Around the time I was thinking about your birthday, I had started musing about themes in my vocational life.  I want to organize something more coherent, but meanwhile I also want you to know I am thinking of you and that my musing cross over into some mutual interests (in my recollection).

MUSINGS ABOUT ON-LINE TRAINING

There seems to be some consolidation in the on-line training space.

My TechRepublic notices distribution sent me a link and come-on for

        http://www.zdnet.com/smartplanet/

a while back.  I also notice that SmartPlanet provides access to Books24x7 as part of their contracts. (I have access as part of my King County Library on-line access!),

        http://www.books24x7.com

I notice there that training and educational organizations in the IT space are beginning to rely on Books24x7 as part of their offerings.  The announcements might provide leads to more activities.  I use the Books24x7 new-additions notices to build a clipping file of books that I might want to hunt down on-line.  I find reading the books on the web a bit painful, although it is easy to download pages with material of interest - sort of like just keeping tear sheets of pages out of a book.

I don't know where this is going.  I haven't seen any eBooks (that is, specific to the Microsoft Reader or other secure readers) for technical material yet, though that should be an useful means of delivery.  Mostly because eBooks seem very compact and there is an open standard for the authored form (it is the conversion to the compressed form for distribution that is subject to rights management and that is specific to a reading system).

I wonder what it would be like to be the instructor for an eCourse. Don't know.  Have you tried it?  You do training in your practice, maybe more than anything else perhaps.  What is your experience now that you have been out there for a while?

MUSING ON THEMES

I have a theme about how computers could be easy to use.  I am not so sure about ubiquitous and invisible.  I am thinking of computing as a purposeful activity, including information processing of various kinds.  I think that is something to have some self-consciousness about.  Perhaps more than it takes to be an automobile driver.  It is pretty clear that computers are not now easy to use and more than that, to apply computers we end up being trained to the technology and all of its sharp edges the way people are trained to their VCRs.  I want there to be something beyond that.  I see having our computers be vehicles for explorative play and discovery of their own nature and capabilities.  I also see it as a practical matter, being able to obtain from the computer everything there is about its configuration for troubleshooting, adjustment, reconfiguration, etc. 

I have found some discussion groups and Web sites of people who are into the idea of a "global brain" supported by internet technology.  The vision of that as a silver bullet has me groan though sometimes I am able to just smile about it.  At the same time, there are interesting suggestions that come up.  Do you dig into much of that?  I was led to a page by Roger Schank on reforming education (although I find it too much centered on what is wrong rather than on what works and what the vision is -- it is a little too positional).  It leaves me

        How do we bridge between the need for development of specific content skills and for encouragement (I am going to stop saying development) of learning and learners?

        http://www.eoe.org/ is a project based on the Schank work,

        http://www.ils.nwu.edu/e-for-e/ and here is a kind of manifesto about it

Some find inspiration in the way the e-for-e book is organized and how each page of topical information or other observation is supported by standard links:

        These are based on questions people might have, and the interest of the person examining the material.  It would be an interesting way to organize a FAQ set or a Help system.

        So my musing are split here. One is about appropriate support for learning and education, another is about accessibility of computing practice for everyone.  I don't want to say computer-mediated any more, but I don't have a phrase that makes it clear that the people working with the computers are in the driver's seat.

Any thoughts?

FUN COMPUTER STUFF

In the new house, I actually have upgraded phone wiring between the garage telephone terminals (adding a serious connection box), Vicki's study, and my downstairs office and lab.  So I have run my first Ethernet (100baseT) wiring, and as of yesterday peer-to-peer (i.e., NETBUI) operation of our computers is just fine.  The ADSL service arrives "any day now" and I have a personal firewall/router that I will put between our little LAN and the DSL modem. 

I was chagrined to find, while in Messenger chat with Doug, that the Personal Web Server on my machine can be accessed by anyone who probes the IP address that I happen to have while dialed-in to the Internet.  So I am being attentive to security and privacy issues as I go for more connectivity.  I see virus arrivals pretty much daily, though I don't open them and they arrive now much like spam.  Doug's machine was the first one to be infected this year (I caught it by noticing it was forwarding itself to me and helped him clean up his system).  Vicki's was also infected, and I was able to clean it up much more quickly based on my experience with Doug's system. 

I want to upgrade to Windows XP (we are still on Windows 98 here) for the added security, but I have heard things about XP performance that make me want to wait.  I will have all of the networking going before I do such a major upgrade, though.

The thing about viruses and about terrorism in its more violent forms has me realize that it is really all about people, and in making the world smaller we must address our relationships to each other and our interdependence in ways that we have managed to avoid til now.

Love,

-- Dennis



Dennis and Vicki Hamilton          Who we are is the possibility of
-------------------------             loving sanctuary
4401 44th Avenue SW                   passionate romantic adventure
Seattle, WA 98116-4114 USA            powerful family partnership
                                      people living their dreams
tel: +1-206-932-6970               That's who we are.

mailto:dennis.hamilton@acm.org (Dennis)
cell: +1-206-779-9430
(Vicki)
cell: +1-206-779-9483