Martin Pluss

Hi all,

Well following on from the other parts (down there somewhere) about the The World is Flat this is the 4th secton. I find it interesting to say the least on how things happen.

Untouchables

1. Great Collaborators and Orchestrators – go to the centre of gravity –India.
2. Great Synthesizers – putting together disparate things that you would not think normally go together. Known as mashups of two different web based tools
3. Great explainers –the business that made digital photos to print and then started a business to show people how to do it themselves.
4. Great Leveragers – combining the best computers can do with the best humans can do.
5. Great Adapters to – versatilists – depth of skill to a widening scope of situations and experiences, gaining new competitiveness, building relationships and assuming new roles.
6. The green people – sustainable and renewable
7. Passionate Personalisers – Baseball vendor selling water sugar and lemon in a plastic cup.
8. Great Localisers – “localising the globe” with satellite dishes, DSL lines, Blackberrys. Coffee bars keep people with wireless connections.

cheers Martin

Here is some information on what looks like two interesting books.

Book Launch

Two books, Youth Online: Identity and Literacy in the Digital Age by Angela Thomas and Living on Cybermind by Jonathan Marshall (published by Peter Lang) will be launched at Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe by Professor Colin Lankshear on Friday, March 14, 2008 at 6.00 for 6.30pm. The launch is free. If you are interested in attending please contact Gleebooks on 96602333 to register.

Youth Online by Angela Thomas chronicles the stories of young people from several countries – the US, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, and Holland – and their interactions in online communities over a seven-year period. It examines how young people construct their identities in various social contexts: social, fantasy, role-playing; and for various social purposes: leadership, learning, power, rebellion and romance. It explores the ways youth are deploying both visual and literary cues to develop a full sense of presence online and to effectively communicate with their peers. Using methods of textual, visual, and socio-psychological analysis, this book illuminates the ways in which young people are making sense of their own identities and their place within broader communities.

Angela Thomas is Lecturer in English Education at the University of Sydney. She specializes in teaching new media literacies and is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on fan fiction, online role-playing, blogging, digital fiction, cyberculture, identity, and learning in virtual worlds, and is co-author of Children’s Literature and Computer-Based

Teaching Cybermind by Jonathon Marshall is an Internet mailing list, originally founded in 1994 to discuss the issues and problems of living online. It proved exceptionally fertile and is still going strong thirteen years later.

This book is an ethnographic investigation which follows Cybermind members in their daily lives on the List, and explores the ways they look at the world, argue, relate online life to offline life, use gender, and build community. Perhaps the most comprehensive history of an Internet group ever published, it includes detailed analyses using List members’ own words and commentary, and develops a unique theory of the relationship between culture, the problems of communication, and the ongoing processes of categorisation. Living on Cybermind illustrates how behaviour is affected by the organisation of communication, and how people deal with the paradoxes involved in resolving ambiguity and truth in a situation in which presence is always on the verge of slipping away.

Jonathan Paul Marshall has an M.A. (Hons) and Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Sydney. He has been an Australian Research Council Research Fellow at the Transforming Cultures Research Centre at the University of Technology, Sydney, working on a project on online gender.

They look interesting.

cheers  Martin

Hi all,

Well I have been doing some work on Social Bookmarking and I have been trying to share it with my colleagues. We are running small professional development sessions for staff. I was asked to offer some Web 2.0 stuff but not many know what it is and how useful it will be for them -  so not many takers. I did do a reasonable job at marketing it.

So the popular ones were digital photography, marketing the school superannuation, pedogogy (which Web 2.0 would fall into but maybe it has not hit the mainstream thinking of pedogogy experts) smart boards and  learning for individual differences.

If you look at the ones that were of interest they do fit into the concrete stage of thinking for teachers. Pretty clear that if we want Web 2.0 to become more mainstream there is still a lot of work to do to make it seem practical and useful for the practical teacher.

cheers Martin

Hi all,

Well it stopped the school today with people finding computers and TVs at 8:55am.

Pretty impressed he pulled it off and I thoroughly agree with saying sorry. I cannot sit on the fence on this one. Sure it is complex but the fact remains some Aboriginals were taken from their families and they should be apologized to.

In fact it is more than the government being responsible it is us letting the government do what they did. It serves as a reminder to me, to keep an eye things in which I am involved and not let some things happen.

One of the comments to a story in news.com.au:

“I’m not sorry, I’ve no reason to be, my family had nothing to do with it.”

If you vote the government in you do have something to do with it. We still have to look after all Australians.

If we have to say sorry for other things – well so be it. If it costs us so be it. Sometimes the right thing needs to be done and at least on this issue the right thing was done.

The story of the 80 year lady made it for me.

Meanwhile talk back on 2GB is providing both sides of the argument and lots of emotion.

Now I want to see how it has spread around the world. It is on the front page on CNN now and BBC.

Let’s see if I can find a few links that tell the story

News.com.au Rudd moves to heal the nation

CNN Australia Apologizes to Aborigines

BBC Australia Apology to Aborigines

Thousands say sorry in Facebook 

It has been really interesting to see how the story has spread and how people have offered their opinion on blogs and how quickly.

cheers Martin

Hi all,

I know it is into the second month of the year but I take January for time at the beach, family and exercising.  In this case mostly riding and walking.  It is my Google Time that takes up 12.5 % of the year.

I continued my running and life blog when I could get access to the internet and at one stage had well over 1000 feeds in Google Reader to process.  I quickly headed back to the beach

I want to share with you the Maxine McKew Month.  January 2007 Maxine was on holidays on the Central coast where I holiday.  While at  at Pretty Beach she was approach with the idea of running against John Howard in the 2008 election and in January 2008 she won and had a seat in parliament and pushed out a sitting Prime Minister.

January now is my Maxine Month where I am open to all sorts of possibilities and I just go with all that comes up.  So what happened in this year’s Maxine McKew Month.   So what happened?

I have wanted to do some theological reading but I have find the Bible to be boring.  I cannot pronounce the names, nor can I identify with the situations and the language.  while on a ride with Barry, whom I worked with for 5 years and is now the Rector of the Darling Street Anglican Church, he suggested to read two books and they have made a difference. Though I still don’t see the point of 4 Gospels which essentially tell the same story.

Next I checked my email in the video store at Avoca Beach and there was  an email from the Editor of the ACER  Publications and they have offered to publish a paper I wrote on Social Bookmarking.  This keeps me on track of publishing at least one article a year – which I have managed to do since 1985.

Last year I was a slave to my goal of running 100km a month or 25km a week.  In January I just decided to walk and ride.  I recorded how long I was out for each week.  I began to notice that I was actually spending more time exercising  even though I was doing less km running.  This has become my focus this year.  I feel half an hour a day is the benchmark so 3:30 hours per week.  As it turned out i did 30 hours of exercise in January.  I won’t keep those hours up but  the focus on hours seems to be better for my over all fitness as I have to cross training more.

We committed to improving where we live with the intention of staying where we are in Pennant Hills for a longer time frame.  Plans have been approved.  Some assets have to be sold to do it  but generally it has been a good decision for the family.

No great relevation or solution but on the professional front I have been spread a bit too thin and juggling a few balls.   In January I was remind my core is teaching.  I am a Social Science teacher who dabbles a lot in ICT.  I am going to keep reminding myself this through out the year when things get too busy.

On the ICT front with the social booking marking work published I want to pull together information on Social Networking.  I don’t want Web 13.0 to be a blog just linking to other websites.  Google Reader does this for me.

Well that is all from me for now.

cheers  Martin

cheers  Martin