Well I have not blogged in a month. That is terrible. Especially when you consider all the things I have been doing.
tabitha.net.nz was born
google gave tabitha.net.nz lots of apps - email, calendar, chat, etc
Moodle was installed on tabitha.net.nz
Mahara was installed on tabitha.net.nz
That bit in itself should get a huge post and explanation. For oh so long now I have been thinking I need to get myself a domain and setup my own website. Free parking provided my domain for about forty dollars a year.
I needed a way to receive and send emails for @tabitha.net.nz so I decided google apps would be perfect. I am currently encouraging teachers to use google apps so I will as well to "practise what I preach". Already being familiar with google apps gave me a headstart. Add my new email tabitha@tabitha.net.nz to your address book.
Next step was what to put at tabitha.net.nz. Well I have installed Moodle locally many times and I use Moodle every day, so why not use Moodle for my website? I have spent a very small amount of time on it, but at least it is there. More work to be done. http://tabitha.net.nz/moodle/
Mahara. Think. Again, I am telling teachers and students to have eportfolios and I always recommend Mahara, so it just made sense for me to install Mahara. I made a sample view for Unitec and for olpc to give me at least a little bit to show people, and of course it is an eportfolio system so expect more. http://tabitha.net.nz/mahara/
Next: I will slowly shift to using tabitha@tabitha.net.nz for all my connections - this will take time as everyone knows me at other contact points. I will notify people and monitor multiple connections until they all are slowly moved to tabitha@tabitha.net.nz - well that is the plan.
Other things that I should have blogged about this month:
Unitec - still there, still busy, still good. Getting to know more people and how I can help them. Semester is well under way now so I am getting a feel for what "normal" might look like at Unitec.
HRDNZ - Moodlemoot NZ is not far off now, 13 - 15 April. I have started planning the workshop I am running on Tuesday 13 April for newcomers. Looking at the speakers it looks like we can gear up for another excellent moot with awesome conversations inspiring us all for trying new things throughout the year. Note that if you are registering for moodlemoot you should register by 13 March to get early bird prices.
olpc and sugarlabs - testing sessions on Saturdays still all go, had a great session last Saturday and really felt like we did some good testing. I joined the QA call with Sri Lanka this week and it was a good reminder to me of just how far we have come and how much we can still contribute to olpc and sugarlabs. I committed to helping Sri Lanka QA team so have started providing them some of those things.
Apparently it is bed time now, so better stop the blog post now.
AN ONLINE FRIEND ON FACEBOOK has just invited me to become a fan of “IPad Market Research – Test And Keep on Facebook”. I went to the page and saw:
The text reads:
You are invited to test a new Apple iPad! Because of the big hype around the iPad, several companies are giving away iPads for review purposes as soon as they are available.
Yes, you really can get a new iPad, but only for a limited time, so be sure to enter right now!
It’s quick and easy, just follow these 3 simple steps :
Step 1: Become a Fan. Click the button below and Step 2 will be revealed.
Out of curiosity, I clicked on “Become a Fan” and steps 2 and 3 were shown:
IN ORDER TO COMPLETE THE REGISTRATION, the new fan is asked to invite all his/her friends to become fans and to copy a piece of javascript code when doing so. Being skeptical, I refused to disturb my friends and possibly expose them to a scam.
Instead, I simply clicked on the “3″ button and a new window opens:
“Sorry, this offer is unavailable in your country. You are now being redirected to a similar offer that is available in your country.”
In a second or two, I was brought to a site with lots of smiley icons. Before the page could fully load, I closed it.
HOW GULLIBLE CAN PEOPLE GET? As of now, there are over 6,000 fans on that page - an increase of a few hundreds since I first viewed the page. One of its earlier variants iPad Research Center – Test & Keep It had over 240,000 fans. By the way, the “comments”/”testimonies” on the promo page were not real. That’s just an inserted image. And I’ve of course removed myself from being a fan of the page.
Other variations:
Apple iPad Market Research Testing: Test and keep and iPad today
Be discerning. A marketing firm that is truly offering 10,000 free iPads should have enough money in their budget to put together an attractive, well-designed, correctly-functioning website and not rely just on Facebook as a marketing tool. I admit, Facebook is a pretty good place to start but it’s not the only place to go. Why do they not have an external website? Or the more obvious, why is there no company information? Founded in 2010? I don’t know what information it’s asking you for in the ‘Become a Tester’ application but you might want to change your Privacy Settings for future ‘deals’. iPad is the new toy and phishers know that. Read between the lines before you sign your life away for a free iPad. Make sure it is legit then you can sign your life away. =D
So for no apparent reason, several WordPress blogs running under WordPress MU suddenly lost their header images, reverting to the default image. These images were added to a custom theme using the Custom Header API (check out WPMU Tutorials on Custom Headers). Everything was working fine, and then suddenly some of the sites spontaneously reverted to the default.
