thomas leverett weblog

Monday, March 23, 2015

Excited about Toronto

Webheads in Toronto
Electronic Village webcasts (wish I could make one?)
blog festival, other events
TESOL blog

Friday, May 23, 2014

May report

So what have I been doing with my life? Several things. My semester of work is over here; I worked half-time, partly in an ITA class, and partly in the University Writing Center, but I will teach full-time in the ITA Workshop in mid-July, so that counts to bring my appointment up to the 3/4 time I am paid for. What is annoying about working half-time is that whenever you teach anything, your worrying expands to fill up the space, so you might as well be working full-time, because you're worrying full-time. I try to put time into other things, and do; I've been writing, I've been working on my music, but above all, we have two new children and have to fit them into our family routine, and this has all been quite draining. I turned 60, and some days, I feel very old.

But, before I give up, I have a couple of things I want to do. I've been collecting essays about acquisition, and I'm thinking of publishing them. I've also been writing about language as a self-organizing system, and I want to collect that writing as well. These, as I envision them, are two separate books, hopefully published this year, as I've already done the vast majority fo the writing. The first has this running title: O to be estar: Essays on language acquisition. The second has this running title: Language as a self-organizing system. That second title is rather boring; it might need some work. But that's where it stands. These are both collections of writing that put my work out into the world. Having them on google docs, or blogs, doesn't seem to be doing it for me. Not that anyone will read it in its CreateSpace form, either. But it will make me feel like I've put it out there better.

In fact, I've become interested in the process of putting things out there in little home-made books, if only because a book is something you can hold in your hand, and bonk people on the arm with. Lately I printed my most recent e pluribus haiku, 875 poems in a single volume which is still only $5 (+ shipping), and I find that quite awesome, sorry about the plug, but basically if I make a string of these, and put out the writing that I do, it gives me a feeling of being an author that I don't quite get from being a teacher, or being a fiddler, or being a father, all of which I am being, but which reward me in different ways. Applying this to my ESL career, there are things I've learned, and I want to say them; I want to put them out there. If I have a single book, I have a place where I can point that encapsulates my philosophy. This blog, obviously, is one place. But this blog is fading into obscurity. The best thing about it is its pink and gray (very stylish) appearance, and even that, to tell you the truth, gets old. I hate the font. I can't keep up the links on the template. I'm getting impatient with it as a mode of communication.

I missed TESOL this year, and might even miss the one in Toronto, if I'm not careful, and I love Toronto, cold as it is in March. There are people I love who go to TESOL, and I miss them, even though they are busy integrating technology into classes, and I am not. I have gone this far and not mentioned at all how I"m on the cutting edge of using EdModo; I'm not. I've lost the desire to tell the world to get with the program and get students to use the language in new environments. To some degree, this will happen on its own, with or without me anyway. There is one more book in me, though, and that's how technology has influenced the language, the grammar, and the way people learn language and grammar. It has, in fact, created a new world, and I'm in a better position to expound on this than most people, so I should, and perhaps I will. This, you'll notice, is a distant third, it doesn't even appear in my top two. Alas, either it'll happen or it won't, what else can I say?

Stay tuned. Here's hoping this blog doesn't go the way of the wooly mammoth.

Labels: creative, ita's, self-organized systems, tesol, webheads

Sunday, April 24, 2011

112 update

You may have noticed that my posts are fewer and further between, and there are lots of good reasons for that, not the least of which is teaching 20 hours, furloughs, busy schedule at home, etc. Just not enough time in the day, not enough time on the computer that has my work on it.

But this doesn't mean I've been slouching with my classes. We have been studying intelligence, so I gave groups of students (in two classes) topics that they could choose from and was grateful when they chose topics I liked: a group in each class chose multiliteracies (21st century skills), and another group chose gifted education. Two groups also did educational toys and videos; and one did men vs. women (in IQ).

If you open the links that lie beneath these group titles, you will find students' reading reaction journals which, unfortunately, are sometimes put in the wrong weblogs. Each weblog should ultimately be a collection of articles and links pertaining to that subject, though unfortunately things don't always work out as I'd planned. It has however allowed me to read a bit on the topics.

