I’ve got the http://spellbreaker.wordpress.com Blog up and running and it’s content is closer to my heart than facilitating online courses, but still interested in Web 2.0 applications.

Maybe keep this as a pozzee (my name – new social website platform?) for Web 2.0 info and research posts??

I am collecting (coolect good name for website?) feeds on my netvibe site, so not too sure….. maybe jsuite (not bad!) just my experiences using different Web 2.0 applications??

If nothing else – could be entertaining )

Going to cut and paste one more time, pasting after I’ve set the font color, so hopefully this time it will “set”.

I HAVE TRIED UNSUCCESSFULLY TO CHANGE THE FONT COLOR FROM GREY TO AN EASIER READ COLOR AND IT JUST DOESN’T WANT TO CHANGE – MAJOR GLITCH IN THE MATRIX!!!

I’ve cut and pasted after changing the font to black – I’ll settle for anything but the grey! Let’s see if it’s worked??

Nope! Boy! When I said “entertaining” I didn’t have this in mind!! Well – actually…. if you think of it, this is what goes on when working with this stuff, pretty much in the dark, with not much technical background.

So now I have closed all the many-many versions of this edited pages – I had about 10 tabs for this post after all the attempts. Maybe that was what was confusing WordPress?

Last night finally watched a video somewhere – think it was on Google, about what a RSS reader is and the penny has sunk and settled in the (listening to the cricket test match between SA and England and the English, especially our own ex-player Pietersen, are doing way too well for my liking) murky depths of my understanding. Turns out I have enlisted the help of 3 RSS readers which are feeding away hungrily on blogs I’ve zapped on my web meanderings! I’ve got a Netvibe page from the Teacher’s Toolkit workshop I created while on the Emerge Conference, very much on the fly; I’ve inadvertently organized myself a Bloglines reader and now subsequently Google reader!!

RSS reader feeding on blogs

Now somehow I thought a RRS reader would be bringing content to MY blog page – thought Netvibe and such were like virtual offices where you could plonk a whole lot of widgets and go there every now and then to play (guess that says a lot about what I think an office is for . Have in fact reread Wiki’s RSS reader description and don’t get a clear cut picture where the zapped blogs go to!

Well now I can have a real meal of it with Netvibe crispies for breakfast, Blogline burger for lunch and Google reader for soup at supper time!! Actually I think Google reader is proving to be the most popular of the three as I’ve managed to make it my default webpage, but do like the Image wall on Bloglines – truly mesmerizing (have gone back there and seen some rather risque’ pic.s so you’d better be over 18 years old!).

SOME ANSWERS

I’ve belonged to a yahoo group for some time now, and it’s always been a very quiet list with the moderators and originators of this group being the most voluble. As soon as I found my feet I started posting on an almost daily basis and this got the owners really excited!! They were so excited they started giving me freebie stuff, which was lovely but also a little daunting.

I’ve been wondering what the problem is – as there are 63 members that belong to the group and of those only 3-4 members, excluding myself and owners – post messages, and that is only every other day. Then following a thread some where in the FOC08 material I came upon this article in the Wikipedia about the 1 percent rule and that offers some interesting light on the problem – in fact having 3-4 members posting even if infrequently is quite an accomplishment it would seem!!

FOC08 HOMEWORK

Still from week one I am sitting with the thought “What do I hope to get from doing this course?”.

• I am a non-academic, so this course is going to stretch my capabilities.
• I’ve already learnt what a RSS reader is and am using this application full tilt!!!
• Managing a group of individuals at any time is a challenge and online is no different, but with the right understanding of the dynamics I will be more effective at creating and managing an even more congenial platform for members to meet on. Maybe facilitators should be called “Hosts” or “Hostesses”?

I suffered from Blogbleary eyes last week, so took the weekend off to recover. May have been a mistake as it would seem the rest of the group did not suffer from the same ailment and have plunged ahead. Now I’m playing “catch-up” and stopping myself from glaring too hard at the screen in order to save my eyes. I’ve figured I do the glaring thing with the hopes that I will then be better at deciphering what I am reading!! (insert big dumb but angelic smiley face)

Happy Chump!

Hunting for the ever elusive understanding of web 2.0 techie talk

I feel alive and very fortunate to be on this course – having stumbled upon it by accident!! I also believe what I learn here is going to help me improve my service to the community of Hogsback where I am helping to facilitate a .ning website.

Now I can cross off the required actions of:

• Creating a Blog
• Updating my introduction on the course wiki with a link to my blog (still to do)
• Setting up an RSS News Reader

This weekend I’m going to crash through all the participants (pants – probably will if I can get through ALL of them!) blogs and read up on wiki about blogging with the many links to follow – like the Wizard of Oz’s yellow brick road.