June 2007
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The Humanity of Loose Systems
One of our graphic designers returned from Paris the other day with the most extraordinary set of photographs. Her and I had had a long talk before she went about how the concept of “brand” was overrated in visual design, frequently doing more harm than good. We both agreed our website could tolerate considerably more Continue reading
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John Willinsky and the Ten Years War
If you’re interested in education and technology, go (now!) and listen to Jon Udell’s recent interview with John Willinsky. Then go listen to Willinsky’s fascinating 1 hour lecture which deals with everything from Issac Newton as proto-blogger to Wikipedia error rates to why our exam-book culture is selfish and anti-intellectual. You might want to listen Continue reading
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Universal Grammar, meet the Black Swan
OK, so I’ve never been that big a fan of Chomskyan grammar: I just never quite understood what one would *do* with it. Besides, sitting around dissecting sentences like “The large gray man fell on the radio stand” just paled in comparsion to analyzing how people actually talk: Oh I w’s settin’ at a table Continue reading
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Twittergram #2: Can we plug Jott into this?
OK, so it’s obviously Monday. Here’s twittergram #2: Â http://www.mikecaulfield.com/jott.mp3 I’m serious about the question — what if you took Jott and plugged it into Dave’s twittergram idea? I can imagine getting twittergrams walking down the street, and replying by sending a message to Jott. It’s interesting how this kind of relates to my post Continue reading
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Twittergram
A la Dave Winer, here’s my contribution to the experiment. tgram_caulfield.mp3Â Continue reading
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Messaging, Phatic Overhead, and the Right to Connect
There’s a number of articles, none of which I’ve read, that propose (or assume) that SMS messaging is used as a phatic system. Under this analysis SMS is like the chatter of the monkeys in trees, a chatter which is primarily used to say “Are you still there?” “Yep. You?” “Yep. Still here. How about Continue reading
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Twitter as Identity System?
Dave Winer just blew my mind. Which is why I still go to scripting.com. Because occasionally he does that. That, and I still haven’t figured out where to get one of those I Facebooked Your Mom T-Shirts. Continue reading
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WordPress MU and eportfolio reporting requirements
I had the good luck this week to stumble into a very helpful blogswarm. And since it’s best to make use of their expertise while they are still checking back here, let’s cut to the chase. Here is the new thought, re: eportfolios and other WP projects needing data aggregation. Append an optional process at Continue reading
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Enterprise Learning Systems Considered Harmful to Learning
Not a new thought, but one I’m newly fired up about after talking to Jon Udell last night. We don’t make enterprise purchases for students when it comes to spiral bound notebooks, pencils, or binders. So why do we move so quickly to consider e-learning questions “enterprise” questions? When looking at e-portfolio possibilities, why wouldn’t Continue reading
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Michael Gorman wins Gold Medal for Irony
The Sphere is abuzz with discussion of Michael Gorman’s rambling monologues about Web 2.0. They are two profoundly confused pieces. While Gorman’s posts will win no prizes for coherence of thought or depth of knowledge, they might just win a Gold Medal for Irony. Why? Because in an article bemoaning the death of respect for Continue reading
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