Come see my new blog!

I tried on a new dress and it fit me well.

Check out my new digs here.

Kisses,
Lulu

My Blog in 100 Words or Less

If anyone has missed my blog posts for the last couple of months (heaven forbid), here is an interesting way to catch up! Sara turned us Davies Students on to this Tag Cloud generator a little while back. Frankly, I'm not sure if I have done this correctly, but if it works you will see a floating "cloud" of variously sized words that represent my life this past semester -- as well as words can.

ate away bartlett bite bootie cars cement chris comic community country county create criticism culture dance davies department digital display dog door ecc enjoyed epps exploring farm finally foghorn forum francisco gleeson hunter jamming kevin land library life links listen literate living lounge lulu man mash mcallister media members music national necessarily octagon online original outside phillip play pop presentation retreat return rubber rush san seasons sf simon since skip slideshow snow snowball sound stapleton started sticks stonelake story strawberry students studies technology things think throw today trademark trees trip understand usf voice wait walks week weekend work wrap-up year

created at TagCrowd.com

Obviously "Lulu" and "San Francisco" come up, but it's also pleasing to me to see words like "community" and "exploring" in there. It makes me think I'm actually doing what I set out to do: explore my community and let others in on it. Although, I think the arrangement "ate away Bartlett bite bootie" is probably the most telling combination in the group...

Getting Mom & Dad to Blog

So, I've been trying to convince my parents to start blogging. My dad already spends a lot of time on the computer (doing...?), so I figure this would be a natural move for him to set up a Blog. My mom also spends a lot of time on the computer, but less time socializing over the Internet. For her, it's more about uploading photos and reading articles online.

I tried to sell them on the idea of blogging over dinner tonight. I mentioned that they could share photos with me and my sister, Bailey, like they already do through e-mail. The difference would be that we wouldn't have to save the e-mail to access the information. It would be up as long as they wanted it.

I told my dad that he could post his thoughts on what's happening in the sports world and read comments from other sports fans. I suggested that my mom could update me on her vegetable garden with photos and explanations. I'm sure that there are plenty of gardeners out there who would like to chat with mom about the troubles of growing vegetables. My mom seemed excited. She asked if she could do the blog from the perspective of our dog, Lucy. 

Sure, why not? 

My dad remained skeptical, so I showed him my blog for the first time (Hi, Dad!). I hope that seeing his daughter in the blogosphere will inspire him to take the plunge -- even if it means countless posts about sports happenings that I won't understand. 

Gardening, sports, Lucy... anything works for me. I'd just be happy to have another way to keep up with two of the most important people in my life.

Alexander Technique

"How many times a day do you tweet?" asked Bryan Alexander, Director of Research at the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education, a non-profit initiative dedicated to promoting liberal education.
"Six to ten times," the student responded.

No, this isn't bird school.

Guest speaker Alexander was simply talking about www.twitter.com, a site that encourages individuals to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of brief, frequent answers to the question "What are you doing?" These exchanges are known by those who use the site as "tweets."

Bryan Kicks Back
Originally uploaded by luluisforlovers

Alexander is definitely a frequent tweeter. Even as he lectured us on pedagogy and Web 2.0., tweets of various hellos from around the world scrolled on the projected computer screen behind him.

Vermont_snow_2005Oct-b
Originally uploaded by BryanAlexander

The long-haired, bearded technology buff was visiting USF from his home in snowy rural Vermont, where he conducts research primarily on mobile and wireless computing, digital gaming, and social software. "It's fun to lecture on 3D technology and then go off and chop wood for an hour," Alexander said.

One area of particular interest to Alexander is "ARG": Alternate Reality Gaming. An Alternate Reality Game is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions. The first two Alternate Reality Games, according to Christy Dena in her essay 'Emerging Participatory Culture Practices: Player-Created Tiers in Alternate Reality Games', were Microsoft Game Studio's The Beast and Electronic Arts Majestic. In his lecture, Alexander also mentioned www.ilovebees.com, Perplex City, and World Without Oil as good examples of Alternate Reality Gaming.

Reflecting his easy-going approach to technology, Alexander followed discussion of "Connectivism" (G. Siemens, 2004) and "Wikipedagogies" by taking us to the Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator.
"Web 2.0 is easier than web 1.0," he said.

If that's true, then I should have no problem disintermediating my A-list web services and designing social folksonomies later this week.

Chew on this!

Ivan Chew, the self-titled "liblogarian", came to visit USF last Thursday. He has been blogging since 2004 and now runs no less than nine blogs, which focus on topics ranging from book reviews to documenting the changing face of his hometown Singapore to creating mash-up music videos with an oceanic theme.


"It's not the blogs that matter, it's the blogger that matters," Chew said, reminding us to blog with passion and authority about what we like as well as what we know.