Immaculate Perceptions

eLearning Technology

2009-10-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

Given that I am a fan of all things eLearning, here is a link to a contest to get a free copy of Digital Habitats. Follow this link to go to a website about it. Also, if you are interested in attending a free online conference, LearnTrends2009, this is the website to check out as well.

Online learning and the ways we can share information without leaving home are of great interest to me. No, I am not a hermit who lives in a cave and never wants to leave. Rather, I love to travel but even more I love to connect with people. I think the eLearning Community is one of the most forward thinking groups around and I love the way many folks are wildly experimenting with teaching and learning. What excites me most is the way the K-12 community is getting involved in eLearning.

This is all an exciting ride and I can't wait to see where the next bend in the road goes.

Fear Factor- Social Networking

2009-08-07T11:17:00.001-07:00

For people like me who go through withdraw when they aren't next to their Blackberry, the idea that someone is afraid of social networking puzzles me. When you sign up for things like Facebook or Twitter, you can certainly limit the number of friends or followers you have. So I remain puzzled about what is so scary?

Maybe there are a couple of things going on here. First maybe folks are just afraid of the technology. Let's face it, typing on those little keyboards on phones is not for everyone. Even sitting down to use a computer on a regular basis might be scary. Who knows who could be snooping through your computer while you are online? (slight nod here to conspiracy junkies who think home computers get hacked while you are online) A second factor in all of this is that getting involved in social networking can be like opening a fire hose. There is such a flood of information that it can be hard to turn it back off.

But really, if you don't like computers or those fancy phones, then don't buy them. Don't go "online". Rather stay in your little caves or your shells and don't stick your neck out. However, don't be surprised if you get lost in the virtual dust of the rest of the world moving forward.

A Week Away

2009-08-03T14:56:00.000-07:00

So I was radio-silent last week during my staycation. OK, so I didn't completely unplug. I still carried and used my Blackberry and logged onto my laptop occasionally to check email. But what was different for me was that I NEVER checked my work email or work phone. I decided that it was all going to be there when I got back, so no need to deal with any of it.

In this age where I practically have my Blackberry implanted on my hip, I think it is getting harder and harder to unplug. Even the most deliberate attempts to put down the electronic devices are met with frosty messages from people trying to get in touch with me. I am always amazed at the number of folks who talk on the phone while they drive despite the fact that it is against the law in California. I am also amazed at the number of people on their phones in grocery stores, at sporting events, and so on.

What I am getting at, is that I think we have lost the ability to turn off the world and be on vacation or staycation. How often during the week do we really turn everything off and just let ourselves be? Take the dog for a walk, go play with someone, even read a book! I think this is something I need to cultivate more going forward. All work and no play makes me uninteresting and not very happy.

The Birther Movement

2009-07-23T09:45:00.001-07:00

I am a regular watcher of TRMS and one of the stories she has been following is the whole birther movement. These are the nut jobs who don't think Pres. Obama was born in the U.S. so he can't be President. They keep insisting that his Hawaiian birth certificate is a fake despite the raised seal and the fact that it was verified. The birthers have taken over Republican meetings and are even having reps. in Congress introduce a bill about it in the House. These folks are over the top! Here is a segment from Jon Stewart of the Daily Show via the Huffington Post in which Jon eviscerates the birther movement. Click here to watch.

What I still don't understand is why these folks need this as their pet issue. Obama is the President, so get over it and get on with your lives. If it was a white guy in the WH, would you be asking for his birth certificate? Don't people have enough concerns with the economy and health care? When I hear and read stories about folks like these, I am a whole lot more worried about Homeland Security than the threat from outside the US.

Middle of the Summer

2009-07-22T10:51:00.001-07:00

How did the summer get to be half over? Looking at my calendar, I see we have reached past the mid-point in July and I am still working on summer projects at work. Having my six-month goals posted on the wall of my office only goes so far to remind me that these all need to be done by Christmas! (I live in a world with a July-June fiscal year).

Much of my world seems to dwell in time. Time to go to work. Time to eat lunch. Time to pick up the kid from summer camp. Where did the time go? Everything is about time. On Sunday even the pastor preached about time and coming away for a Sabbath. Whether it's leisure or not, it's still all about the time.

