Tag Archive for online

Full Moon in Capricorn – Friday 15th July 2011

14/07/2011 Joh astrology, blogging

What no eclipse? Yes, this is an eclipse free moon. Looks full already! There are some other alignments that are ‘ones to watch’ and Linda Hill’s post on this moon, highlights the sabian symbols activated. Jessica has an excellent suggestion in her post, Inhale your Authority Spell and since reading it I’ve been questioning my authority. It’s a good thing to claim your responsibility in your situations. It gives you power to stay, leave, change or just think about things in a different way. It really struck a chord with me.

My favourite astrological post today was from Mystic Medusa, Era Shifting. Nothing at all really to do with this full moon. I believe quite relevant now, what do you think?

There are a lot of changes happening in the world right now. I was checking out this site last night (due to it’s association with Megan from The Junk Wave a blogging friend) about an RTO in Cairns, MOM Training College.  It looks like a very exciting educational space with plenty of innovative projects and quite a different philosophy from the RTO’s I’m familiar with. I like it. I think that kind of reframing of institutions is wonderful.

I feel quite interested in following some of the things that are emerging from all the crisis’s going on. I agree with MM, I don’t subscribe to the whole end of the world stuff either. It’s clear things are changing so perhaps it is the end of the world as we’ve known it. Thinking that the world is going to end is a cop out and it’s time to get busy making a world that works better now, even if it is just your own world.

I’ve tried Google+ this week. It’s ok. Quiet really. Interesting to watch how people approach the new space. Some are jumping right in creating huge networks. I can see some advantages to having seperate circles so as to keep relevant to different areas of your life. I haven’t plunged right into the learning curve yet though. I have also been reminded about of tumblr this week. A student started a blog there and added me to it. There are very few people from my other circles on Tumblr. It’s interesting and a new space. I think I am more interested in exploring my tumblr right now than Google+. I notice that it’s just so easy to go to facebook or google because there are links to them everywhere. We think the internet is so random, yet our advertising is targeted and there are clearly some online companies that have created such a presence that they are almost unavoidable. I

I have so much to say today, I’ve had a full and interesting day. I might tell you about the rest tomorrow:)

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Blogging Holiday

13/04/2011 Joh blogging, family, gratitude, home

I’m having a bit of a break from blogging because I don’t have my laptop right now, so my time online is minimal. I expect it will be back before Easter, so it won’t be for long. I’m spending very little time online right now, just checking email, making payments for the business, updating ‘The Butchers Dog’ facebook page and the bare minimum really. I’m using my phone to check all my email accounts and feeds and when I get online I only follow up the important things. I am reading heaps more and my house is in much better order than it’s been for a while.

We are having Darin’s children overnight tonight because they are on school holidays and it’s an opportunity for us to spend more time with them. That is one of the primary purposes of creating our business, so it’s great that we can take it up. Asha is also coming for dinner. We are having Roast Pork!

 I have this little snippet of time when the house is quiet and Darin’s laptop is free. I’m not complaining though, he’s very generous with his laptop and not on it half as much as I used to spend on mine. I think that will change now that I’ve had this break. It’s helped me to become aware of some of the time I waste online doing unecessary but time filling things.

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New Mobile Phone

17/01/2011 Joh learn, work

I have a new mobile which can do a lot of cool things. In theory I could blog with it. I could take videos and photos and send them straight to my blog. I could read my facebook and twitter feed all day long if I wanted to. There are heaps of gadgets I could add to it to do any number of amazing things. I love the touch keypad and I’m glad it’s not a qwerty keyboard like my ipod touch thingy cause I always hit the wrong key, it’s the same as the numbers on my old phone with predictive text.

My point is though, that although I could do any number of things with my new phone, as yet, I’m just using it for texting and phone calls because when I’m at work, I just don’t think about being online. I’m enjoying doing work and talking face to face with new people. I love seeing new sights and faces. I have new challenges to overcome and problems to solve. Sometimes it’s a bit scary, but all in all I am present at work and it’s a great feeling. I don’t want to be anywhere else. My mind is not on other things.