I was interested in multiliteracies partly because a friend has written extensively on it yet I still wasn't clear exactly what other literacies there were besides the traditional two (reading and writing). Even now, and after reading a number of articles including his (Vance Stevens'), I'm not clear on how to define the different literacies one would surely need as we go into the 21st century. My students went out and actually asked young SIUC students what kind of computer skills we should be teaching our young people; if getting information from the computer and using it involve so much more than just reading and writing, exactly what else is valuable? It seems that evaluating web content is extremely important, and involves a different set of skills than, say, knowing where in a library to find a book; but, those skills, as far as I can tell, are mostly centered around reading itself. Multitasking is an interesting skill, as it's taken a hit in the mainstream media; but, is it really more necessary now than it used to be? Only because we make it so. The young are proud to say they can text and drive, no problem; they can facebook and write a paper, too, all in an hour. We on the other end are pretty sure that both their driving and their paper-writing are not as 100% as they were, say, pre-texting. But they still value multitasking at the driver's license center and studies show it to be one of the (possibly fluid-analytic?) skills that decline with age...as if there is something elemental, and important, involved.

In the area of gifted education I've had a bug under my ear ever since I found out that much of the original research done on it was flawed; in other words, we should not sit around and wait for education schools to tell us what labeling our children in the public schools would do, either to their education, or to them. I suspect that nobody every really thought it out thoroughly, and somehow I'm not surprised. The articles my students turned up showed it was a hot topic in both the USA and Canada; the very first, in Canada, had something like 550 comments on it, mostly negative, though parents freely admit they would always accept a gifted education program for their child (as I have, several times), if offered.

The writing on both topics is interesting, and still coming in; I don't mean to neglect the other two groups either, as they have interesting topics too. Each weblog ultimately will house the story of how they went out, spoke to SIUC students about the topic, and got data about how people felt....should be interesting.

Labels: cesl, internet, siuc, webheads, weblogs, writing

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Boston

these are pictures from Nina

This is a restaurant where an old fish market used to be....where we ate on Sat.!

Labels: tesol, webheads

TESOL Presentations

Leverett, T. (2010, March). Making sure they know from Wikipedia. Teaching Tip, Writing IS, TESOL Convention 2010, Boston MA. Presentation homepage: http://tomsources.blogspot.com/2010/03/making-sure-they-know-from-wikipedia_22.html.

Leverett, T. (2010, March). Grammar technology for better or worse. Internet Fair Classics, and Internet Fair, Electronic Village, TESOL Convention 2010, Boston MA. Homepage for presentation: http://mypage.siu.edu/leverett/fbow.html.

For the Wikipedia presentation, I'm really feeling like I have to get more organized than I am; I have done a number of things (which you can access by clicking on Wikipedia below), but since it was mostly directed at this exercise, the wider base of resources I have threatens to be scattered and not focused here. Two things happened that brought home how important Wikipedia is to the ESL education business. One: I met a guy from Tajikistan who had written, himself, thousands of entries translating Wikipedia into Tajik, and representing Tajikistan on the Wikipedia base. Wikipedia had been careful to cultivate him as a resource and translator, web designer and template manager for the Tajik version. Second, people's comments indicated that Wikipedia played a crucial role in places where its translations and "watered-down English" version of things were the only resource available to ESL teachers trying to communicate with, for example, Bengali children in US schools.

The grammar presentation featured me fumbling a little to set up ESL Assistant, which requires software loaded onto a computer, and also saying quite frankly that I don't recommend that teachers put all their students on this technology, particularly if they are at a lower level, but that, as someone said, it's quite clear that they will be on it anyway. The research is quite frankly scaring me; the stuff they are told by the machines is in some cases quite odd. But in a sense I'm on my own home turf here; I've been studying how to explain grammar to ESL students for over 30 years, and I'm not surprised that a Microsoft computer geek can't quite meet my standard. If we were to work together, then, you never know. But that hasn't happened yet.

