This evening I was multi-tasking a little, watching TV and keeping an eye on Twitter. Mark Pesce popped up on Twitter and coincidentally I was watching the New Inventors on the ABC here in Australia. Mark acts as a panellist on this television programme from time to time. Not tonight.

Exchanged a tweet or two with Mark [something that still amazes me as I think about it] and asked if he had recently presented in the USA as his name had been mentioned in a couple of tweets over the weekend. He mentioned he had and moments later he linked to this video of his presentation at the Personal Democracy Forum, Lincoln Center, New York City, 24 June 2008.

I highly recommend that you watch Mark’s presentation. His introduction will intrigue you. I guarantee you will learn something new every few minutes. He examines the impact that mediums such as the printing press, mobile phones and networks have had on civilisation in disseminating ideas and giving individuals empowerment. He speaks of hyperconnevtivity and the power of individuals to harness networks to seek and seize change. These forces have the capability to bypass those in power, those in government. A powerful presentation, an excellent argument, a cogent message.

The text of his presentation is available on his blog, the human network. Enjoy. Learn. Adapt. Be ready.

How did I create this post? I took the two screenshots using SharpShooter.  I resized each to 400 pixels in width to a dpi of 72 in Adobe Photoshop Elements and exported them using the Save For Web… option which allows you to fine tune file size and quality. I used CyberDuck to upload each image to my host. I used Worpdress to create this blog post.

Liberation

One of the best decisions I have made recently was to follow my gut feeelings and rename my blog. Formally it was called TeachTech but as you can see I renamed the blog Watershed, last Sunday.

It is a liberating feeling as I now no longer feel constrained by the TeachTech title and technology tips tag line. Sure, there will be technology and teaching notes in the future yet there will also be additional posts that reflect on day to day life, often with an education bent. I shall endeavour to include the addendum at the conclusion of each post where I briefly outline how I created the post and its contents. I feel that readers may find that useful.

Some sage advice from a couple of curious Corellas

So, if you have ever thought about renaming your blog, particularly if you feel it will more accurately reflect how you feel and write, then do so now.

How did I create this post? I took each photograph using a Nikon D-70 several years back. I uploaded the images to my Mac using a USB 2.0 card reader. This is much faster than using the USB cable that came with the camera. I imported the second image into Comic Life and added the word balloons, etc. I exported the Comic as a jpeg image and then resized it in Adobe Photoshop Elements. I resized each image down to a width of 400 pixels and 72dpi for inclusion in this blog and exported each using the Save For Web… option which allows you to fine tune file size and quality. I used CyberDuck to upload each image to my host site. I have also linked to the galleries that contain other photographs taken at the same time as those displayed in this post.

Well, in the last two days I have signed up to not one, not two but three new “Web 2.0 tools”. I was intrigued by Posterous and it’s incredible ease of use. One can perform many tasks simply via email ~ a tool that many are quite adept at using already. Why not use Posterous to set up a blog? I signed up. Three bloggers have highlighted Posterous during the last 24 hours, namely Larry Ferlazzo, Michelle Martin and Silvia Tolisano. It is certainly an interesting tool and I shall be sharing it with my colleagues this Thursday.

Earlier this evening I received an email invite from Clay Burell to join Plurk and I did. It looks neat. I will give it a go. I had read about it on Read~Write Web some time back and it has popped up in a few posts and tweets as a possible alternative to the long suffering Twitter.

Then, since I was seemingly in a drunken web 2.0 haze I signed up for Diigo despite my digs here, here and here (scroll down) I will have to thoroughly explore Diigo in order to derive the greatest benefit from this tool. Well, it has been 3 months since the big Diigo whirlwind of last March so I here I am all signed up and I even joined a few groups.

But, I signed up for Posterous within 24 hours of its discovery and for Plurk the second I read Clay’s invite. I did not allow time to frame my decision. I jumped straight in. Web 2.0 overdose. Bless me father for I have sinned.

How did I create this post? My wife took my photograph using a small Casio digital camera. I uploaded the image to my Mac using a USB 2.0 card reader. I imported the image into Comic Life and added the word balloons, etc. I exported the Comic as a jpeg image and then resized it in Adobe Photoshop Elements and exported it using the Save For Web option which allows you to fine tune file size and quality. I used CyberDuck to upload the image plus the various logos that I had screen captured via SharpShooter,

Sunset, Tioman Island, Malaysia, 2001.

Watershed ~ a critical point that marks a division or a change of course; a turning point; a period of time that marks a turning point in a course of action.

Well, I think that we are in the midst of a turning point or a change of course in terms of education so I have decided to give my blog a new name ~ Watershed.

I have been pondering this name change for a while.

The term watershed has been a part of my vocabulary since I read The Sleepwalkers by Arthur Koestler about 30 years ago. In this seminal tome Koestler gives an account of mankind’s changing view of the universe and cosmology. He applied the term watershed to that period of the scientific revolution when Kepler and Galileo forever changed our view of the universe.

Dusk, Albion Park, NSW. 2006.

During the last few weeks a significant number of blog posts and ‘tweets’ on Twitter have been along these lines:

“Just a week to go before I am off to the NECC”
“Five days to go and I will be at the NECC”
“NECC next week!”
“NECC here I come!”
“Packing my bags for the NECC!”
“So excited about going to NECC!”
“At last, just about to hop on a plane for the NECC”
“Sitting in an airport lounge… NECC is my next stop”

The education networks are inundated with the term NECC (just like this blog post). Thinking about it, the fact that the term is prevalent in so many posts would make searching for relevant data regarding the NECC a little more challenging.

Something else crossed my mind as well. The NECC has been around for nearly thirty years now and I wonder if the demographics of the attendees has altered during the previous three decades. In particular, has the advent of the read~write web (aka Web 2.0) had an impact on the demographics at the conference?

Will there be hard core programming types mingling with newbie, web 2.0 entranced teachers? Will the educators that have their roots in command line interfaces cope with the Twitterers in their midst? What will the mix be I wonder?

Wish I was there.