Archive for October 30th, 2008

I went to costco today to pick up some snacks for the office.  While there, I saw that they had a much wider variety of items than usual.  A LowePro camera bag for a great price, some new cameras, etc.  And…a Flip Video Ultra unit.  I’ve been wanting one of these for a year at least, and it’s something we legitimately want to try out at work so I got it.  Sure, I’ll use it a bit for my own stuff to “test it” but it is for work, and I have good reasons to try it out.  So I grabbed it.

Now…a few months later, while at Educause, I am seeing how I could have used it had I thought for about it for a second and brought it along.  A small but not-too-small form factor, very good video quality, and the easiest darn controls out there.  It’s a really impressive unit.

The only thing I wish I could do is hack is for 2 hours of recording.  Go back to the lower quality compression used in the original Flip that gave 1 hour in half the capacity.  Then, we could roll these out as set-it-up-yourself video recording for classes.  Think about that – short of a major infrastructure installation for recording, we just hand one of these to a professor and voila.  Our classes are all more than 60 minutes so we’d need that hack.

Great product.  Wish it had that one feature, though..

This isn’t a “political” post.  I’m not bashing or supporting either side (I did vote for Obama, and I don’t like McCain, but that’s not the point here).  What I’m not getting is how McCain can say something over and over and over, not changing what he is saying, when I truly feel like he’s just digging his hole deeper and deeper.

I’m listening on CNN right now about stuff he said today.  He says a number of things which I just don’t get.  Specifically:

• Obama wants to raise your taxes
• I will fight for pork barrel taxes and inclusions, bridges that lead nowhere…

So…I really feel like Obama has made his case on the whole “if you make less than $250,000 your taxes will not go up” thing.  It’s something that people grasp – it’s got a dollar figure on it.  I think it’s fine that McCain wants to argue that Obama wants to raise some taxes, but this blanket statement just doesn’t really make sense anymore.  Maybe he could say “he’s rolling back some tax cuts – what if he keeps going?” or something like that.  But I think he’s beating this horse pretty badly.

And the bridge to nowhere is…in Alaska.  And while I think I read something about how under her governorship she just let it happen, as compared to making it happen (hey, that happens – she hasn’t been governor that long), the point is that…the pork barrel thing, the bridge to nowhere, THE EXAMPLE HE GIVES, is something that happened in Alaska.  Weird.

Don’t get me wrong – I think he makes some good points in his stump speech.  I don’t agree with his tactics, but I think some of them make sense.  I just don’t see why he’s making these particular points while stumping.

What is an instructional technologist? at bavatuesdays

Jim Groom does a tremendous job describing what an “instructional technologist” means to him, and I think it’s a pretty damn good description in general. 

And I think it’s completely logical that he has no interest in going into administration.  Some are administrators.  Some are instructional technologists.  Some are integrators, some are connectors, some are innovators.  Some are a multitude of these personalities (a la Thomas Kelley’s The Ten Faces of Innovation). 

Me?  I think I’m someone who could have been an instructional technologist but is equally passionate about administration and doing administration the right way.  So maybe that’s the way I go.  And hopefully I’ll have a “Jim Groom” working with me while I’m handling the administrivia.  Someone that passionate about doing that kind of work. 

Good stuff.

This has been a frustrating educause in many ways.  I have met up with many people.  And many of them even remember me from the various times we’ve met in the past, which is in some cases surprising.  And almost all of them have been great with whom to speak and share ideas.  That part has been excellent.

But I have overslept for 2 straight days, missing the first session each, and I didn’t get out to some of the events last night.  And I flat-out forgot a discussion group I meant to go to last night (though I did so while chatting with someone so that’s not a bad reason.

So far it’s been positive, but the oversleeping from jet lag is really annoying.  It’s been hannging onto me like a foggy cloud for at least a day longer than I had expected.

Edit:  I’m actually having a great and productive time here.  Just was grumpy this morning.  I am frustrated about the jet lag.