So maybe it is time to get back to work and start back on the list of goals and the ongoing to-do list. It is never too late to get something done.

Dinner, or something like that

2009-05-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

So we had dinner tonight at In N Out Burger, our favorite local chain. By local I mean California, Arizona and a few other parts of the west coast. What it lacks in ambiance at least the food is fresh, tasty and made to order. I like eating there and find it to be a quick place to grab something that is more than just fast food in a bag, aka a 99 cent heart attack.

When I pulled up to the window to pay, the guy in front of me had not stopped to pay and was trying to drive off without paying. Now I can see doing that if things were free, but no actually he owed them money for his food. We asked the window folks who admitted it happens on occasion. I ask again, what kind of scam is someone trying to pull by making off with a $10.00 bag of burgers? Please, if you are going to try and get away with something at least make it worth while!

All of this comes on the heels of a day where someone tried to blame their negligence on me for a stolen laptop(he went outside and left it on a table not cabled to anything). I cannot account for human stupidity and ignorance. We live in a urban area. Crime happens. There is a reason we have a personal safety brochure. So why did he choose to ignore the safety warnings and leave his stuff unattended? Why did he leave his other stuff like a jacket and backpack unattended while he ran about looking for his laptop? If I solve this riddle, maybe I can take on the Sphinx next!

A Long Time Coming

2008-11-17T17:19:00.000-08:00

One of the problems I have with blogs, is getting people to read them. In a sense my blog becomes my online diary and I was never good with paper diaries. Maybe that's why it has been so long since my last post. So many people are blogging these days that I wonder if we ever get tired of reading?

I think some of us are just more into blogging than the rest of us.

Post Election Euphoria

2008-02-07T11:48:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but I am happy the California Primary is OVER! I voted in mid January by absentee ballot, casting my vote for Hillary Clinton. Now if I get one more leaflet or flyer or phone call or email from an Obama person, I am going to be peevish. Please keep your political preferences to yourself. I don't like your candidate and cannot be persuaded by any amount of rhetoric to support for him. Enough said.

In other news, I was thinking of having Chinese food tonight in honor of the Chinese New Year. I am a big fan of Asian cuisine. From kimchee to spring rolls, I am especially fond of those big bowls of soup with everything floating in it. I also love sushi. Well maybe I just like everything. I hope the year of the rat finds everyone in good spirits.

Other Lives

2008-02-04T11:12:00.000-08:00

I feel like I live more than one life. Maybe I have a split personality! During the day I work as a mild mannered techno-librarian for a major theological enterprise. Then at night I totally switch gears and work for a "start-up" pet care company both in the corporate sense and owning a franchise of my own. I am also a partner, a parent, a church goer, and the list goes on. How many others have such fractured lives? Are we all just going hell bent through the world trying to get everything done?

I got to work this morning and as in all things, it was the first day of the second semester. Under the rubric of "if it can go wrong, it will" something broke in my computer classroom, people were lost and couldn't find their course schedules, technical issues with computers being down raged... It was all in a day's work, or is it? Does the helter-skelter frenzy of my personal life just naturally feed into my work life or is it visa versa? Is this a symptom or a sign of what others are going through? I don't remember my parents being this crazed when I was a kid.

All of this leads me to the issue of multi-tasking. How much is too much? Last week I saw a great YouTube video on a vision of college students today. Click here to see the video for yourself. It made me wonder if we are creating generations of stressed out, burned out people who can only function if they are multi-tasking. Something to ponder... I just don't know.

Not like the picture on the cover

2008-01-31T08:57:00.000-08:00

One of the things I like to do is try new recipes. Call me daring, call me foolish, but there is something about being able to recreate what is on the front of a magazine that is thrilling. So I made the corn chowder from the front cover of the February 2008 Real Simple. First off, the chowder tasted and smelled really good. Even in leftovers a few days later, it was still pretty fabulous. However, mine didn't look like the cover of the magazine. Lucky for me I have developed a near reptilian hide about my cooking and don't NEED it to look like the cover of a magazine. But-- how many people try to replicate the recipes in a magazine and when it fails to look like the pictures feel like failures? Moreover, how many people give up trying recipes out of magazines because they don't have the perception of success when they try them. I think there will always be some of us die hard experimenters who love trying out new recipes and fearlessly inflict our cooking on our families and friends. But what about the countless thousands who give up trying?

