I'm travelling - and will return to my beloved laptop March 17.

Tony Karrer, in his blog, elearning Technology, links to a TED talk by Dan Gilbert about our minds and happiness. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2007/03/happiness-must-watch-video.html

It is worth far more than the 22 minutes it takes to watch it. In fact, seeing it may increase your happiness.

I really enjoyed my time in Rome, Florence, and Venice, especially Venice. While I travelled, I also played with some web services. Ning's - http://www.ning.com/ - new, and very easy-to-use / drag & drop approach was interesting, but for some reason I don't understand, it failed to send out the invitations to the addresses I listed. I posted to my Ning network while in Florence using an in-hotel "Internet point", but didn't find a close Internet cafe in Venice. Then, in Rome, the first Internet Point didn't have a USB connection, or said they didn't as they tried to sell me on saving my pictures on a CD. Here's the site, which I ended up abandoning -  http://whatwesaw.ning.com/

There were some problems with the Ning Social Network, but I will be watching as it develops further. It definitely has some interesting possibilities.

When I got home, I decided to use  PowerPoint and SlideShare - http://www.slideshare.net/ - to put some of my pictures online. I like PowerPoint for limited text and structured visuals. I like SlideShare, despite its small file size requirement. I would embed it here, but there's a problem with my template, so I will just give the links:

http://www.slideshare.net/vinall/italy-2007-part-1
http://www.slideshare.net/vinall/italy-2007-part-2
http://www.slideshare.net/vinall/italy-2007-part-3
http://www.slideshare.net/vinall/italy-2007-part-4 

I saw antiquities in Rome, and art in Florence, but in Venice, I felt I was embedded within the art object itself - Venice. BTW, Donna Leon's - http://www.groveatlantic.com/leon/alsoby.htm - detective series set in Venice really added to my experience of it.

It was a very happy time! 

 

When I was travelling, at one point I woke up, jetlagged, well before my husband in a tiny hotel room. I couldn't sleep, and reading with a light on would disturb him. Then I had a moment of inspiration. I slid out of bed, grabbed the iPod Nano I had loaded with podcasts for listening to on the plane, and slipped back into bed. No light on, warm and cosy, I listened to "From Gutenberg to McLuhan to What's Next", a free podcast from The Economist (4/21/06) I had discovered a new pleasure.

Ellen Wagner, the director of worldwide e-learning at Adobe systems, in an article, "Mobile Learning: The Next Step in Technology-Mediated Learning"says

• The reality is that mobile learning takes many forms and can rely just as easily on a handheld or laptop computer as it can on a portable digital player or other device.The important thing is connecting with and engaging users. Technology is simply the vehicle to make this happen. (Bolding added)  http://tinyurl.com/3ckqlz
  

Learning, or simply enjoying ourselves with words recorded in some manner, - marks on paper or electronic screens, sounds transmitted through small devices, - the choices, and venues are widening. And that's not even including the multimedia the web and other  small devices provide platforms for. We live in amazing times.

Link to Ellen Wagner's article, courtesy of Stephen Downes - OLDaily - http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=39608

 A small add-on to my previous post about pictures from Italy, and how i mounted them on the web, I have added them to the more comfortable space of Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/shiftingsemiosis/sets/7215760003