Joyce Valenza’s Neverending Search

A few weeks ago, Martin, one of my students, told me about a couple of his latest purchases from a web tech catalog in China. It took a while, but his package arrived.  Today he showed me his new Dick Tracy-style MP4 watch.  It’s very Martin; it’s not very Joyce.  I hope he doesn’t trip.

But that other purchase.  It’s the mousepad for the girl who has everything and I want one. It functions as both speakers and headphones. It has four USB ports.  When I travel, I can leave my Radio Shack speakers and my mic at home.  I can Skype and play music and project sound from my videos with my mousepad.  I can plug even more stuff in.  I’ll keep you posted on actual quality when my own package arrives.

This week I discovered the new groups function in Ning.  Like the rest of our TeacherLibrarianNing, this little function appears to be growing nicely.  The widget allows the spawning of special interest groups off the main Ning.  Right now we have a high school librarians group and a YA literature group.  Please join us and begin a group of your own!  I am now setting up little departmental Ning groups off our fledgling high school Ning as a strategy for enhancing faculty communication and collaboration.

Also, after some listserv discussion and a chat with Peter, we decided to create an LM_NET Wiki Annex to handle those files folks cannot send over the list.  Please also join us there and share documents, presentations, videos with wonderful LM_NET community.

One observation:

People outside of this little 2.0 world think we talk funny.  When I talk wiki, ning, flickr. avatars, etc. at home, around the neighborhood, or at faculty meetings, people turn off.  Sometimes they walk away laughing.  I want these people to listen, but I  realize how goofy I must sound to the outside world.  Is there a way we might remedy 2.0 jargonitis?