Stand Up Desk

In theory, I'm quite intrigued with the idea of having a desk where I could world standing up. This sitting while on the computer does nothing for a woman's legs. I saw a small table that would have been perfect at Camp Borden but the stores on Canadian military bases are no bargain. The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking the right solution would be to create a broader top for an old bookcase so I can have my reference books near at hand. Next on the dream list is a drafting table. Maybe I'll look around for ideas of what has the potential to be turned into a drafting table.

The Twitter Song

Hope there are more social networking songs produced.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYP-wBaqQAI
It's great to have songs produced that one can identify with. I'm a bit past the love song/hurting song phase of life but I really could use some music to twitter, blog, facebook by.

Men with Codes

This started with a recommended blog post on Obama's Code written by Geore Lakoff.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/02/george-lakoff-on-obama-code.html
I live in a world of men with codes. Whether you agree with someone's codes or not, it certainly makes relationships much clearer. Figure out the guiding code and it's the difference between wandering around lost and being given a guidebook. My father-in-law, my husband, my sons all have codes of conduct that they just don't break ever under any circumstance.
I, on the other hand, would go to the depths of hell to save any of my children. That pretty much explains why I didn't get Sarah Palin. She lives by a code. I'd have bent my code and bought my child contraceptives.

A New Kind of Science

Basically I'm saving this text so I can find it again. It appeared on my facebook page and I'm intending to read it later.

Stephen Wolfram: A New Kind of Science | Online - Table of Contents
http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/toc.html
Source: www.wolframscience.com
Complete online version of Stephen Wolfram's 'A New Kind of Science' book

Care of Your PLN

I've set some rules for myself:
1. I'm going to do the reading. If the people on pln post to facebook, I'm going to follow their links. I'm also going to check in on their blogs.
2. I'm going to give back even if it's just posting comments.
3. If I see potential for collaboration between various facebook friends, I'll introduce them to each other.

So how am I going to do this without it overwhelming my life? I've decided to use the nursing model of checking everyone at the beginning and end of the shift. It's not perfect but it also doesn't let anyone fall through the cracks and it frees up the bulk of the day for my life in the real world.

My Personal Learning Network

I've been working on creating a personal learning network. So far I have about 200 people but as in anything else there will be some who never post anything. At the moment, they are heavily into education and educational technology which makes a lot of sense considering the purpose of a pln. I'm trying to branch out to include more people from the arts (writers, poets, artists, etc) and more from the health science. It's not like I've ignored those areas - I have a couple of writers, a couple of poets and a screenwriter as well as people in nursing education. I'm also trying to achieve a demographic balance - various ages, various locations, various career paths, etc. A kindergarten teacher and a university professor have different bodies of expertise even though they are both educators. Someone with a lot of experience has a different perspective than someone entering a field. It's very exciting - especially for someone who has mainly lived in very small communities.

Personal Learning Environments

I'm not entirely clear on what is meant by Personal Learning Environments (PLE). Graham Attwell has put together a presentation with the basics.
http://www.pontydysgu.org/2009/01/personal-learning-environments-the-slidecast/
After you have the general idea, go here http://edtechpost.wikispaces.com/PLE+Diagrams
for an extensive collection of PLE diagrams.
I'm thinking I won't really understand Personal Learning Environment until I create a diagram of what works for me.