So – the time had come for final projects and presentations in my New Media classes. And I have a whole new perspective on giving presentations…
For most of us – presenting in front of a crowd is like peeing with the door open. Some of us just can’t do it. Others of us can – somehow secure in the knowledge that the lack of privacy does not negate the requirement to do the deed!
But for some of us… for some of us – giving a presentation is like pooping with the door open. And NO ONE can do that…
Alright – so try this one to amuse your children while traveling this holiday season!
Ingredients:
Take your video iPod.
Get this great product called a ‘Tadpole“.
Add on some great videos and let your child amuse themselves!
Portable, rechargeable and easy to x-change the videos on — have some fun with it!
I made two “Kidcast’s” and posted them to YouTube. One is me reading a book. The other is a “visual” of music.
BOOK:
‘Baby Ant has Stinky Pants’
by Sigmund Brouwer, Created by Don Sullivan, Illustrated by Sharon Dahl
VISUAL MUSIC:
‘I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas’
by Gayla Peevey
So – whatcha think?
Alright – so this weeks writing assignment was “the FAQs”. And that got me to wondering… what is a “FAQ”?
The loverly Wikipedia (fountain of knowledge that it is!) offered this up:
“The FAQ is an Internet textual tradition originating from a combination of mailing list-laziness plus speculation and a separate technical and political need within NASA in the early 1980s. The first FAQ developed over several pre-Web years starting from 1982 when storage was expensive. On the SPACE mailing list, the presumption was that new users would ftp archived past messages. In practice, this never happened. Instead, the dynamic on mailing lists was for users to speculate rather than use very basic original sources … Repeating the “right” answers becomes tedious. … The acronym FAQ was developed in 1983 by Eugene Miya of NASA for the SPACE mailing list. The format was then picked up on other mailing lists. Posting frequency changed to monthly, and finally weekly and daily across a variety of mailing lists and newsgroups.
Usability experts Jakob Nielsen and Steve Krug (in Don’t Make Me Think) have mentioned … that too often these FAQs are written from an internal vantage point in place of putting true thought into the user’s perspective and what information typical users may want and need.”
—–
Ah ha! I thought so! Anytime I have ever tried to use a “FAQ” it was always “gobble-de-gook”. Or a quick out for a really bad web site…
And has anyone else noticed that the acronym is the word? FAQs vs facts??
… OMG! …
What if Eugene is actually the inventor of “txt speak”??? The godfather of SMS?? Should we revere or loathe him?
4col this tng is evrywhr! I jst want to esc! Maybe it’s a gnr8n tng…
u cn ask “hru?” and say “gb”. U cn even lol !
wtf?? … i gtg … tlk-2-u-l8r
Confession: it appears I am not a natural blogger…
Sure – it started out all fun and glory. But when it comes to staying on topic – alas I am adrift…
Follow along if you will.
First up – what’s with all the menu choices?
My Account – My Dashboard – New Post – Press This – Blog Info
I am pretty technically suave and intuitive. So it came as a mild surprise to realize I have noooo clue about a very large number of ‘blog things’ available to me. And I am not exploring them…
Even with ‘Dashboard’ – there is much ‘otherness’ to discover! Yet I don’t… I remain on the outside of this blogging world.
“WHAT THE BLOG IS GOING ON?”
I decided I needed to research this a bit – went back to the definition of a blog.
Well – it all starts right there – it’s a noun AND a verb!! ‘Blog’ is the website and the act of maintaining or adding content.
… so finding the definition didn’t really help me …
I found some online articles re: “Introduction to Blogging”.
I learned this:
- content is the reason for a blog
- content must be regularly updated (or no one will visit it)
- a blog consists of “posts” (or entries)
- it is “the way” to promote an interactive website
“Wouldn’t it be nice if the readers of a website could leave comments, tips or impressions about the site or a specific article? With blogs, they can! Posting comments is one of the most exciting features of blogs.”
(*note: I had no idea that blogs were so damn altruistic!*)
There are even “Things Bloggers Need To Know” which include things like ‘blogroll’, ‘trackbacks’ and ‘pingbacks’, ‘Post Slugs’ and ‘Excerpt’.
Blogging Tips:
1 – Post regularly
2 – Stick to a few specific genres
3 – Don’t add ‘subscribe’ and ‘vote’ everywhere
4 – Use a clean and simple theme (if possible)
5 – Enjoy. Blog for fun and comment on other peoples’ blog.
