Author: joanvinallcox

Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D. is a lifelong learner, retired communications professor, rabid reader and poet who has taught in both the college and university systems. Her Ph.D., in 2004 was an Autoethnographic Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry focused on moving from technophobia to technophilia. She is a widow from a happy marriage and a mother to a strong and kind daughter. Her interests include Centering Prayer, Multiple Intelligences, Attention Deficit Disorder and its connection to creativity, Jung, Campbell’s Monomyth, and Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry

Browser Choices

~ joanvinallcox ~ 3 Comments
You can see my digital choices on my laptop –

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I like and use Apple, WordPress and Firefox, or I used to. I still use my lovely Apple MacBook. I use WordPress for one of my blogs, (but I'm also posting a lot on Posterous). As for Firefox, I've mostly shifted to Chrome, and apparently a lot of others are too, according to ZDNet – http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=7102&tag=nl.e539

Why, you might ask, am I deserting the fabulous Firefox? First, I'm not entirely leaving it. I've become a two-browser person. I use Chrome for everything, except what it doesn't do that Firefox does. Firefox has too many wonderful plug-in for me to desert it entirely, but most of my web work, I now do on Chrome.

Why?
  • Chrome is faster;
  • Chrome is easier;
  • Chrome is more convenient.
Faster? Don't take my word, download it and give it a try – http://www.google.com/chrome

Easier? The tabs are above the address field so I never confuse them with the bookmark bar
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More Convenient? 
  • I can just enter a search term in the address field, and it activates a Google search;
  • When I click on a link, the tab opens immediately to the right of the page containing the link, instead of at the far right of all the other open tabs, making it easier to move back and forth between the pages;
  • When I click on the "+" sign at the right of the open tabs, it gives me a page with all my most opened pages presented to me, and other information.

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There are problems – 
  • on the Mac version of Chrome, there's no way that I know of to edit the bookmarks; I'm assuming that will be developed in the future;
  • On Firefox I can right-click and save a web page to Diigo – currently I do the awkward process of copying the URL in Chrome, going to Firefox and opening that page so I can save it there to Diigo.
All-in-all, it's Chrome's quick loading that has won me (mostly) over. To find out what Chrome has to say about itself – http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/features_mac.html

Give Chrome a try; you might like it!
Joan Vinall-Cox, PhD 
Social Media & Learning

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Dictation iPhone App Checked Out

~ joanvinallcox ~ 2 Comments
I was reading through my Tweets on HootSuite this morning when I saw this –

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I had downloaded the Dragon Dictation app on my iPhone a while ago, 
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but never checked it out; I decided to
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This is the text I got:

Inspiring and tweet by Doug P. that's one word at Pete I have tried out this Dragon dictation on my iPhone to see if it gets I'm saying now I'll check it out

This is the text I intended:

Inspired by a tweet by Doug Pete that's one word at DougPete I have tried out this Dragon dictation on my iPhone to see if it gets I'm saying. Now I'll check it out.

Easy and quick to correct!

And here's DougPete on his experience – http://dougpete.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/dictating/

Another handy iPhone tool! 

Joan Vinall-Cox, PhD 
Social Media & Learning

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The News and Learning

~ joanvinallcox ~ 2 Comments
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If you don't know the answer to the question in the image above – "But just what does [proroguing] mean?" You are likely out-of-touch with Canadian political news. If you want to learn more about Canadian, or any other politics, just start paying attention. That may initially seem unattractive, but let me tell you a story.

In my mid-twenties I knew little about politics of any sort. But I had a boyfriend, later a husband, who paid close attention to all the news, including Canadian and American political news. When I was with him, I was subjected to radio, television, and even newspaper news, often several times a day. At first, it was boring. But a strange thing started happening. I found myself knowing more about the news. 

At one point early in my career, two older colleagues moved from talking about workplace gossip, which all three of us took part in, to talking about politics. I listened for a while and then I surprised myself by having something to say, and I said it. The three of us continued our discussion, and I enjoyed being part of a conversation with fellow workers whom I liked and respected. Later,one of them stopped me in the hall and told me he hadn't realized I was so knowledgeable and thanked me for my contribution to the conversation. I was thrilled, and it was good for my reputation where I worked, too.

So what does this have to do with learning? Well, I learned about politics without even trying. The thing about learning about politics is that at first you know nothing, so it's boring. But if you keep watching, listening, and reading, everything gets repeated with small changes, over and over again, and some of the stories start to sink in. Then one day, a piece of news gets reported and you'e surprised to notice that you have a question or opinion on it. Without doing anything except hanging around when the news was on, I found myself with a foundation of knowledge, and it became easy and interesting to keep up with the news.

So here's what I suggest if you don't know what proroguing parliament means:
  • Go to Google or some other search engine and see what you can find. 
  • Check the dates on articles or blog posts to see how recent they are. (Check the image above; you might be surprised.)
  • Find a site that appears to explain it – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_session (or a better one).

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  • Even better than looking it up, find someone you know who knows politics and ask them.
  • Start going beyond the headlines and see what different political parties are saying, and try to find out the facts underneath what is being said and don't just fall for emotional one-liners.

Political news can be a great conversation-starter, but be discreet, politics can also be a conversation-stopper if you disagree.

I recommend you just hang around news sources for a little time each day, and see what happens ;->

Joan Vinall-Cox, PhD 
Social Media & Learning

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Finding New Stuff Online

~ joanvinallcox ~ 3 Comments

Everything on the web is changing really fast, and it's easy to feel a bit lost. Nobody knows everything about all the web apps, but a few know where to find web-treasures: applications that are really useful for you and your projects. I call these people Web Guides.

I subscribe to and receive in my email Doug Belshaw's blog  – http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/ – where he describes work he's doing for his Ed.D. degree and how he uses technology in his teaching and training. His current post – http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2010/01/04/mac-osx-apps-i-currently-use/  – contains an annodated visual of the apps he has on his Mac. I was able to review them and choose which ones I wanted to check out (red-outlined) for my possible use. (I like the way resting my cursor brings out a description. He explains how he set it up to do that.)

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So I have some new apps to check out, many of them open source and/or free.

He's not my only Web Guide. I blog on Posterous – http://posterous.com/ – because it's the easiest blog tool I've found, and I subscribe to a number of people whom I find helpful there. I have set it up so I receive a collection of their blog posts in my email too. It's just easier to delete the Posterous email if I'm busy than it is to remember to go to my Bloglines or Google Reader accounts.

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Steve Rubel often mentions web apps he finds useful – http://www.steverubel.com/ – and I enjoy reading his insights.

There are lots of other sources of web information out there; I follow MakeUseOf – http://www.makeuseof.com/ – by having it, too, emailed to me, and they make it really easy to sign up.

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So that's it, the sources of my web information which I have now shared with you! I hope you explore and find your own, and if you know of any really useful ones that I haven't mentioned, please share them in the comments.

Joan Vinall-Cox, PhD – joanvc@jnthweb.ca
JNthWEB Consulting – http://jnthweb.ca/
Social Media & Learning

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