I'll have pictures soon, promise.

Labels: grammar, tesol, webheads, wikipedia, writing

Friday, October 30, 2009

no irony intended

Acohido, B. (2009, Oct. 28). Unstoppable new phishing attacks blanket Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail. The Last Watchdog, http://lastwatchdog.com/unstoppable-phishing-attacks-blanket-facebook-twitter/. Accessed 10-09.

Newgarden, K. (2009, Sept.). Annotated Bibliography- Twitter, social networking, and communities of practice. TESL-EJ 13, 2. http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/past-issues/volume13/ej50/ej50int/. Accessed 10-09.

Labels: bib, facebook, internet, twitter, webheads

Friday, May 22, 2009

wiaoc 09

Sorry I've been busy, but I meant to publicize this: Webheads' online conference, biannual, free, online, from any computer near you. Schedule is here. By the way I feel like I owe almost everything I know about using technology successfully in the classroom to the webheads, and I participate only in the weekly chats, and even then not every week. It is an enormously helpful group; somewhere among them, somebody knows the answer to virtually every question. I highly recommend it. Careful, we often trip over GMT- we seem to be about five hours behind it, at the moment. GMT is an international system to help everyone be in the same place at the same time....do it, it's worth it!

Labels: internet, webheads, wiaoc09

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

click here!

Labels: webheads

Happy 10th anniversary, webheads!

Click on the picture, if you want to follow & see what it's about!

Labels: webheads

Thursday, June 12, 2008

twitter

I learned about Twitter almost a year ago, probably through webheads, and started an account in order to see what it could do. I have friends for whom it became a daily or even hourly activity, and found it very useful in a kind of half-texting, half-blogging sense- different from texting, different from blogging, yet containing constant updating, instant connection and resources, an interesting way to experience different people's lives and views. I found myself very interested from the teaching point of view: what could it do for us? But, personally, I didn't log on five times a day. I logged on maybe five times the whole year.

Now, it turns out that a specific community uses it to share resources a lot- thus it's still a very interesting place, full of resources, full of information. One can go around, see what people are writing about, and, rather than getting lost in the personal nature of details (right now, I'm turning left) - as you would, say, with a cell phone- you can find instead good photoshop software, or, good tips on how to put an excel sheet on a weblog. But you have to know where to find it. Or, how to ask. It's an instant community- well-connected, always there, always online, almost.

Lots of my friends fade- they fail to log on, sometimes for weeks or months at a time. Me too. But, I find it an interesting environment, different from all the others- not only in what you can get out of it, but also in what it does to the user...how it messes with your mind. Focus- should I use it for blatant self-promotion? One side of me doesn't mind that at all. Right now I'm uploading pop-art.

Labels: internet, personal, webheads, weblogs

Thursday, April 24, 2008

pictures from new york

These pictures are borrowed from Carla's Flickr, which you can find by looking on the Webheads' New York blog. I agree with Carla totally when she compares the webheads to the Brazilian soccer team, because they're fantastic, they have spirit, they try things, and it's so great just to see them. I'm talking about the Webheads here; I don't know much about Brazilian soccer. Thank you Dennis for the fact that webheads gatherings seem to always have nice flowers, like the rose above. Several things became apparent to me in New York- one, seeing webheads friends was one of the best parts of the trip, although seeing my sister Margot (second picture down) was also big. Also, much of what I know and feel comfortable with, comes from the webheads, though, on a personal level, I still don't have a cell phone, and therefore was kind of lost in New York, unable to tell the time, for example (small towns like Carbondale assume that there are some old-timers around, and still leave clocks on the walls)- unlike webheads I heard of, who, lost in Jersey, were able to use a cell phone, call up Google map function, figure out exactly where they were, and how to get back to where they were going. I, on the other hand, didn't even have a place to store phone numbers, let alone find the time or check my e-mail; awed by big buildings, nice architecture, flash and glitter, etc., all I could do was be there. Thanks, Carla, for the pictures; I'll send a book, as soon as I get an address.