I also need to put a bit of time into learning how to do all these new you beaut things. Then you might get to see some photos :-)

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My Privacy and Facebook

31/05/2010 Joh blogging, friends, random

I’m not leaving facebook today. At the risk of insulting the 26565 committed leavers (as of 9.50pm tonight), I am not sick of facebooks lack of respect for my data. On occasion I am sick of facebook users lack of respect for their own data though. The definition of privacy is to be separate from others or not seen by others. The very act of having a facebook account is to share with others or interact. I understand that selling our data to others wasn’t what we signed up for, yet it was kind of obvious to me it was going to go that way. Nothing is free!

The thing about facebook, twitter, youtube, blogging, and all the stuff we do online is that it is not private. It’s not hidden. We really need to know that. No one can get information about you that you don’t give them though. There is no one with a gun to your head telling you to reveal all the ups and downs of your life or your breakfast preferences. You willingly provide that information or preference. There are no paparazzi following you and photographing your family and all the things you like to do and publishing them to the world….you do that yourself.

I think it is the myth of privacy online that we need to quit. I feel my privacy could be invaded if my phone calls were listened into or if there was video surveillance cameras that I wasn’t aware of. Satellites have concerned me because I can’t see them and I am not aware of what they are watching. I was a bit startled by Google Street View, when it came to my town. I felt that was potentially an invasion of privacy.

People only know what you tell them, or show them. If you want something to be private, keep it to yourself.

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Pruning

27/02/2010 Joh family, relationships, work

After attending the Cybersafe training day on Thursday I have pruned my facebook of all current students. I was reluctant to do that because I felt that I was a responsible user of social networking, but the implications and lack of control over what others post, creates vulnerabilities for teachers. I like to be socially inclusive. If a person I know requests to be my friend, I would need to have a clear reason for saying no. It’s easier to have no current students than to make judgement calls.

Greg Gebhart the facilitator is very knowledgeable and I highly recommend his site IT Vision for educators. I have completed a few IT courses with Greg over the past few years. He is a great resource to teachers having been a teacher and possessing a practical and grounded view of how to work with IT in schools.

I have also pruned my twitter account on the same basis. I’ve rid my feed of all the people I don’t read or aren’t really interested in as well as students. I don’t read my twitter feed that often though to be honest so I’ve created groups. The great thing about having different groups is that if I only check it once a week or so, I don’t miss as many posts in the areas I’ve created because the fewer amount of people makes it easier to catch up. Does that make sense?

I have also discovered a whole branch of my family on facebook this week. I think social networking is great. I love staying in touch with people who live all over the place. Although I generally have no time for reality TV, a family member is on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ (vote Nick!), so I’ve been keeping up with his progress.

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Cybersmart

24/02/2010 Joh learn, work

Tomorrow I am going to a Cyberbullying course. We had a speaker talk to our year 7s and 10s yesterday and there was not much he spoke of that I wasn’t aware of. I have been attending these kinds of talks for a few years now. I want to keep up to date to keep kids as informed and safe as possible.

Many of the teachers were amazed though. It’s great the whole staff is getting exposed to this information now. The Cybersmart website has a handy red button to report any offensive online behaviour and a counselling hotline.

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Online and Blogging latest thoughts

01/02/2010 Joh blogging, holidays

I am trying out this gadget called Zemanta. As you write your blog it comes up with images, links (wikipedia, amazon) and articles relevant to what you are writing. It’s a great concept but I’m still not sure about it. It seems to generate a heap of drafts that I can’t delete. I probably should do some more research into it…. but I want it to save time, not create another task!

During the holidays I reduced my feed reader from over 900 saved posts to 6! Quite an achievement for me. I used stumbleupon and delicious to store some of the information I thought was worth sharing or saving for future reference. I never want to get to that point again. I deleted some of the blogs that are just too wordy for me, or not interesting. There are some feeds that haven’t posted for a long time also that will probably be next to go.

This year I have had a huge increase in people searching for ‘What to wear to Big Day Out‘. I wrote that post a couple of years ago. I find it interesting and amusing the posts that get a lot of views, rarely the ones you think.

I intended changing the appearance of my blog over the summer holidays but really didn’t find the time. It was a busy holiday this year and my life seems much fuller lately. I have less solitude. I’m not complaining.