Obviously, there’s got to be some sort of trigger lurking out there, but thus far I haven’t found it. The site was upgraded two weeks before The Great Forgetting; it was related to the upgrade, then it must be triggered by something that people don’t do frequently. There are reports of this happening (here and here) on WordPress.com, but their answer is “contact support”.
I’m still beating on a test instance to see if I can replicate it, but if anyone comes across the answer, please let me know.
So I arrived at Foo camp last night, excited about what the weekend will bring.
We had a yummy dinner and had our first session giving us a taste of what will come over the weekend.
I went to a talk by Peter Hall from Summerland Primary school where we discussed honesty and transparency. Peter talked about creating a safe environment in his classroom that allowed it to be okay to be honest about where each students ability truly was so they didn't have to pretend they were better than they were. We talked about how teachers and schools need a culture shift that makes it safe for them to report where they honestly are and not try to pretend they are better than they are.
We slept in the library (that was pretty cool actually) and I got enough sleep to make it through day 2.
Moodlemoot is a conference for "Moodlers". It allows people who work in elearning to meet and share experiences, allows teachers an excellent professional development opportunity, and welcomes new Moodlers to the wider Moodle community. Moodlemoot aims to include 'something for everyone', so choose workshops and presentations that suit you.
This year there are again inspiring presenters. A taster for you on just a few:
Martin Dougiamas (founder and lead developer of Moodle)
Martin Knott (CEO of Moodlerooms in the USA
Moodle enthusiast and guru Tom Murdock (from North Carolina, USA)
Shane Elliott (a Kiwi living and working in Perth at Moodle HQ)
There will also be some very talented New Zealand practitioners too. Teachers and Moodle enthusiasts who are happy, willing and able to share their experiences and knowledge with others. Numerous workshops, presentations and discussions are being facilitated by local experts - and we should thank them for this hugely valuable contribution to the programme.
I am fortunate enough to have experienced Moodlemoots all around the world and the New Zealand Moodlemoot is definitely one of the best, as it is fun, relaxed, and full of friendly people to network with. I always learn loads from the conversations as well as the presentations and workshops. It is great to spend time with the people I follow on twitter!
This morning I had the extreme pleasure of being part of a powhiri at the Unitec marae to launch the elearning strategy and welcome special guests to Unitec. A very special experience for all involved, we were treated to an insight into the whare building process and the stories contained in the carvings.
There is information about the marae project here. I would post a picture but I am not sure of permissions, so I suggest you look at the webpage and visit if you can. This is a very unique marae and the master carver (Lyonel Grant) was recognised for this building with a NZ culture award.
Today I attended the iMoot conference. The conference website is a Moodle site and the conference is completely online.
I attended a session facilitated by Tomaz Lasic using Elluminate Live. (Elluminate were a sponsor - this software does require a license).
Tomaz ran a session: Using Forum - the Heart of Moodle
It was a well led session where he shared some slides, then used Elluminate indicator tool to see where participants were from, then voting buttons to see how familiar the participants of the session were with forums. He walked us around the his website and showed us some forum examples, then used the white board to get people to write answers to questions posed during the session. He is going to share everyones input after the sessions (he is repeating the session later in the conference).
I have joined Unitec's elearning team in Te Puna Ako. This puts me at their Mt Albert campus in Auckland. My role is Learning Management System (or Virtual Learning Environment) and Web 2.0 Advisor. I am in a team of four elearning specialists in the wider team called Te Puna Ako which has twenty something members.
There is lots to take in and lots of people to get to know.
People: so far I have found that Te Puna Ako is made up of the learning centre; elearning team; academic literacy team; timetable office; and academic advisors. There are twenty something of us and I think I have met nearly everyone. As well as the teams there is Kelly who is supporting everyone as the Te Puna Ako Administrator, Linda as acting manager and Robert will be the Te Puna Ako Manager in March.
The Learning Centre: Caroline, Cat, Cindy, Lance, Margaret, Margi, Renu and Wilma. The eLearning team: Thom, Yong, Vickel, Tabitha Timetabling team: Johnno, Hung Academic Literacy: Bettina, Mark, Nina, Academic Advisors: Simon, Diana, Trisha, Nick, Ed
Day one was full of meet and greet as well as getting setup with computer and system logins, HR and Security access. However we still managed to squeeze in a meeting that gave me a basic indication of some of the things happening and a workshop on Ning setup run by Vickel preparing for supporting his workshop next week.