All in all, it was a memorable TESOL- anyway, I won't forget.

Labels: personal, tesol, webheads

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

How blogging affects the academic ecosystem

Leverett, T. (2007, May). How blogging affects the academic ecosystem. Presentation at 2nd Webheads in Action Online Convergence, including chat at Tapped In, static web site, and weblog with notes.

This presentation was very interesting to me in many ways. I overcame my timidity, knowing I was over my head with the technology that is routine for the online education crowd- and, being somewhat rushed in preparation, had to pull together the notes and the writing linked above in somewhat of a hurry. The presentation was meant to deal with the implications of people like Daniel Drezner and Juan Cole, or even small nobodies like yours truly, who muscle out a public presence (in the form of a blog) in a world that otherwise has a lot to say, and many control issues, around delivery of information and image presentation. Not that I ever experienced any of this pressure from above (I haven't), but, doing research on those who had helped me to some degree face the inevitable perils of embracing public dialogue and public fame (notoriety), should either ever come to fruition.

Like others, I came into blogging from the point of view of feeling that it would be useful for my students; I started doing it myself and got drawn in by the do-it-yourself, personalized media aspect of it, and loved this enough to find out what I could about the perils. I have parallel blogs too- a work one, a personal one, a writing one, etc. which I keep separate and which don't cross each other's paths much. I try to keep personal stuff personal and not hold it out as a model to my students- but nevertheless have been drawn by the power of the ability to speak- at any time, to whomever.

The text chat transcript I have put on the web here as I find myself rereading it for ideas which it is full of. Some of the visitors had read what I prepared and had comments about it; others read it as I delivered it; others no doubt never read it or even looked at it, but stopped by for a chat nonetheless. 11pm our time was rather inconvenient everywhere except CA and here; nevertheless I got visitors from as far away as Australia, Maryland, Phoenix, Sacramento (ever heard it called "Sacratomato"?) and Oregon, and possibly a few others. The online crowd is an interesting community, with a definite perspective and sharp comments about my choice of text-only (positively medieval, said one), no audio, video-cam or whiteboard. They notice the effects of different media on the communication of an event, and mine stood out for its low-tech nature. Later this commenting blossomed into an interesting discussion on the nature of the relationship between speaking and writing- which is definitely something I'm interested in; I may explore this more later in another post.

Sticking to the blogging professional (which we didn't, not at all times), we covered some interesting issues: blogging encourages transparency, and is part of a worldwide transparency movement, which can be seen in many realms. Because nothing is truly anonymous (as one person said, and, as was pointed out later, even erased posts can be recovered (in the wayback archive), bloggers are truly brave (sticking your neck out - part of the turtle syndrome...(though the clever turtle) knows when it is time to pull his head in)...which brings up one of the main themes: although they seem transitory, temporal, blogs are in fact quite permanent....the beauty of a blog is its permanence, said one discussant, though I don't know if I agree. Another said, It's scary to google your name and get homework from a year ago come up...one more mentioned that we should definitely stress this with our students, but, though I agreed, I was more interested in effects of personal blogging, professional out into the world. The permanence of blogs and what is written in them is something I'd like to explore more.

The blog, it was pointed out, is conversational in nature, and therefore straddles, to some degree, the different worlds of speech and text (this brought about the aforementioned discussion of the different nature of each)...And, it was pointed out, learning how to hypertext appropriately is an art in itself- it's a different way of writing entirely...and, there is a different 'voice' required to engage the reader online...though it's like e-mail: it's not more private than a postcard, i.e., NOT private...so, in the end, I was in awe of the utter bravery of those of us who, like Drezner, put ourselves out so often, so regularly. One job applicant was reconsidering earlier posts: I pictured myself as a job applicant who, unlike Drezner perhaps, had not got enough fame out of blogging to raise my own desirability or price as an academic. All this transparency can, in fact, bring up all kinds of emotions, much like the high-school bathroom where they'd ripped out all the stall walls for security reasons. Several disagreed with the assertion that true transparency was occurring or washing over the universe (Everyone is hiding SOMETHING, said one; another said, "I don't see things transparent...indeed...I see things as amazingly atavistic. You can't talk seriously about blogs when half the districts in this country filter them"...). I'm not sure exactly what he meant, but I did notice at one point in my research that someone had commented: some people use them to put forward a false, pretentious front; others, like the ones I'm more interested in, are more seriously committed to speaking to the public about their field of expertise- speaking bluntly, honestly, with a sense of activism and desire to affect change. One only does this if one has an agenda, of course. Or if one is seeking the truth from a kind of collective wisdom.

