right topic. I could see starting a blog to document a large project at school like our attempt at 1:1 implementation next year. Doing it personally is way less likely for me - I've always been a critic of those Facebook/MySpace junkies and I'm even more critical of Twitter users. I am eager to see what ways this class suggests for using Twitter especially. As you mentioned, I think we all spend enough time in front of the computer. The last thing I need is another way to waste time on an electronic device and avoiding real human interaction.
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