Category Archives: work
TEDxUofC
It looks like the University of Calgary is planning a series of TEDx events: TEDxUofC – the first one being next week, just days after the TEDxYYC event. After previously saying I wouldn’t go to a TEDx event because of the way they’re set up, I’m happy to post that they don’t have to be [...]
UCalgaryBlogs.ca Growth
I spent some time this afternoon poking around in the database that runs UCalgaryBlogs.ca to see if I could get a better sense of how it’s growing. Turns out, it’s growing MUCH faster than I thought it was (and I thought it was growing pretty darned fast). It’s still pretty small scale, compared with giants [...]
UCalgaryBlogs.ca Redesign
I’ve been meaning to redesign the main site at UCalgaryBlogs.ca for awhile now – the Edublogs Clean theme isn’t intended to be dropped in as a stock theme, but as a starting point for hacking something tailor-made. The Edu-Clean theme is available as part of the fantastic Premium WPMUDev subscription – and it certainly helped [...]
Walking tour of University of Calgary Campus
Back in the heady early days of podcasting – all the way back in 2005 – one of the first use cases of the technology was to create “walking tours” where a narrator could guide students through a tour of an area. When video podcasting became possible, it would make the guided tours more effective [...]
Leslie Reid on team projects in large classes
I had the distinct pleasure of introducing Dr. Leslie Reid this morning, for her presentation “Creating Team Projects that Work in Large Classes: Redesigning a Large Science ‘Service’ Course” – part of the Teaching & Learning Centre’s 10th anniversary series of presentations. She talks about her experience in redesigning a large class (300 students with [...]
got a blog?
I just put up a bunch of these posters in a few of the buildings on campus. Time to spread the word a little more widely…
Syndicating and republishing decentralized content with WordPress
I was going to write up a post describing how to use the cool FeedWordPress plugin for WordPress to syndicate external content into a blog, and republish it in the context of a class or group. But, of course, Jim Groom has beaten me to the punch, and done a much more thorough job of [...]
Learning Community – Blogging and Student Publishing
We held our first gathering of the “Blogging and Student Publishing” learning community last week. It was a small, informal gathering – only a handful of profs were able to make it due to summer schedules, and another handful of staff. I think the small group was actually a very good thing for a first [...]
on learning communities
I’ve been working on organizing a project I’ve called “Learning Communities” here at UCalgary. It’s still a bit amorphous, but that’s actually part of the plan. What I’m going to do is offer resources and support to any communities on campus so that they can effectively get together and share what they’re doing. I’ll facilitate [...]
Michael Geist – Why Copyright?
Michael Geist gave a talk at The University of Calgary on April 2, 2008, on the subject of copyright. He talked about the need for Fair Dealings, the dangers of the Canadian DMCA, and even touched on the benefits of open access and even open education.
Dr. Geist’s presentation was very compelling, interesting, and engaging. I [...]