Several of the discussants had used blogs for various purposes- and willingly shared them. They mentioned collabrative team reflection practice, mentoring and coaching, organizing and saving notes, and digital storytelling as different functions of their own blogs. It brought up a dilemma I have- namely that my personal reflections and creative writing, though also public, are not necessarily appropriate for my students or necessary to put in front of them at every moment. One person mentioned that this has caused a lack of transparency within herself; another, more active online with chat etc., has a gulf between online self and professional self. A third commented on what it's like when so many people know you from your online writing before they meet you- how writing is now the gateway through which we build relationships.

Some of the interesting blogs shared: Ms. Mercer's reflections; Carole's Baranduda; Nina's blog about blogging and reading blog; Grail action research; Nicholas elementary blog; Monica's class blog.

Which brings up a final point- like the most recent TESOL, and the ILTESOL-BE, this online conference had more than a few k-12 educators with distinctly k-12 views. While most online practitioners agree about a lot of things: that online education is a wave of the future; that the young should learn how to communicate in many environments; that we educators should stay abreast of changes, etc.- in weblogging at least, our experiences are so different as to defy understanding, on my part, sometimes. We talked about using voice-to-chat software in educating the young, allowing them to speak into the computer, and have the computer do the writing (which will be sooo easy, sooo soon)- the movement to get tech standards throughout the schools- and to agree on them- the teaching of keyboarding to the young, etc. I just don't live with these challenges, don't even consider them on a daily basis. Yet I now see people who spend so much time online, who chat and/or text more than they talk, more than they read, more than they do anything else, really. People meet people through text now, hear voice in it, that they might not have, before. And see sides of us that, hey, if you were to meet me, f2f, and only f2f, might be hidden forever.

Some other links coming from the presentation:
Keyboarding in elementary schools
learning.now- Could wikis help achieve consensus on EdTech policy? Jeff Cooper encouraged us to read this and join in the discussion.

The entire transcript of this presentation can be found here.

Labels: chat, language, webheads, weblogs

Friday, May 18, 2007

WiAOC presentation

How blogging affects the academic ecosystem- my contribution to the Webheads' Online Convergence- was just finished, a few minutes ago. I have promised to send the transcript to all attenders - and will. As in many chats, there were several threads going on at once- and I didn't always keep up with all of them. I was chided a little for not having audio- I will resolve to figure that out for next year- but that highlighted some of the differences between text and audio- and made my presentation stand out a little.

The conference is incredible. Check it out- while you can!

Labels: chat, internet, webheads, weblogs

Sunday, October 22, 2006

here's something scary

Told the webheads about this, then realized that this article never mentions Second Life by name. George is an avatar; he lives on the internet; he gains intelligence, and has learned many languages, from the people he chats with. But he's a "bot". Where does he chat? Where does he get so smart? It just says "the Internet." I guess they assume you know. It's one thing to talk to someone, for example, in SL (that's Second Life, not St. Louis)- and not know whether their true self is really a man or a woman. That's ok. But not knowing whether they are real? This could play games with you. If anyone doubts that it's a new world, read this article.

Labels: internet, second life, webheads

Monday, October 16, 2006

webheads do second life - 10-06

Around my house, Second Life is when the first cereal box is down to the crumbs and you get to start the next one fresh. But these days it also refers to an extremely popular and scary online game that according to this article has over 700,000 users and is being given the eye by educators. Since webheads aren't afraid of anything they were given a tour of it this week by the very same Gavin Dudeney (I believe) who is quoted in this article. Since I am already multitasking on Sun. morning I was unable to get the voiced part of the tour, but got enough of the essence of it to be flabbergasted nonetheless.