I am not in any way bashing professional cooks and food stylists. They have an important job and I love both looking at and eating the meals cooked by the pros. My concern is, are we setting the bar too high for the average cook who just needs to get something on the table at the end of the day? Has food become such an obsession that if we cannot achieve perfection (as defined by the media) at our tables, we stop trying? That might be the secret goal here. Set the bar so high for the average cook that they stop trying and just go out. It would certainly support the restaurant industry!

As for me, I will keep trying in the kitchen to make miracles happen. Lucky for me I have an indulgent spouse who seems to like everything I make and a sharply critical kindergarten son who just hates everything. There is something to strive for in that gulf.

It's been awhile

2008-01-28T09:26:00.000-08:00

Somehow the tyranny of the clock takes over and several months slide by without a post. Yikes! On the other hand, so much has happened, that I will give myself a pass this time around. As always, I am in the midst of tackling some software package. This time it's the Adobe Creative Suite for the Web. I am also up to my elbows in food and cooking projects because that's what I like to do too.

In "unpacking" the Adobe software, I am finding myself learning to love their online help. I confess that I had grown used to the sort of almost help that I often found around Microsoft products and their annoying Paper Clip. However with Adobe, they link you to actual videos on lynda.com that you can watch. I find myself mesmerized by the videos and being able to figure out how to do what I need to accomplish. So it is a win win for me.

In other news, I was poring over a copy of the latest Alice Water's book that I got for Christmas and actually drooled. Not that the book was so scintillating, but rather the whole act of food I think is pretty cool. More about that later... Time to get back to work.

Implications beyond text

2007-07-05T13:02:00.000-07:00

Since Web 2.0 is SO interactive, it is only logical that library services are moving into images, audio, video and beyond. In looking at the websites for class this week, I was struck by three thoughts.

Even the best ideas may need to be presented in multiple formats.
I like when things are explained to me, rather than assumed that I know how to make something work or why something is being done a certain way.
I have a low boredom threshold. In other words, if something doesn't catch my attention quickly, I move on to something different.

I liked the websites that made creative use of the technology, like Westmont Public's Flickr pics that were linked to the catalog. I also love the Sunnyvale Public use of podcasts with both the voices and stories. However, I was confused by the Curtin Univ. site and felt it didn't have enough information to make it work.

In my own setting I would like to get at least images, if not a video library tour up so people who miss the orientation tours can take one online. I would also love to explore a Flickr account to chronicle library events and people. I think my users would love to see what happens in the library when they aren't there or cannot attend a particular event.

I live to IM!

2007-06-29T16:33:00.000-07:00

This week's assignment to create IM profiles is a snap for me! I already can be found at

eastbaySF in Yahoo
veldheercarlsonk in AIM
krisveldheer in Google

The easiest one to find me hanging out in is the Google chat and sometimes I take advantage of Meebo to use multiple chat clients as well. I even downloaded the Google Chat client onto my Blackberry so I can chat on the go.

For me the beauty of IMing is that I can leave the chat client running all day and people who want to catch me without picking up the phone can just IM. I also like an IM client because in the case of Google it records my conversations, so over the course of a day I can come back to previous conversations. Of all of the current Web 2.0 tools, this is the one I cannot live without.

Surveying Wikis

2007-06-25T11:48:00.000-07:00

I really like wikis as a tool for greater cooperation. Of the wikis we looked at, I think the one I like the best is from U of Minnesota. The wiki seems like a great way for everyone to stay informed and participate at the same time.

I am very interested to see where OCLC's wiki is going in particular how Open World Cat is going to change the way we catalog books. I need to add that one to my bookmarks file and keep reading it.

Class Blogs and Other Thoughts

2007-06-25T10:14:00.000-07:00

Here is the blog I set up for my online class on developing a successful eBranch. This is not my first attempt at a blog and in fact I maintain another blog for our faculty.

In looking over the blogs for week 1, I came to the conclusion that the beauty of blogs is there adaptability. Each of the sites I looked at was shaped by the community it served. They cannot be compared to each other. I think that is one of the great strengths of Web 2.0. Finally the web is living up to its potential to be a truly user driven, interactive place.