SXSW – what happened?

Another conference, the conference perhaps – South by Southwest in Austin. The interactive section of the week or two conference, expo, party just ended. Check out some of the award winners to see whats being respected by the top of our domain:

Green and Non-profit projects that are striving to make the world a better place. Activism category presented by Convio.

BOVAP
I Voted
Pencils of Promise
The Tiziano Project
Vital Voices

Art

From traditional photography to non-traditional performances, this category focuses on web-based collections of life, society and culture.

Born Presents: 417 • 903
The Johnny Cash Project
Mural Explorer
The Photography of Rama Tiru
This Land

Community

Social networks and wikis that have quickly developed an extraordinarily active multi-user community and an exceptional following of users who assist with content development.

Acts of Sharing
Foodspotting
iFixit
SnapGoods
Your Garden Show

Experimental

These are cutting-edge and trend-setting destinations that are pushing the envelope and challenging our perceptions of the web.

Isle of Tune
Look to the Moon
Memolane
Robyn / Killing Me
X

These are finalist of a few of the categories. See all of them at http://sxsw.com/interactive/awards/finalists

Happy browsing!

 

 

Web 2.0 Expo

On Monday, March 28-31 the Web 2.0 Expo will be happening in San Francisco. NetVibes is covering the event live – through a new component called the live dashboard. If you log into your Netvibes account, go to the dashboards menu, and select W2e. It has a lot of twitter feeds surrounding the conference – click on some of the urls mentioned and get updated on whatever hot topic. But also, look at the menus – reviews, mentions, speakers, exhibitors, videos, live, klosk, agenda, and info.

How about 10 extra points for your class grade for the one that finds the hottest, most interesting topic coming out of the conference? All you overachievers have wanted to get extra credit, so here is a small opportunity!

Check out the presenters – even if you’ve never heard of them! I liked Brian Aker who tweeted

“Coder, Writer, Climber, in search of chainsaw for exploratory surgery on web infrastructure.”

Seattle, WA

http://krow.net/

Sounds like an interesting guy with some serious tools!

Select the Speakers link and then “all speakers” which takes you to a blog listing all the speakers and their topics. Find something interesting and share it with the rest of us.

It goes on and on. Enjoy!

Web 2.0 is still evolving…as it has to

I had always been a learner who read the content I was given in classes, outlined the material to organize it, and then review it to find the main points that would be asked on tests. But somewhere along the path of being a student who tried to do what was expected, I realized there was more that interested me than what teachers were presenting as content. As the Internet became a more important information resource, I realized that I wanted to learn about new things I may not have had an interest in before, simply because they were available to me. To this day I still have problems spending hours browsing the net finding one interesting and sometimes exciting concept after another. They seem to start in one place like a blog, then rapidly branch out to other blogs that were referenced, or to other types of websites. Finding less good stuff, rather than more, is a serious problem at times!

I also remember online courses when other students in my class simply didn’t involve themselves in the assignments, so I went looking for others who did. That was when I discovered people interested in my domain of studies who were already doing it! They were much more interesting to share my ideas with and to learn of their experiences with the topics involved. That was when Web 2.0 became the most valuable part of my learning experience. It was also when I realized that I could direct my learning according to what ticked inside me – I could learn what I wanted to learn, and with so many more resources than I even knew existed.

I still do a lot of learning on my own. I read a lot of articles about a lot of different things – see my delicious.com account (wayneb) for some of my interests over the years. I read a blog post from someone I respect, and formulate a response to them, or I’ll write about it in my own blog. Then I test the ideas I arrive at by reading comments from others, and by getting feedback from someone I commented to. The social learning kicks in, and I bounce the various reflections of others with my initial thoughts on a subject, and it often grows and changes, and then I put it into practice.

Web 2.0 allows me to be a content producer, it gives me the tools to find and collaborate with others who have similar interests, and it gives me tools to manage all of the various interests that I have, so they don’t overwhelm me. Of all the changes in my personal process of learning I have experienced with these new technologies, I think the most important for me has been the discovery that I could be self-directed, that I didn’t have to depend on someone else to tell me what I should learn when. I can define my personal learning goals, and then confidently go out and learn what I choose to learn. This gift that I found has become a major purpose in my “teaching”:

At the heart of my teaching philosophy is a focus on the design, development and exploration of tools, methods, and environments that support people to take control over their own learning and to successfully manage their personal processes of change.

The Social Network

I’m sure you Facebook users will not want to miss the story of Matt Zuckerberg, coming to a movie screen near you October 1, 2010. The movie stars Jesse Eisenberg as Matt, and you will find all sorts of trailers and intro’s to the movie at: http://www.thesocialnetwork-movie.com/site/.

Late addition to Blogroll!

Please note that Colby has been added to our blogroll!

Hunch: A New Social Networking Tool?

I read an article about Caterina Fake, the founder of Flickr, in the current August 2010 edition of Wired that offers an interesting look at where the web is heading. It is a must read for designers/developers because it is describing the process of learning more about everyone, so that web services can better target specific users, and give better services. What you want: Flickr Creator Spins Addictive New Web Service is an interesting story of a person deeply engaged in web technologies, and one who focuses on connecting people to one another, which is what interested me the most. Her success with Flickr, using it as a tool to provide social networking for its users, was an intriguing step at the time. Now she is teamed with Chris Dixon who had created Hunch, and needed someone who could “ask the right questions”, to move the project forward. You may be concerned about their approach, but it is unique and seems to be breaking new ground, hopefully in a positive direction.

See the site yourself at http://hunch.com. I am not recommending that you join or participate, but do look around and see what it is about.

IMUG – A Campus User Group for WDIM students

There is an excellent opportunity to get to know other students in the Web Design & Interactive Media User Group – called “IMUG”. The group meets today (Tuesdays) at 12:30 in Room 320. Everyone is invited, and this is where you find more senior students (upper level, mid levels, etc) who can become great friends to guide you through the program! At least show up today and see what you think!

Researching Web 2.0

The first assignment for Fundamentals of IMD is to research the term Web 2.0. A classic reference to the term was an early 2005 paper by Tim O’Reilly, the publisher of O’Reilly books. This paper is a great starting point for learning about Web 2.0, but not the only one. Research the term in Google and/or other search engines and report what you have learned in your blog. You can place links to the three articles at the beginning or end of your posts, or place it in the context of the post.

O’Reilly

http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html

Web 2.0

Google Reader now adds changes to any website

Google Reader, is another content aggregator which is part of your Google account. It was just announced that it has now added the ability to add any update to any website on the web, whether it has an RSS feed or not! This could turn out to be a major advantage and another first for Google. Although Netvibes and other portal products as well as some “cloud based” notebook/database products (Zoho’s Notebook) can story any type of site on their pages, the ability to receive any updates on a non-RSS based document page is big news! Check out the announcements and see how it works.

http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2010/01/follow-changes-to-any-website.html

http://mashable.com/2010/01/25/google-reader-custom-feeds/

WordPress User Group

The Dallas area WordPress User group, the largest in the nation, meets on the AID campus. This is an excellent opportunity to meet and network with people who are involved with blogging as well as other popular social networking activities.

The January 2010 meeting will be Saturday January 30 from 4:00 – 6:00 pm in Room 216-217.

The February 2010 meeting will be Saturday, February 20, from 4:00 – 6:00 pm in Room 216-217.

Check the Meetup site at http://www.meetup.com/dfwwordpress/ to RSVP for the event and join if you are interested.