My question really is, this Second Life business is ok for those of us who are already doing fairly well in First Life- have a job, an education, fluent in English, etc. What if one gets to "Second Life" before one gets to "First Life"? What if one's exposure to English comes by way of chat, by way of this online world? Just curious. I'm sure this has not been studied in any depth- SL is relatively new. Not to malign the intentions of SL makers, who probably made something cool basically because they could, but the implications of having so many people on SL are enormous, and completely un-thought-out, is my guess. They can try to manage them, but it's already a city larger than St. Louis (another SL, I guess).

We're still sticking to the cereal boxes- I haven't started in on SL yet though I expect one of my kids to give it a whirl any day now. As it is, something is overriding "force quit" and "log off" on his profile and making it so you have to unplug the computer in order to start over and do anything else- I suspect it's some whirring function of cockroaches on astroturf, otherwise known as runescape, that keeps going long after even safari or firefox has shut down. And is there any way for us mortals to figure out what it is? I doubt it. The cord may be our only true weapon.

Labels: second life, webheads

Sunday, October 01, 2006

webheads

Below, an unedited part of a chat by the webheads who meet weekly at Sunday 7 am our time. It sounds kind of workaholic to get up so early and get online with such a group, discussing use of technology in teaching usually; in this case, just digital cameras in general. I saved it simply because I wanted the reference, wanted someday to be able to read it more carefully. But I save all their links here, and reference them whenever I can.

I have some reservations about printing (publishing) stuff that is said casually, informally, even though they probably know on some level that it could be used this way. The link site is my personal site, just a log of cool places that we talked about, went to, tried out, etc. (and some are personal, probably)- but ones that I can't let go of, and can't organize right away either. I can only hope that this group is not offended that I take what I get, and put it here, essentially for anyone to peruse. It comes by too fast; half the time I can't even open the links as chatters provide them, and must capture them just in order to explore them in a better time frame. In this particular snippet (below) there are no links. But the record of places they discuss, visit, try together, and review, in general, is incredible. I find myself going back through them as often as I can - usually not Sunday morning, of course.

Having said that, I'll also say: those Sunday mornings, sometimes with coffee, little kneehuggers afoot, sun coming up on another busy weekend, have as their anchor this chat with people I've come to consider good friends- all over the world- in many cases I don't even know where from- but definitely, an extended family. If you, webheads, have stumbled upon this site, welcome home! Mi casa es tu casa. I'd like to invite you in further- for Life cereal, Guatemalan coffee, Blues clues video, Cars movie video games, days-old Chicago Tribunes- & the waking up of the immediate family. But now, it's back to work- it's already Sun. night!

