Politics on 2.0

I've been paying attention to my RSS feeds and keeping up with the news. Lo and behold! It seems that the social internet is an important factor in the Presidential election. Facebook, Flickr, YouTube... they are all focusing the attention of young voters in various interesting ways. It seems that politicians are taking hold of all these new interactive tools and engaging young voters on their own ground. There are a few serious drawbacks, but the numbers of those responding to the candidates' on line efforts are pretty amazing!

Am I the only one who hasn't noticed this happening? This seems to me to be parallel to the Kennedy/Nixon debates, the first to be broadcast on TV if I remember correctly. That changed American politics forever. Only time will tell if this new internet interest boils down to actual votes, but what a step into the fast lane!

Inventing the Manual

This "thing" was so much fun it was hard to decide where to stop! I made logos and signs and all sorts of great images. I like this book cover because I feel like I've got one of these sitting on my desktop!

What a great tool for illustrating a point!

Updatable Lists

The use for Google Docs that springs immediately to my mind concerns an annual event on campus: the Marymount Career Fair and Expo. While preparing the final report on the event, I was looking for a way to suggest that the Transfer Center and Public Relations coordinate their efforts.

This was the first year that we enlisted the help of the Public Relations department and Institutional Development. It would have been very helpful to have a central "invitation" list so that we could all see who had been invited, what their profession is, and whether or not they responded with a yes or a no. Google Docs would be a great place to store that updatable list! We could also invite the club sponsors (Pre-Med Club, Business Club, etc.) to let us know who they had recently asked to speak at their club so we wouldn't ask the same people for more of their time. The sponsors could also have access to the list.

Google Docs would also be a great place to store assignments for Student Workers that assist in the Transfer Center. That way we have a running list of things to be done as well as a record of when they were completed.

Experiment for Extra Points

This was hard for me to figure out, but here goes. This is my experimental Google Doc embedded in my blog!





Cool! I don't know how to adjust the size of it, but at least you can use the scroll bars. This is pretty neato.

Baylor University Blog

I realized last night that I've been reading a blog for a long while now and didn't even know it! I just thought of it as my regular email from Baylor University, my alma mater. They email a link to the Baylor Proud blog and I click on it and go read what's going on back in Waco.

The Baylor blog is a great public relations tool as well as a news magazine for alumni.Take a look at all the things they feature by going here: http://homepages.baylor.edu/baylorproud/
It has a beautiful format and lots of info!

Educational Blogging

Blogs seem to me to be an obvious tool for teaching English composition, any of the creative writing courses, and journalism but I sure would have loved to subscribe to some math blogs back in my university days! Just as a support tool and discussion forum, a math blog would have been fantastic. My friends and I had the equivalent of the time, the regular meeting at "our" table in the student union for coffee and screaming.

I would love to read a regular blog from some of the students attending semesters in London. Some of the students who recently returned from the Fall term at Regent's had some wonderful experiences, including travel, that I think other Marymount students would find inspiring and enlightening.

Institutional Research might wish to use a blog to relate information to Administration, Faculty and Staff. One of the tremendous advantages of this sort of blog would be the linking of selected material directly back to the primary sources that are web-based. I think it would be a great fit for selecting information and interpreting it for the Marymount community while allowing a forum for comments, questions, and discussion of findings. Also, as we are all involved in the implementation of the college's strategic plan, blogs might be a good way to share assessment tools and ideas for action plans.

I can't wait to see what others come up with for this topic! Are any faculty members already using blogs in their course work?

Just a Report for #8

While at home, I've been researching sites to add to my reader account on my home computer. Here are a few of my recent subscriptions:

National Women's Business Council

Women Business Enterprise National Council

Small Business Association

All-Business.com's specialty site for women-owned business

I've also added a gadget to my reader that will search for more blogs regarding women owned businesses. Having continuous, timely and broad information on this topic is very important to me. It's wonderful to discover how these "fun" tools can truly provide valuable resources!

Feed Me!

