Audio extravaganza

Necessity is the mother of invention! Intrigued by Alisa's introduction of BlueGrind, I've been thinking about doing a comparison. I used the whole intro to Thing #17 because I had to re-record it anyway.

Here's my audio intro about wikis:

Here's the BlueGrind version:

If you're curious, here is the text of the first two paragraphs:

Now that you’ve learned a bit about wikis, now’s the time to jump in and play around with them. Don’t worry. You’ve got boots! And friends! If you’ve never used a wiki before, it’s a little scary. We’re so used to thinking about our writing as personal – a part of us -- that many people are afraid to change anything someone else has written.

Sometimes we’re also too busy to undertake what could be a huge task if done by just one person. Even if we have helpers, we may find ourselves spending as much time coordinating work as we do completing it. Or I may have the germ of an idea (what Wikipedia calls a “stub”) that I’m willing to share, but I don’t have the energy or time to flesh it out. My mom used to tell me to finish in style, but that’s not necessarily true in wiki-world. I can start something and count on others to finish it up. Or I when I stumble across something half-baked, I can finish it up. It builds positively on division of labor.

First, the BlueGrindGuy can't handle contractions. (He also can't handle the word "del.icio.us"). One of my reasonings behind using audio was to get more personality into what I was providing as text. I don't think the BlueGrindGuy does it.

Having said all that, I can see using BlueGrind as a proofreading tool for students. In fact they might find it kind of fun. Something more to add to my initial exploration of audio as a writing tool which I began with the sine curve late last fall. [Note: quite a few of the links don't work in my two sine curve pages. I set up a blog for the sine curve a while ago, but I haven't posted anything there yet. Aha -- a project for this fall!

Social networking in the political trenches

As you may know, we have a different kind of "primary" operating this year. It has quarterly deadlines, and instead of votes, they tally dollars. Tonight is the end of the second quarter, so if you are politically active at all, I imagine you have received telephone calls and email messages asking for contributions. I certainly have.

So I was poking around in several candidates' websites (no partisan politics here), and I was really surprised to see how many of the candidates make use of social networking tools: blogging, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and a variety of mash-ups. The point is to get citizens involved in the campaigns, to help them find like-minded neighbors for discussion and party-building. The upside: there are a lot of things I will do online (although I have gone door-to-door and done my stint in phone banks), especially here in Arizona when the temperature gets above 100 degrees. The downside: well, people will speak up, and those ideas might not be exactly what the candidates and campaigns had in mind. This is especially true when citizens have all the new press tools -- digital recorders and cameras -- and can post their recordings, pictures and videos to social sites, with or without editing or commentary. So I know it's risky for candidates, but the ups must outweigh the downs because all of the campaigns are heavily into social networking tools. Just look at the website of your favorite candidate! (Remember that most of these sites have RSS feeds, so you can set up a folder in Bloglines and subscribe for updates; you can keep political messages out of your email but still have access to them whenever and wherever you'd like.)

In addition to the official campaign messages, there are many, many political commentators in the Blogosphere. You can use Technorati to find the most popular, or you can find one or two blogs that you like and examine their Blogrolls or their del.icio.us links to see what they read and who follows them. If you feel strongly about a particular issue (a clear source of motivation), you can search for others who care about that issue also. I mean, sometimes it's really important to keep up with the opposition, no matter how difficult those posts may be to read.

I think social networking tools provide a whole new spin on some key political terms like "grassroots" efforts and a free press. So here's where blogs (and many other Web 2.0 tools) provide more than opportunities for play. The press is free to s/he who has one, and we all do now.

A lesson from Jack about motivation

The new dog is helping the old girl learn new tricks about motivation and its connection to learning. (The new dog is Jack who is growing by leaps and bounds; the old girl is yours truly.)

In case you hadn't noticed, it's hot outside. We have now learned that Jack doesn't much like the heat (smart dog, that Jack!) I'm juggling, trying to keep the air conditioning bill under control and the number of "accidents" on the carpets to a minimum. We have a dog door, but the old dog hasn't been doing a very good job mentoring, and Jack has been reluctant to try it on his own. But he really gets very (ah) jacked out of shape (tee hee) when he can't find Roxy in all the usual places.

This morning, I really couldn't bear leaving the sliding door open so Jack could head out to the yard on his own, so I let him out and then closed the door. Lo and behold! Jack finished his toilette and then dashed back into the cool clime of the bedroom -- whoosh, right through the dog door without a pause. Good dog, Jack!

Somewhat later, he saw Roxy out in the grass, and the next thing I know, he's streaking out through the dog door to join her. Wow! That's a new one! The dog door swings both ways. Good dog, Jack! He seems just so damned pleased with himself, now that he's figured this out. Not as much as we are, you can be sure.

While we've been talking up play, we've also noticed that participation in 23 Things has waned a bit this week. Maybe it's because of the heat, or maybe everyone's hitting the road on vacation, or hauling out the flags and the bunting for next week's celebrations, but it may be also that we need a little jolt, a kick of motivation that doesn't depend just on play.

So Jack's learned a new skill that gives him greater independence, and he's really pleased with himself. (Of course, I've been effusive in my praise too, but I don't think he's going in and out of the dog door for me.) I just hope other 23-Things players are learning too, and getting personal satisfaction out of it, but it would be nice to be able to add some yummy cookies to those wagons! Share!