Labels: webheads

Saturday, September 30, 2006

webheads chat 9-10-06

CarlaA: so. You have a print screen key on your computer, just hit it, then save it. After that, you can upload it to your blog.
SusanneN: that would PRINT a fullscreen?
NinaTL: I will try this, thank you!
RitaZ: yes, Sus
NinaTL: How would I adjust the size of the shot? Could I make it smaller to show on a power point?
RitaZ: a bit amaller in sixe, though
RitaZ: size
SusanneN: I never found a good way to use this on windows.On mac this was so easy to do
CarlaA: if you hit shift Print screen, then it only captures the first screen on your computer.
SusanneN: and where does it get saved; I don't see any save prompt
NinaTL: as opposed to///
NinaTL: ...?
CarlaA: yes. nina. you can edit the image in any photo editor and resize it.
RitaZ: Sus, just open a word doc and hit paste
SusanneN: OOOH -so it will be in my pasteboard
NinaTL: Which free photo editor do you all prefer?
DennisOl: And PowerPoint lets you resize, too: just pull the "handles" of the graphic.
SusanneN: picasa
BrianR joined the room.
RitaZ: photoshop
CarlaA: generally susanne, I open the photo edito and paste it there, adjust to the size I want and save it
NinaTL: I don't think photoshop is free, is it?
BrianR: i just came at the tail end of something didnt i
SusanneN: photoshop is not free is it?
RitaZ: it is, I think
SusanneN: Brian , you can jump in anytime
CarlaA: nina, i use Picasa. it has great featues
NinaTL: Welcome, Brian
CarlaA: features, i mean
BrianR: whats the topic?
DennisOl: Brian: We're discussing uploading photos and screenshots to blogs.
BrianR: webheads right?
RitaZ: free, Carla?
NinaTL: I have Picasa but have not really explored it yet
SusanneN: we're talking photos and print screen tricks
NinaTL: Webheads, right!
CarlaA: yes, rita.
BrianR: hmmm...
CarlaA: it does wonderful little things to photos.
NinaTL: such as...?
BrianR: i like the firefox plugin fireftp
BrianR: makes it all really easy
BrianR: an ftp client right in your browser
NinaTL: for photos Brian?
BrianR: for ftp
DennisOl: If anyone here uses a Mac, GraphicConverter is a wonderful tool. It isn't free, but I use it so often that I didn't mind paying for it.
BrianR: so photos too
SusanneN: *all reaslly easy* such as ...?
CarlaA: nina, before uploading my pictures to bubbleshare, for example, I resize all of them at once using picasa
BrianR: i used it for posting screenshots etc
RitaZ: then I publish photos in fotothing
NinaTL: I was having difficulty with photos I took with my institute's digital camera..
NinaTL: they were HUGE
VanceS: snaggit for a comparable windows tool
NinaTL: when I tried to email them they made gigantic files
SusanneN: I agree . Graphics converter is really useful (o mac)
BrianR: jpg compression is a beautiful thing
NinaTL: but I couldn't figure out how to make them smaller
NinaTL: or even take them smaller in the 1st place
DennisOl: In GraphicConverter, I crop, resize, adjust brightness, remove blemishes and distracting elements, and much more.
ThomasLev: I had that problem also
CarlaA: so nina, with picasa, you import the photos, edit them, then you export them to a new folder with the size you want. it's great. it saves time and work
DennisOl: You need to use some sort of image editor to reduce the size.
NinaTL: I am finally thinking about getting a digital camera of my own. Does anyone have any recommendations? I'd like to spend under $150.
BrianR: ebay
BrianR: [;
DennisOl: Photos straight from a digital camera, for example, are ENORMOUS in sized.
CarlaA: i don't like to take my pictures with low quality cuz sometimes I print them.
CarlaA: I love CANON
SusanneN: you can do all of these diting processes with Picasa too
CarlaA: right, susanne
NinaTL: I think I need to explore my Picasa more deeply!
RitaZ: me too, Nina
DennisOl: I have a Kodak, Toshiba, and Canon. I like the Canon very much, but the quality with the Kodak is also quite good, even at a low megapixel rate.
NinaTL: Do new photos I upload (or download?) automatically go into Picasa if it is already installed?
CarlaA: yes, nina. and it can really enhance your pictures in terms color, brightness, etc...
SusanneN: I often have high res pictures saved for pints and then resize them as a batch for smaller screen images
BrianR: but if you want to post them on the web its good to compress them as small as possible
BrianR: for bandwidth reasons
NinaTL: Is my price limit of $150 realistic? Can it go lower?
CarlaA: I think you can do that, nina
SusanneN: Picasa is keeping order in pictures
RitaZ: in the USA you can, Nina!
CarlaA: I like kodak, too, dennis
CarlaA: I love the colors in canon. and the flash is really powerful
NinaTL: Would a Best Buy kind of big box store be the best place to buy? Radio Shack? Circuit City?
NinaTL: (Sorry you folks outside USA)
BrianR: just go window shopping
BrianR: try the net
RitaZ: they have special offers, Nina
CarlaA: Nina, i bought two of mine at best buy
NinaTL: Are there any particular features I should be sure to get?
BrianR: those stores just might have online their prices
CarlaA: and you can chech pricegrabber online
NinaTL: You have Best Buy in Brazil too?
RitaZ: at times recycled one are also good, much cheaper
CarlaA: no. I bought in the US
NinaTL: How about features?
BrianR: anything in specific?
DennisOl: I agree about the colors with a Canon, Carla. My Toshiba, for example, has a red-balance problem.
BrianR: for your needs?
FrancisHu left the room.
NinaTL: I don't know anything about it, just want to be sure I don't end up with something that lacks a major feature I would want.
BrianR: not really sure
BrianR: for me a picture is a picture
RitaZ: video included, transferrable to pc´s
SusanneN: Nina, there would always be more features and more space and highter resolution, this is a never ending spiral
NinaTL: I plan to use it mainly for photos that I will not print. I will save them on the computer, put them on blogs or Bubbleshare, etc.
DennisOl: Hear, hear, Sus.
NinaTL: Video??
RitaZ: thats what i do, Nina
SusanneN: I live my cell phone, it can also take small videos
MoiraH: how about a cell phone then?
RitaZ: yep, mine fils short videos
NinaTL: Just print very occasionally, like for my fridge, or for people without computers (there are still a few of those)
BrianR: nina then you could get a real cheap one with low resolution
RitaZ: film
DennisOl: You should be able to get something with about 4 megapixels for $150 or less, if you shop around. This would be a good resolution for work published online.
NinaTL: I was thinking about a cellphone, actually, because mine is really old
BrianR: really good resolution
SusanneN: the Sony Ericsson w800i was my choice and i certainly don't regret
RitaZ: brb (going for a yogurt)
SusanneN: it had a 2 megapix cam
BrianR: nina i would go with a cell phone they get pretty good resolution lately
CarlaA: Nina, at school I use a Sony Cybershot 4.0 pixels . It works fine for the purpose you need. it films too...You can find it for a good price.
NinaTL: I am going to print out this part of the chatlog and take it shopping with me!
MoiraH: that's why I am so happy to inherit my son's!!! It has all the goodies
SusanneN: lol
BrianR: and its more handy
NinaTL: You webheads are the best!
DennisOl: My first digital camera was 2.1 megapixels--but the resolution was still quite good for online work.
CarlaA: mine is a canon A85. I just love it!!!
NinaTL: It's already 10:30, I have to go figure out who I am going to vote for on Tuesday--
SusanneN: after i became familiar with using my cell phone for so many things my older digital cam is in a drawer
BrianR: i dont have a phone with a camera anymore
BrianR: it sux
ThomasLev: I agree, Nina...I'd like to save this part of the chat too