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Teachers and Social Networking

25/10/2009 Joh learn, work

In QLD teachers have been banned from contacting students on social networking sites. This bothers me. There are so many things I see as wrong about this stance.  Students can run into trouble online. There are no adults in their lives giving them any feedback about the publishing they do online. I have attended a number of talks on cybersafety and cyberbullying. I read numerous blogs about education and using social networking software for educational purposes. This just reeks of people who don’t know what they are talking about wanting to control something they have limited understanding of. 

I think inappropriate behaviour is not acceptable anywhere, banning useful tools is not going to stamp out inappropriate behaviour.  Teachers have the potential to set an example online as they are expected to at school.

 Michael Carr-Gregg at one of those talks last year said the internet was like the Wild West where the children were there with no adult supervision. These restrictions placed on teachers could discourage teachers from the learning and participation they need to effectively guide students. A fellow staff member attended a cybersafety course recently and told me they were advised not to talk about online participation if they had no experience of it. Students would see right through it. Makes sense doesn’t it?

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These Days…

13/10/2009 Joh health, home

We have laptops in many classes now. There is so much to teach about using the Internet. This week we had a learning experience about Twitter. Some students were using it as though it were a private chat room. I guess because all their usual chat channels are blocked by the schools ‘protection systems’ it was too much to expect that given a way to communicate with one another, they would be able to resist! Never mind they are sitting in the same room… high tech note passing, yet pretty silly when they realised they had potentially shared their notes with anyone online who’s interested. The more I use technology in the classroom, the more I believe that the fear of computers replacing teachers is not in the near future. Young people may not fear technology, yet there is so much they need to learn about socialising, reputation, logic, the list goes on and on…..

I had a tense meeting after work. Before I went, I said to Rhonda “I’m going to shut up. I’m not going to say anything, I’ll let others have a go this time.” Famous last words. I find it so frustrating when people are full of remarks about things until given the opportunity to speak to the person in charge. So I can’t resist saying what’s on my mind, when others seem unable to remember what they think.

After school was a lot more pleasant on a lot of levels. I got to spend some time with the Wii Fit. It was the first time for a little while that I made progress towards my goals, so that felt good. I’ve been conscious lately of letting some healthy habits slip.

Tonight we registered to play touch football socially. I am not sure if it’s such a good idea now. I’m feeling particularly unfit. I will give it a try though. It looks fun. Maybe it’s what I need to get fit!

Kate my little sister called last night from Berlin. She is having a ball and has been through Bruges and Amsterdam. I had to cut my chat with Wilma tonight short because a delicious meal from Darin had arrived on the table and I wasn’t going to let it wait.

My daughter has just sent me something she has written tonight that is one of the most precious things I have read for a long time. Her expression never ceases to delight me.

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Sorting Facebook

31/08/2009 Joh relationships

Last night I put all my friends on Facebook into different groups. I was inspired by having access to photos of someone I barely knew. Photos that were a touch revealing. I’m not sure I am that open.  There are levels of privacy I want to maintain.

I looked into it,  there are different levels of privacy in facebook but I hadn’t really explored them till then. I have my own criteria for adding friends on facebook, yet within are different groups/types of friends, sounds awful to categorise your friends, but I’m only human. If I know someone I am happy to add them. I don’t need to know them in person, or in current time, past is fine, I need to have some concept of who they are and how they are connected to me. The old ‘everyone’s welcome’ slogan I had when working at the Neighbourhood House, doesn’t apply on my facebook page.

By the same token, just because I know a person, doesn’t mean I want to share everything with them. I discovered last night that for each photo album you upload to facebook, you can set the networks or friend groups that you want to see them. It’s given me peace of mind. I don’t want to wonder about how many friends of friends can see my family photos and who they are.

Having said all that and feeling pretty much master of the universe as far as my privacy goes on facebook, I still wouldn’t put anything I thought would be detrimental to me online. anywhere. I still haven’t worked out how to control people tagging you in photos, apart from removing the tag. I was discussing this in class today. When you are out and about you aren’t necessarily looking around for people who are photographing you with their mobile phone. Perhaps privacy is dead.

What are your settings on facebook? Who can see your photos?

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