Journal submission guidelines

Journal submission guidelines

I just ran across this handy listing of journals that publish on Instructional Design. David Penrose, the author, has thoughtfully included links to guidelines for each of these 21 journals. I'm filing this here so I can find it later.

This never happens at home

Last night, I put in a long day at HBU and was still facing a couple of hours of work once I got home. I absolutely had to get dinner and had worked past serving hours on campus so I went to the local IHOP. As I was ordering, the four gentlemen at a nearby table broke into song. They were barbershoppers!!!

I thought I was in for some dinner music, so you can imagine my disappointment as they got up to leave. But before they did, they sang another song for their waitress, Kimberly. I suppose it would be more accurate to say they "performed" another song, because that was certainly the case. The bass ended up on one knee in front of her. Of course, everyone in the restaurant applauded. Off they went to pay their bill and I was sure I would hear Muzak for the rest of my time there.

Not so. A family of four came in the door as the quartet members were waiting for their change. That family's entrance was all the inspiration these four needed for another song to welcome them to the restaurant. I thought that would surely be the end of the quartet music because these four were practically out the door.

Surprised again! They noticed two little girls sitting at a table. These girls were twins! Since one of the barbershoppers was also a twin (or so he claimed) that was reason enough to come back into the restaurant for another song. This time it was He's Got the Whole World In His Hands and this was an opportunity for an education. They sang the song, then the bass sang his part, then the high tenor, then they put them together for a duet. Next it was the baritone's turn and finally, the lead tenor joined in. The whole quartet was together again.

That was it - the last song. The Barbershop Quartet left after that song, but they left me feeling good and ready to face transcribing my notes from the day and getting ready for the next one.

Thank goodness I sat in the non-smoking section!

A Macintosh Wanna Be

macwannabe2,
originally uploaded by BeckyF.

I got off the elevator at the dorm earlier today. One of the RAs was working at the front desk. When I asked about this computer, I learned she really wanted a Macintosh computer. Apparently, her parents decided to surprise her with an early graduation present. I don't know if they weren't paying attention or if they decided to ignore her wishes. At any rate, her boyfriend had the Apple sticker so she's settling for this, for now.

Like it or not - I'm part of the community

So far, I've done 5 thinkaloud work sessions. The first two were with "seniors" and those sessions went as expected: the students worked and I watched. Today, I did three more sessions, but my subjects were less experienced with their digital portfolios and their software. During each work session, it was just the two of us plus the video. Two of the three reached the point where they could not proceed without help. Had they been in their natural environment, they would have had access to help - so that's what I did. I gave them access to help and then withdrew as quickly as possible.

I've made peace with it. I hadn't planned it that way, and I recognize that it had an impact on their work. Of course, so did isolating them from their typical supportive community of activity. I reasoned that extending the helping hand was more natural than withholding the help. I tried my best to use the same techniques and terminology they would have encountered in the lab. I think/hope/pray that was the right decision. I believe I can defend it.

Social Bookmarking Experiments

I love the whole idea of social bookmarking. I think del.icio.us is very cool for developers and folks have done scads of amazing things with it. I thought I would give it a try. I was so excited that I could import all of my bookmarks, but had trouble because of the spaces I had in some of my folders. Hey! My Macintosh doesn't mind spaces. Why should my bookmark manager?

Luckily for me, I know Computer Science students and my friend Andy wrote a little script (or performed some other kind of magic) that did this for me. Once it was done, I didn't care for the interface and I didn't like how it sorted and so I decided to stay with Backflip. I've apologized to Andy for this decision, by the way....and keep sending him links to new cool things I know he will like as penance.

I like that I can use my familiar folders and sub-folders in Backflip. And I use them often. I use these things to keep my bookmarks synchronized between my laptop and my desktop. Any time I have access to the Internet, I can use my bookmarks. I can use them to share links with students or to support presentations. I can collect links as I prepare for new projects. I can (and do!) keep them private sometimes - to maintain the confidentiality of a project or when something's not quite ready to be made public.

Tonight, I was reading the Library Stuff blog and saw that Alicia was working on a capstone project and wanted some information about how teachers use del.icio.us. I headed over to her posting to leave a comment. While I was there I looked around a bit more. Yesterday, she posted something titled "more funkiness" and she talked about this curious poster and the odd tags he used. She even included samples. I thought - those topics ALL interest me. I'm going to see who this curious poster is! Oh, my gosh! It's me. She's talking about me!!

So, dear Alicia. It's not a dude, but a dudette making those links. I don't know how Andy got that import to work, but the underscores were part of the solution. I'm glad you like my links. Just so you know, I have a similar failed experiment over at Furl, too. I keep thinking I'll get that organized eventually, but neither of these places let you import and keep your folder structure. I haven't had time to get the Furl account organized to even consider making a change. For now my active bookmarking is happening at Backflip. You should check out those links! I hope I've answered all your questions. If not, you know how to get in touch with me.

On photos and people and chicken fajitas

One of the first things I did when I got to HBU was take pictures of their facilities. I waited patiently until everyone left so no one would be in my pictures. I have several pictures of an empty computer lab. The pictures came out well.

I recently started Barbara Rogoff's book on The Cultural Nature of Human Development. I finished Chapter Two as I was waiting for my margarita chicken fajitas at a Mexican Cantina here in town. (Yes, the fajitas were as good as they sound!)Rogoff has an interesting series of 6 figures at the end of that chapter which she uses to illustrate her notion that individuals and culture are mutually constitutive. The caption on the last figure made me realize what a silly mistake I had nearly made - thankfully not in the focus of my research, but in my representation of it. So, I'm taking the camera back with me for the rest of my time here. This is most definitely NOT about an empty computer lab and I won't be including any pictures of one!