Labels: chat, webheads

Sunday, September 04, 2005

webheads

I've got to tell you about the webheads. I'd just say, they're a bunch of esl/efl teachers, worldwide, who are into using technology in the classroom, but that doesn't do them justice, quite. Maybe it's just that in chatting myself, I find myself close to each of them (some I knew already, actually)...like I know them, and I wonder if that's common to chatters everywhere. I don't use chat in my classes, because I can barely use it myself, yet I know many of my students do it, in their own languages at least, and often in English. But that's not all. At the same time I'm talking to these folks, my friends, one in UAE, one in Denmark, one in Canada, one in Kuwait, etc.....they start up using Skype, or teleconferencing, or one of several other kinds of technology- usually free, usually worldwide, usually interactive....

Now all this happens on Sunday mornings...usually I'm holding a baby or negotiating with a terrorist, so I can't say I'm using all this technology at this moment. But I will say this: before you use it in your classes, you've got to use it yourself. Before you use it yourself, you've got to know it's there, and talk about it with someone...

I've come to respect Vance Stevens as one of its driving members: I can't say this is the best page for getting involved, but it's a start. It took me a while, but I did it, and I"m really glad. Here are some of the folks....just like you & me, only somewhere-else-ville.

Scroll down the template for a cfp: one of their conferences. The first, maybe. I'm interested. I'm working on it...in my head, if nowhere else...

Labels: personal, webheads