** many thanks to Wikipedia and WordPress for being the top google choices on the topic of blogging! **
And the moral of this particular tale? Well – it ain’t no Aesop’s fable… Could be that this cold has really beat me down… Could be because midterms are here… Could be I lack the ‘explore the blog world’ genetic coding… But I think I might just be old…
At this precise moment in time – I just want to express blatant indifference and blog off…
So – here’s the dilemma.
I am writing the blog in the context of childcare resources in Vancouver. So what do you do when your start point content changes?
The website that I started with kinda ended… Now, I’m no Woodward or Bernstein, but the has “shank-the-public” written all over it…
Come for a journey on this particular yellow brick road!
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE:
Oct 22, 2007 – 24 Hrs (Commuter magazine)
“Big-box child care for B.C.?”
“Controversial big-box child-care could be a reality in B.C. if an Australian company has its way.”
Child-care advocates are sounding the alarm since learning an investment firm called Adroit Investments LLC has contacted local child-care operators in a bid to buy them out.
The coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C. traced the company back to 123-Global and A.B.C. Learning Centres, a private Australian child-care corporation that’s gotten flak in several countries for monopolizing child-care and providing minimal services to cut costs. … (Rita) Chudnovsky says child-care operators began receiving takeover bids in mid-September, just before the provincial government announced it would begin to subsidize private child-care providers. ‘We have trouble believing this is a coincidence,” she said (Chudnovsky). (Rita Chudnovsky is the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C. spokesperson).”
According to the website I was working on (Westcoast Childcare Resource Centre)
“On March 16, 2007, Westcoast received notice that Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) was canceling our long-standing contract for provincial early childhood and child care support services.
The contract officially ended April 30, 2007. The end of this contract represented an $800,000 cut in funding. At the same time, the Westcoast contract for the Vancouver Child Care Resource and Referral program was also reduced by $450,000. This resulted in a total reduction of $1.35 million dollars. Obviously this significant funding loss has had a severe impact on services.”
… and this leaves my content where? In the realm of the fictional I do believe… Ah – but think of the creative potential when the laws of internet physics no longer apply!
Ok – so I am writing this blog for my New Media Communications class.
Therefore, I am responsible for the content. Thus, if I want to post the little video clip I made I should know what the rules on copyright for web usage are.
… the conversation went something like this…
I called my friend (he works in the film industry – producer kinda level):
Me: “Hey, I am working on a blog for class and I need to get some info on how copyright on the web works out”
Him: <you’re too young to read this part>
Me: “…lovely story – so how do I get the info?”
Him: “Is it for educational use?”
Me: “Yup”
Him: “Is it Disney?”
Me: “Nope”.
Him: “Go for it.”
Now, as you might notice, this doesn’t actually answer my question on video usage and copyright on the web — further research (and no doubt blogging) required I do believe…
From Wikipedia:
Copyright is a set of exclusive rights that regulate the use of a particular expression of an idea or information. At its most general, it is literally “the rights to copy” an original creation. In most cases, these rights are of limited duration. The symbol for copyright is “©”, and in some jurisdictions may alternatively be written as either (c) or (C).
Copyright may subsist in a wide range of creative, intellectual, or artistic forms or “works”. These include poems, theses, plays, and other literary works, movies, choreographic works (dances, ballets, etc.), musical compositions, audio recordings, paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, software, radio and television broadcasts of live and other performances, and, in some jurisdictions, industrial designs. Designs or industrial designs may have separate or overlapping laws applied to them in some jurisdictions. Copyright is one of the laws covered by the umbrella term intellectual property.
Copyright law covers only the form or manner in which ideas or information have been manifested, the “form of material expression”. It is not designed or intended to cover the actual idea, concepts, facts, styles, or techniques which may be embodied in or represented by the copyright work. For example, the copyright which subsists in relation to a Mickey Mouse cartoon prohibits unauthorized parties from distributing copies of the cartoon or creating derivative works which copy or mimic Disney’s particular anthropomorphic mouse, but does not prohibit the creation of artistic works about anthropomorphic mice in general, so long as they are sufficiently different to not be deemed imitative of the original. In some jurisdictions, copyright law provides scope for satirical or interpretive works which themselves may be copyrighted. Other laws may impose legal restrictions on reproduction or use where copyright does not – such as trademarks and patents.
Copyright laws are standardized through international conventions such as the Berne Convention in some countries and are required by international organizations such as European Union or World Trade Organization from their member states.
