Diigo experience

I was in a meeting on Friday with elementary school teachers from around our district. I wanted to share my experience with using Diigo one of the social bookmarking tools described in Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, etc. He had recommended it along with Del.i.cious with which I was vaguely familiar. I decided to use Diigo because it archives copies of your links.
So I had started to add bookmarks and give them tags, but I didn't organize them. During the meeting on Friday, I suggested that we look into the use of iPods in the classroom. One of the teachers was interested enough to pilot a project, but didn't have a lot of information. I had 5 great links bookmark on Diigo, so I made a group, searched on the tags ipods and classroom that I had used, invited her and the Assistant Supervisor to the group and now we are all sharing the links and commenting using Diigo. It was so simple and effective. And I looked like a real gear head. Nice.

Allegory

Okay, stay with me. This is going to be really convoluted. But I am trying to arrive at something here. I am trying to make something work in my mind for the Digital story assignment #2. So, somewhere I read an interview with Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame. Ever see any of his movies? Brazil, Twelve Monkeys, Lost in La Mancha? He cited as one of his influences, well 2 of his influences, Pieter Breughel and Hieronymous Bosch. Familiar with their work? Heavy on the allegory. I saw the Bosch at the Prado in Madrid, weird intricate paintings full of social commentary on sin and such. Same with Breugel's early work, although not as heavy-handed, he still painted with an eye to figurative reference. The Grim reaper is allegorical, as it represents death.

So I got to thinking about allegory, and I had the opportunity last week to do jury duty at the Essex County Courthouse. I was lucky enough to be sent to the Absolutely beautiful Historic Courthouse I was not thrilled with having Jury duty, but it afforded me to things. Time to think and the opportunity to see the beautiful EH Blashfield murals that had lovely allegorical paintings about wisdom, knowledge, justice, etc. Again, more allegory. More representational figures that are more than they seem. So now I'm challenged to think about what I can do along the lines of allegory. Like the Keats thing, Beauty is Truth, truth beauty. Or the Platonic thing about the universal...

I'm not sure where to go with this. Although I am reminded of the little tale of the wind and the sun, upon seeing a man with a heavy coat on, begin to debate who could get him to remove the coat. Short story shorter, the sun wins. Much gentler. Still thinking. Will continue this thought.

iGoogle and Blogger

I am adding the Blogger Gadget for iGoogle. I like being able to post from my iGoogle. I have been interested to finally figure out what RSS feeds can be used for. IGoogle makes it super easy to add RSS feeds to your iGoogle page. I have to decide what to put on my Home tab. I may make a new tab to organize my edu RSS feeds and then leave my Home tab for more personal/lifestyle feeds.

Blog Action Day

What are we doing personally to reduce our carbon footprint?

Our family has been making modest efforts to "go green". These efforts include:

1. Making an effort to recycle more.
2. Turning off lights, unplugging chargers and unused electronics.
3. Intending to turn in Jeep for more efficient car in January (Hybrid? Diesel?)
4. Using string bags/reusable bags at the grocery store.
5. Supporting local farmers and being a member of a CSA.
6. Refraining from printing every little thing on my computer. Doing more online.
7. Stopped buying water in plastic bottles, using Britta filter system and reusable bottles.

Wish I could use solar panels!

Here are some tips from Scientific American about solutions for climate change.

Blueberry Picking

I am replacing an earlier version of this story with an edited one. I figured out how to fade out the audio at the end. I like it better this way.

Time to read for pleasure

So I finally used the 2 Barnes and Noble gift cards that I got as a gift from families at the end of the school year in June. I bought a book I can use in the classroom (Diez Deditos, of the popular José Luiz Orozco fame) and the highly anticipated (by me at any rate) Odd and the Frost Giants. What a jewel of a book. I am so glad that I found Neil Gaiman's work, as it always leaves me happy and thoughtful. And shouldn't everyone be that way for a little while at least? A familiar theme for Gaiman is mythology and the "gods", particularly Norse myth. What I like about myth in general (as opposed to religion, which I am studiously leaving out of this conversation) is how gods and humans interact and impact each other. I have always thought of gods in certain mythologies as human nature magnified. In myth, the gods are so very human...yet to be a god in myth means that one's essential nature doesn't change. Man has more leeway in this area, so we have that going for us, which is kinda nice, right? Odd and the Frost Giants was just what I wanted to read. Short, well-written, big ideas with a light touch.

Okay, enough philosophizing...just exercising a little license to gush because, well, this is my blog. I can say what I want.