I must admit that I spent very little time on this one as Mary had taught me about this in her seminars last term. Because of those lessons, I already had Bloglines set up on my office home page.

One of the feeds I subscribe to is "CollegeInfo.com" which has great articles about choosing schools and majors. This is very useful to us in the Transfer Center as we're always looking for new ways to help our students make these all-important decisions. Another related site is "Career College Central" for students making other choices. I also subscribe to "Librarian's Internet Index" for pertinent information.

Other than those, I can get my daily news fix by reading the feeds from CNN, ABC News, and ABC Entertainment. To keep my hand in the business field (my major and previous life) I subscribe to Fast Company, a young cutting-edge business magazine.

Last night on my home computer I set up Google Reader and played with that for a while. I think I'm going to like it better than Bloglines. The tab feature at the top is excellent for organizing material, and I think the layout is easier to read than Bloglines.

I took part of the tutorial from Technorati. That was a hoot for several reasons, but it's also very informative. I'll be exploring their tab feature to search for the business things I want to have on my home computer.

Onward!

Also for Number 7

This was made with Jigsaw, also from Big Huge Labs. I like this site. The applications are really a lot of fun and usually turn out wonderfully. Of course, it's also a major distraction!

I made a trading card with a photo of one of my dogs, but I'll hang on to that for now!

My Moody Mosaic

This is the mosaic I made using Mosaic Maker, part of Big Huge Labs in Flickr Toys. Click on the image for a full page view!

Read The Fine Print

After longer than I care to admit, I finally saw the magic words "I Accept the Terms of Service" on the photo upload page and checked the little box. Geez. I get the feeling that 2.0 is going to be very difficult for me if I don't read the fine print!

Anyway. The photo that I was finally able to upload (cast your gaze to the left) is a photo I took of the Pecos River near Pecos, Texas, my hometown. I love this picture for several reasons.

First of all, the river actually has water running in it. During my junior high school years, the state of New Mexico dammed the river on their side of the border. The river on the Texas side was reduced to a trickle. Texas eventually won the ensuing lawsuit, but while New Mexico controlled the flow of the river we got used to seeing a mostly dry river bed. See all the greenery in the picture? I hardly ever saw that while I lived nearby. That's one reason I had to stop and take the photograph.

Another reason is that the picture was taken from a new bridge, one that was constructed only yards away from an old trestle bridge that had recently been demolished. The old bridge, Sullivan's Bridge, was the favorite hangout of my group of friends from the moment we could drive the nine miles away from town on our own. It was such a fixture in our lives that my friend Kimberly, the editor of our high school annual, used a photo of the bridge for the end pages in the yearbook. I'm glad Sullivan's Bridge is preserved that way.

Finally, if I had taken just a few steps to my left while taking this picture I would have been West of the Pecos. Yep, Pecos is the first town located literally west of the Pecos River on Interstate 20. It is where a replica of the Jersey Lilly stands proudly next to the West of the Pecos Museum and recalls the time of "hanging judge"Roy Bean and of Clay Allison, the gentleman gunslinger who was killed in a shootout in the Orient Saloon - the building that now houses the museum. Pecos, Texas, is also the Home of the World's First Rodeo. (Sorry Prescott, Arizona, but we documented ours in 1883. We know you know that, so the moral victory is ours!)

That's probably a lot more than you wanted to know about Pecos and this photo! But there is a lot of history in Pecos and some of it is my own. This photo reminds me of all that and takes me home for a while.

The Hurrier I Go, The Behinder I Get!

Wow! I didn't think I'd been out of town for quite this long. When I returned to Project 2.0 this morning, I realized just how far behind I'm getting.

I was in Tennessee for a few days visiting family. Then I came home for just long enough to pack another suitcase and grab a couple of hours' sleep before I was back at the airport. I'm home again after a nice week in sunny (well, only partly cloudy) Mexico ready to continue down the path to technological enlightenment. I guess I'd better stop writing about it and get moving!

See you in the blogs!