When Teachers Rally

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel with empty jars all around.

A GRASS ROOTS Rally happens in Dublin tomorrow to rally people behind a No Vote for a Revised CrokePark2. A promotional video explains some of the issues: http://youtu.be/oygCnS5qS2Y

From my perspective, cuts in pay and squeezes to various allowances will continue under revised proposals articulated by the government. Some of this feels like fraudulent trading to me because the Irish government cannot hold up its part of the employment contracts negotiated over the years. If cuts happen in the public sector, many expect they will be applied by private sector employers.

Like a lot of people, I've taken a reduction of income without any major reduction in the cost of living. We still pay child care fees the equivalent of a mortgage. Petrol prices are not decreasing. The only way we can keep weekly food expenses close to their 2010 level is to cut back on meat, poultry, and branded products like sauces, nappies and cleaning materials. All the while, we must work longer hours on the job and in my case, it means the number of hours to prepare for work also increases.

Biggr Fattr Flickr

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel with a new look on Flickr that many Pro users don't appreciate.

MY FLICKR PRO accounts just got more valuable. For $50 a year, I get an ad-free, retina-friendly online photo storage system for full-resolution images.

I also like getting three minutes of video, up from 90 seconds of video playback for my clips. But I'm limited to 50 MB for each image and 500 MB for each video clip. This is better than what people get with sharing sites like Facebook or Instagram, the two places that have stolen a march on Flickr since the iPhone entered the market.

It feels like Yahoo! wants me to simply convert to a free Flickr account but I can see a lot of value in the faster service while free of advertisements. Because of promotions and generous friends, I've rarely paid the full $49.99 annually for my Flickr Pro account.

There are some real advantages of staying with the Pro status, even though Flickr has removed my "Pro" badge under my image. For example, I like the stats I get with my Flickr Pro account and it is very convenient to be able to replace photos with a better image while knowing the URL of the image won't change. This has a lot of value when promoting a poster across a network of websites or when I want to change one of my images that some chancer has put on an internet property without attribution or permission.

Tumbling from Tipp When The News Broke

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel with Mia Art in the photo.

I WAS GRADING a handful of third level social media exams when Yahoo! sealed the deal to buy Tumblr. My dashboard lit up with dozens of people screaming.

Imaginosity Report

Dylan Goldbach in the Imaginosity kitchen.

Imaginosity Report from Mia

 

WE SPENT MORE than two hours in the Dublin's Children Museum, leaving with two tired kids. That translates to a "win" in many parents' minds.

Improved Out-of-Office Replies

Bernie Goldbach with auto-responder in Cashel. Image from a Mulleygram.

I HATE GETTING out-of-office replies and every summer, the scourge begins anew. There is a better way, suggested by Erik Qualman.

Ten minutes into his talk about "My Digital Stamp" at TEDxNashville, Erik Qualman suggests a better way to avoid inbox shock.

1. When your vacation starts, set your email's vacation auto-responder to say, "Thank you for your email. This mailbox is temporarily full. If your email is important please resend it on [Return Date]".

2. When you return, select all the emails you received while on vacation.

3. Delete.

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See Erik Qualman's TEDx talk at http://youtu.be/cH4HOLwm0X0. Bernie Goldbach teaches digital etiquette to creative multimedia students in Ireland.

Apps at CESI Meets

Photo of Joe Dale sharing apps.

AT THE FRIDAY CESI Meet, more people retweeted Joe Dale's app recommendations than any other item. That's telling on several levels.

Although there's obvious financial concerns surrounding decisions to put iPads into primary schools, the early adopters find eager listeners when sharing tips about apps that just work. Joe Dale's list spun my head around because his suggestions will immediately improve the workflow of every primary school teacher I know. I plan to update this blog post with a full listing of the apps he breezily described in a brief five minute presentation he made during the CESI Meet on the Thurles campus of the Limerick Institute of Technology.

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Bonus Link: List of 20 audio interviews of conference attendees made by young Irish students.

Bernie Goldbach teaches creative multimedia to Honours Degree students in Ireland.

 

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CESI Meet

Young Student Voices #ictedu

Outside with a Multi-seat Hangout on my iTouch

Young Student Voices #ictedu

Photo shows some of the young voices at #ictedu.

I HAVE A SHORT workshop during the annual ICT in Education Conference in Thurles on 11 May and am sharing one of their audio clips on my blog post. Its short link is bit.ly/busybeevoices.

The annual Schools Conference in Thurles showcases excellent workshops by some of Ireland's most enthusiastic teachers, starting with a CESI Meet the night before the main event. There's a full day worth of high energy activities in store. It's one of the most valuable forms of professional development anyone involved in education can find on the Irish calendar.

Big props should go to Pamela O'Brien for pulling together this year's event. You can follow the flow on Twitter by using the #ictedu hashtag and listen in to some of the voices through Audioboo's educasting channel.

First Big Mic Boo

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Bernie Goldbach teaches creative multimedia on the Clonmel campus of the Limerick School of Art and Design. One of LSAD's outreach activities helps local students find their voices.

 

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Live Tiles and Workload

I USE WINDOWS. phone in my job because it has proven itself as a device able to go uncharged for more than a business day while keeping me on schedule.

One of its clever scheduling features comes from Live Tiles representing people on my GTD timelines. I've discovered that when I put a Live Tile of a person on the home screen of my Nokia Lumia, I can bring relevant items into the context of meetings. That's because Live Tiles of people incorporate updates from social networks, recent emails, calls and text messages. Other systems do this too but Live Tiles feel more serendipitous than other methods I have used.

I'm thinking about making a series of screenshots representing my Weekly Live Tiles of People because there's some good data analysis that might trickle out from that exercise.

Sent from Bernie Goldbach's Windows Phone while prepping a creative multimedia lecture.

When Old Meets New. And Audi Too.

Screenshot from "The Challenge" with Leonad Nimoy.

I LOVE HIGH TECH cars as much as I love science fiction so when the two come together, I smile.

You need to see the video (below the break) all the way to the very very end to appreciate fine advertising that capitalises on semiotics.