Day two was Te Puna Ako strategy day. It was good for me to get a better picture of Te Puna Ako, its composition and how each part complements the other parts, and a hint at the objectives for this year. As a group everyone was relaxed with each other and relatively confident in sharing and asking questions; overall the climate suggested we work well together and support each other. The day reassured me I have joined a good team.
So far I have the following sites: Blackboard Moodle Nings: Te Puna Ako, Community Coordinators, Teaching and Learning community Mindmeister CTLI wiki CTLI blog - Te Puna Ako news Unitec webmail Uniweb intranet
There were probably more sites and logins but that is about all I can remember right now. Vickel was assigned as my buddy and has helped me with finding my way around and getting all the HR things done. I think it will take quite at least a month to really get the lay of the land. Most publications on induction tell me it takes three months so I will keep that in mind.
I am looking forward to next week's eLearning Coordinators workshop. I can see some interesting conversations happening, and great challenges to sink my teeth into with the living curriculum and elearning strategy work this year.
Mark Osborne presented on Albany Senior High School (The Open Source School) at the education miniconference at LCA2010. This is a photo taken during the conference.
Mark is Deputy Principal of Albany Senior High School, the country's first state senior high school and an open source school. He is passionate about open source software, Linux, Moodle, Mahara, Koha, cutting-edge IT, powerful learning and helping young people get where they want to go. He's also part of the Open Education Resource NZ planning team, committed to all things libre and gratis.
Albany Senior High School is the country's first large-scale open source school. They have 200 computers running Ubuntu Linux on the desktop, a powerful open source software stack on each machine and they even have students building open-source tools and environments for the school and community. Mark Osborne is a Deputy Principal at ASHS and will talk about the process they followed to bring about this significant turn in the future of education in New Zealand. He'll talk about what worked, what didn't work and where to from here.
It was great to have the chance to talk to Mark about Albany Senior High School and how successful it is already showing itself to be. I look forward to watching this school grow as they add more years.
I had another chance to meet Mark at Foo camp and heard even more great stories about this school. I recommend you follow his blog and watch for interesting things coming out of ASHS.
I have moved from Wellington to Auckland. This involved getting quotes from moving companies and selecting a company to move my things, packing everything, choosing moving dates and finding a way to get my car to Auckland. Oh, also working out how to get myself to Auckland.
Moving my stuff: I asked people who they used and what they thought. I checked lots of websites and emailed or filled in online forms. After not much response I called companies. I learned that no one moves on Sundays in New Zealand. Or on Saturday afternoons. I found this hard to believe but had to accept that they were coming on a week day and I had to make arrangements for someone to meet them. I also learned that a good reputation and recommendations from several people does not mean they will get it right. My delivery was not correctly picked up (should have been labelled and a print out done at the house but that didnt happen) and then it was not delivered on the expected date with no phone calls telling me what was going on. They also managed to damage some items.
Getting my car to Auckland: Tom put my car on the train and it seemed pretty easy. He rang and delivered it to them on the same day (Tuesday) and they delivered it on time (Friday) with an easy pick up. No damage, no hard stuff. Pretty reasonable price of $325 including gst.
Getting me to Auckland: This got tricky. Although I had been living in Wellington, I had been working in Wellington, Christchurch and Twizel. As it turned out, my last two days of work (previous employment) were in Christchurch so I ended up flying direct to Auckland. It was cheaper than flying back to Wellington and meant I didnt have to take two flights that night. I made it with no hiccups.
The fragile stuff: I had been a bit worried about getting my saxophones to Auckland and my plants. My saxophones (a tenor and soprano) I put into my car to go on the train, that was evidently a good idea as the car arrived on time with no damage, wish I could say the same for the truck. I also put a bag of clothes into the car thankfully so I had something to wear to work on my first day. My plants would not have survived the trip I don't think so I replanted them and left them with my flatmates in Wellington - as they are all edible plants that should be useful or them.
Finding my way around Auckland again after almost four years away has been made easier by getting Tom to drive or using the GPS when I do drive. I am struggling with the thought of driving in the horrific traffic up here after the joy of walking to work, biking, or taking the electric trolley bus. I thought I could try the train from work to home or to Tom's work but got very stressed when I tried to work out how to get there, so will have to attempt that again another day. There is parking at work so I can drive but I don't like the damage I do to the planet taking the petrol car, so hopefully we will have the electric car road certified soon (or I will have worked out public transport options).
It is great to be closer to family again. My sister is 5 km down the road and my parents are both also living in Auckland so will be good to see them more often as well as my old friends after so long away.
