How fun and hilarious (you can be)

I've heard it oft said of late that personality is the key to communication. Well, not exactly like that, but when a teacher claims that his students connect with his lessons more when his humor and humanity (aka. mistakes) come out in a recording. Let go of perfection and greet the welcome reality, even if you can try a "take 2!".
Here's a YC instructor that has said, "...it's funny how students will reference my lectures in their discussion board posts and assignments -- e.g., "As Dr. Karly said in the lecture about blah blah blah," lol! It's great to know they're listening (and not texting under the desk, which is the bane of my existence in any lecture class today). And it's always nice to get those emails saying how much they appreciate the pre-recorded lectures (and "how fun and hilarious you are")".

Social network with personal/professional limiting

When at the Innovations conference, I asked everyone I could about whether they would be open to "friending" their students. ONE person (besides Todd Conaway:) would've. Ok, I get it, we want to have separation and a private life. While I've taken the tack of creating multiple Fb personalities, the Latin American oriented social network site Sonico has conveniently separated people for you, into work, family, and friend "buckets'.

On Wisconsin Blogs

I get my alumni magazine "On Wisconsin" mailed to me(!), and it serves as excellent fodder for our bathroom library. This latest edition has an article called Brave New Blogs, about UW profs blogging and is, above all, a good read. Anthropologist John Hawks describes it in wonderfully simple terms, “It’s about getting people excited about what we know,” he says. Yes it is.

It gives me perspective, again, that I am in a unique and privileged position, and NO, not everyone is hip to blogging yet, and it is a highly useful part of the world's dialogue.

Illegal Invite?

The images in my Picasa slideshow may be violating copyright, pending the response from the British website Sciencephotolibrary.com to whether student use is allowed without a membership. While I wait for a cease & disist order, I sent this "share" e-vite to myself, where I can click to contribute photos. I'm quite a guy!

Our baseball team has a Shutterfly website which links to our pictures of little league glory, and are functional collaborative sites like Ning or Grou.ps, with modules for blogging turned to game reports, news items used for pitching advice, and storage of files like the team yearbook pdf.

UPDATE: The sciencephotolibrary replied to my inquiry:
 
Dear Thatcher,
Thank you for the email.

We have made our collection available through the Encyclopaedia Britannica Image Quest, which is an educational subscription.

http://quest.eb.com/


This link is a pay subscription, so one would surmise that using the images violates copyright, though I believe since they are watermarked and available, an in-class use by teachers or students would be fair use (of course, only a court would say for sure). My posting them online is probably not.