Live video feed of the eggs hatching in Ms. Puzo’s 1st grade classroom…

For the love of god I really am starting to be ashamed to be an American. Why should I care about Gary Coleman’s marital disputes, Janet Jackson’s philosophy on love and discipline, or what Britney Spears had to say about Bionce and Tina Turner. Is this really the crap that America is concerned with? Apparently it is. And its not isolated to the smutty, idiodic little world of Entertainment Tonight. Apparently our (yes, your’s and mine) congressmen feel it is their responsibility to spend an enormous chunk of their time (our time) determining exactly what performance enhancing drugs may or may not have been used by some former baseball player(s) and which former baseball trainer(s) or player(s) may or may not have lied about it during the interminable initial waste of time investigating the ’scandal’. I swear to god I’m considering either emmigrating or hanging myself. And as I sit here watching the biggest loser dancing supernanny wife swapping American idol apprentice gladiator geek, I’m already stringing my neckties together wondering if the light fixture in the cieling can support my weight.

After a white knuckle sled ride on 81N yesterday afternoon, I did make it home from three days of the PETE&C geek-fest. My presentation on Second Life went well and I send out big cudos to my ‘virtual’ friends Kathy Schrock, Kevin Jarrett, Joe Sanchez and Leslie Jarmon for contributing to my talk on the implications of SL on developing learning communities and the future of distance education. Thanks to those folks we were able to provide a really good demonstration of how real-world connections can be made and fostered within SL. Generated a lot of discussion and excitement I think. Session notes can be found here.

I wasn’t able to get notes posted about Steve Dembo’s keynote yesterday. He gave a great talk and if I have time later, I’ll summarize my written notes on here. Until then, Kristin Hokanson over at The Connected Classroom recorded the presentation. Hope I’m not taking any liberties by reposting it here.

I should mention one thing that I took away from Monday’s Keynote by David Pogue. Two words - SKYPE PHONE! Chris and I played with Skype on our Verizon XV6700’s today. We are both running the WM6 ROM hack on these devices. We downloaded the CAB files and installed with no trouble. Minutes later we were connected to our wireless network chatting over the internet from our cell phones. (Note that the XV6700 are wifi enabled) I should also mention that we then used the BT Audio program to force feed the audio to our bluetooth earpieces. Extremely simple and works well. This will definately get me to use Skype more often.

Reading a recent post from the ever verbose David Warlick today. Will, posting from the EduCon in Philly (I really wish I had time to attend that conference), commented on a session he was attending in which the speaker commented on the work of Ray Oldenburg, who talks about “third places“. Oldenburg says, in his book The Great Good Place the “first place” is home, the “second place” is work, and he defines “third places” as the “public places on neutral ground where people can gather and interact”. The speaker in the session David was writing about used the Third Places as an anology for the blogs he uses with his students. I was thinking it might be a good reference to use in my Second Life presonation next month at PETE&C.

Here’s some info from Oldenburg’s website:

Third Places
Oldenburg identifies third places, or “great good places,” as the public places on neutral ground where people can gather and interact. In contrast to first places (home) and second places (work), third places allow people to put aside their concerns and simply enjoy the company and conversation around them. Third places “host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work.” Oldenburg suggests that beer gardens, main streets, pubs, cafés, coffeehouses, post offices, and other third places are the heart of a community’s social vitality and the foundation of a functioning democracy. They promote social equality by leveling the status of guests, provide a setting for grassroots politics, create habits of public association, and offer psychological support to individuals and communities.

“Most needed are those ‘third places’ which lend a public balance to the increased privatization of home life. Third places are nothing more than informal public gathering places. The phrase ‘third places’ derives from considering our homes to be the ‘first’ places in our lives, and our work places the ‘second.’”

“The character of a third place is determined most of all by its regular clientele and is marked by a playful mood, which contrasts with people’s more serious involvement in other spheres. Though a radically different kind of setting for a home, the third place is remarkably similar to a good home in the psychological comfort and support that it extends…They are the heart of a community’s social vitality, the grassroots of democracy, but sadly, they constitute a diminishing aspect of the American social landscape.”

Second Life provides a great application of this concept and easily becomes that third place that provides a leveling and grassroots petri dish.

At the very least, here’s the perfect research-based justification to my stopping at the bar every day on the way back from work.

Was able to finally put the finishing touches on the initial build of the Montrose Area Chamber of Commerce website and presented it to that group earlier this week. Chris was able to figure out a couple of issues I was having with two plugins to the e107 structure, but everything seems to be working OK now. Actually I think it turned out pretty well and contains some features that should drive traffic through - including a classifieds system for public use. There’s also membership levels that would allow special features for MACC members and provide for distributed management. e107 content management system worked out pretty well - contains a very robust management interface with all the bells and whistles. Should meet our needs.