King’s Corner
It’s not just academic.

I am moving King’s Corner to a new location on Pellissippi State’s multi-user blogging platform. Please update your bookmarks. The general page is at http://blogs.pstcc.edu/dking/ ; I’ll have to check how permalinks might be affected. The old content has been moved, and this site will remain at least for a time for archival purposes, but new posts after this will only appear at the new location.

Here we are with a new academic year starting, and among other things this year holds, I’m getting back into Second Life again. Much has changed, and much remains the same. I’ll be sharing observations more frequently than in recent months.

One thing that caught my eye today: Paul Sweeney has noticed an implication of recent announcements by Linden Lab, i.e., that “Second Life [is] getting closer to real life.” Part of that announcement revolved around an upcoming viewer upgrade that will allow the viewer to handle HTML, Flash, and embedded browsers, and it may even be able to talk to real world applications like Excel. Such capabilities will make virtual meetings seem/feel more like real-world meetings, making them feel somewhat like face-to-face (where it’s so easy to just say, “Look at this!”) while retaining the advantages of using the Internet for distributed meetings rather than having everyone hop on a plane.

That has implications for distance education as well, of course.

In an article entitled “Pay Attention,” Mark McGuinness lays out research showing the importance of a skill that goes beyond mere skill. I’m very sure that along with improving musical performance, learning mindfulness will improve public speaking, general communication skills, and life skills. Take the time to read all the way through.

This post on GoodLifeZen.com focuses on effective learning, and uses a metaphor that will speak to almost all of us to help us remember its principles. It’s called “How to Learn (Almost) Anything and Feel Incredible Doing It.”

Friends know that I’m about as close to Web secure as you can get without being flat-out paranoid. I’ve hardly ever gotten a virus, despite doing a lot of exploration. I have effective email filters set up, and I’m adept at spotting those emails that appear to come from people are know, but really aren’t, i.e., spoofed.

Nevertheless, the only thing that never changes is that things change. I’m being tested right now via Facebook. I’m pointing to this post from there, in fact, as a fuller explanation for my FB friends, and also as a general warning to everyone else. Here’s the background, and the potential benefit to readers. Read the rest of this entry »

Still confused about Twitter? I think I “get” it, but I still find myself not bothering to tweet. Guess I think I’m not that interesting. Jason Hiner explains The four stages of the average Twitter user effectively.

This has been the weirdest term. I wind up saying that every term, but each time it is true. I had good classes this time, and accomplished a lot of stuff that we often don’t get to, and yet there was much I didn’t get to do with several classes. It’s also true, though, that I am so, so burned out. I’m teaching this summer, but I’ve already decided we’re going to do it “old school,” with a minimum of computer usage. Just do it the old-fashioned way. I think maintaining the tech support for the courses I’m teaching is just getting to be too much on top of the teaching.

Plenty of tech stuff to do, still, but it will be in support of what other people are doing. Perhaps this will be the positive version of the old saying concerning the cobbler’s children going barefoot. We’ll see.

In any case, congratulations to the graduates, and to a lesser degree to us all for making it through another one.

Aliza Sherman notes the cycle of Second Life hype, followed by SL bashing, followed by more hype, followed by declarations that SL is dead. Not so, she says, in “Second Life Is Social Media.” It’s not about education, but it is about the nature of the medium, and much of it has implications for education and other activities in SL, including the downsides. Take a look.

End of a term. Not a lot of posts lately. Not much time today, in fact, since I’m grading like crazy. Still, I wanted to share a post by a friend and colleague with a unique set of talents: artist, actor, and accomplished geek. Not many people have the mental capacity to bring artistic skills and sensibilities into the same skull as technological skills, but Kathrine Bailey does.

The particular post points out some of the social dark side of social networking, along with a warning more techy in nature. It’s a good reminder that brings together elements in a creative way. As Yoda might say, “Exposed you may be!”

One of the great things about parody, of course, is that it is all at once funny and not-funny-because-it’s-too-true. Robert Lanham has produced a syllabus for a course called Internet-Age Writing, and it makes me laugh and cry, just like those people I heard about in a student’s speech who named their dog “Fungus.” What worries me is the number of people who will not get the cultural references on either side of this thing. Note: if you skim it instead of read it, you are already Too Far Gone.