Inside View

Discovered More Faces from Dial-up Ireland #cong14

I COMPLETED MY second pilgrimage to the Congregation.ie this weekend and discovered more faces from dial-up Ireland who came to Cong on the Mayo-Galway border to share perspectives. These weekends feel like TheDoLectures without the campfires.

I got immersed in some particularly interesting conversations.

I finally met Sean McGrath face-to-face. In 1996, when I was thinking about setting up a website with a newsfeed, I read some of Sean's technical discussions with Dave Winer on the subject. Those mailing list threads caused me to set up my first weblog using Radio Userland. Two other people in Ireland, Gavin Sheridan and Karlin Lillington, also appeared on Radio Userland, a CMS platform that maintained a local copy of blog posts while uploading into a shared community and spawning a newsfeed onto my dashboard.

I noticed Sean has started blogging again and I hope he shares more thoughts about the joy of coding with visual metaphors. I think many of his ideas put an A into STEM initiatives, causing a natural evolution of STEM to STEAM.

Nicky Gogan, the video creative I met in 1996 when she returned to Dublin, let me hear a film maker's perspective on topics I discuss on our creative multimedia programme in the Limerick School of Art & Design. I think our third year students will make a studio visit to Still Films in Smithfield before the end of January. I always learn a lot during studio visits and site walk-throughs.

Maryrose Lyons' discussed the impact of porn on pre-teens. As she shared research, I realized how my teaching of social media at third level could support the development of a discussion that all parents should have with their teenagers. Dermot Casey folded some compelling throwaway quotes into the hour-long discussion. I plan to make this a blog post on its own.

Jason Roe, the developer whose 15 minutes of fame wound up Michael O'Leary of Ryanair, teased listeners with hints of social media analytics for politicians. On the back channel, David Quaid tossed in some clever uses of Twitter Cards and the result is I realize I am still an amateur at leveraging social networking analytics.

While sharing a story about who handed me the first book I bought on HTML in 1995, Joy Redmond leaned over and told me the Hodges Figgis sales associate was her roommate. Both women remain dial-up connectors.

On the ride into Cong to meet Eoin Kennedy, the event organizer, I spent a half hour with Marie Boran, comparing ways educators can make learning more engaging with social tools. This needs to be a topic at CESI in February 2015 and I hope Marie and I reconnect for that event to share our notes.

Unlike any other tech-savvy event, meet-ups in Cong give me the opportunity I need to reset the gender balance. Something about Cong gives women with technology a louder voice because my takeaways are more influenced by women than by men. Last year, I sat spellbound when Evelyn O'Connor took listeners into her Tweeting classrooms. I hope next year Catherine Cronin can take time off from her PhD research to influence the 70 people who come from nine counties to share and share alike at #cong15.

And if you think you might enjoy as day of thoughtful discussion with some of Ireland's earliest adopters, I recommend you check out Congregation.ie today, follow its newsfeed, read its mail shots and then reserve time in November 2015 to learn things you didn't realise you needed to know.

[Hat tip to Blacknight Solutions for being a lead sponsor of The Congregation 2014. The event kicked off in Ryan's Hotel in the photo.]

Sway Virtuality

JUST LOOKING AT some swish Sway work by Jim O'Neill. Jim used Sway Preview to generate several frames that imagine a realm in a virtual world.

The Joy of Coach

AFTER LOGGING 6700 miles in six days by myself, I reinforced several ideas that I hope to put in place with my family when we travel internationally in coach class.

Networking after a 42 Year Pause

I HOOKED UP with a dozen friends a few days ago, some 42 years since I last saw them. Several of them have no social networking profiles and it interested me to see how everyone discovered something announced on Facebook.

listen to ‘Driving East from Lancaster’ on audioBoom

Snapping Your Google Selfie

IF YOU LIVE and work online, you're creating electronic selfies all the time. If you want to see what those selfies show about you, click into several profiling services.

Google forms a profile about you in order to show you relevant advertising. I look at what Google thinks I like by viewing https://www.google.com/ads/preferences/

Building a Renderfarm

AFTER LISTENING TO FRUSTRATED students explain how they have to work around limited processing power while rendering complex objects, I've started looking at building a rendering farm. I first visited sites running IBM's BladeCenter HX5.

I have a soft spot for IBM systems because in the early part of the century, I used heavy iron from IBM to help a small animation studio get on its feet.

The IBM HX5 extends eX5 architecture into a bladed format. That means it's quickly scalable and comes with high performance specs.

Some first impressions from IBM literature:

-- The HX5 features Lenovo eX5 Architecture. It runs fifth generation mainframe-inspired Lenovo Enterprise X-Architecture technology on Intel ten-core Xeon “Westmere-EX” processors.

Practical Social Media for Athletes

I THINK THERE'S a strong surge of athletes, coaches and fitness fanatics using social media. I believe it's natural to add content through easy channels like Instagram and Tumblr so I set up several assessment methods to measure the reach of content shared via these methods.

I'd like to follow you if you're sharing data from your wearables or tracking progress along an activity grid. I'm learning a lot by trying to keep up with 50 very fit athletes on the social media module in the Sport Strength & Conditioning degree in the Limerick Institute of Technolgy.

[Bernie Goldbach normally teaches creative multimedia for the Limerick School of Art & Design.]

Learning How to Do #fitnessmedia Better

AT THE HALFWAY point of an academic module that challenges athletes to learn efficient social networking, I've discovered I can learn how to improve the teaching and learning by asking students about the curriculum.

Sharing with Stefan and Stephen

Dealing with Dysvoluntary Friends

MY PAST LIFE is littered with callous and unemotional characters. I have just realised some of them qualify as dysvoluntary people.

In the Media Writing module I teach at the Limerick School of Art & Design, students will meet several of my dysvoluntary friends on screen.

#writewell Up

EVERY FALL SEMESTER, I take creative media students down several rabbit holes involving The Hero's Journey. Today, we go Up with Disney Pixar and along the way discover emotional moments in a well-crafted animated film.

[Bernie Goldbach is a retired Boy Scout who teaches creative multimedia in the Limerick School of Art & Design.]

Writing Well with Up