Following Blog Sites

This is what the discussion will centre around this week. How to follow websites, manage followers and comments.

Following from this we will look at online communities and examples of how a posting generates activity. This includes writing blogs that are generators of advertising income. How do these planetary communities of interest behave?

Housekeeping

Following on from clearing piles of "stuff" from the office, I find that household tasks become a lot easier to engage. I seem to have snapped out of a period of relative household apathy. 

This possibly is the result of smoother cash flow, resulting from adding teaching at CIC to my professional activities. My goals feel more achievable. I think that blogging regularly aids my planning.

Spring Clean

Without sounding like a new convert to a cult, I have to say that "How to get things done" by David Allen has had a very positive effect on my office comfort. For the first time no crap piles of stuff hanging around. I haven't got beyond skimming the book yet! I implemented the preparation stage; why do I keep this object or paper, can I label and file it or not? I am astonished that it has taken until nearly 50 to grasp something so simple. 

Equipment Failure Revisited

My Wednesday evening Multimedia Platforms class, had to be reworked on the run this week as the data projector had failed again. I could have set up a mobile one available in the Multimedia Staff room. I decided it was better to get the whole class working on mind maps and embed the skill. So both of my MM Platforms classes have to present mind maps of their business and a site map of the website.

Gardening

We are growing more and more vegetables in our yard, beetroot, broccoli, shallots. Our Tower of Babel in the front will carry zuccini and mini pumpkin. Herbs and fruits, all sorts of things we are learning not to wither away. This is remarkable for both of us, particularly for me as I think my image of myself at 50 did not include 20 years ago, wearing a battered panama while pruning and shaping a climbing rose.

A rose is a rose

Reinvoicing

Having to generate an adjusted invoice is a real pain. It means that there has been a disagreement between my client and myself about something that I have or have not done.

What I usually have to do is recall the job, detail the specifics of work undertaken and consequences. Usually the consequences that don't find agreement and require some negotiation.

Luckily my partner is the best and fairest credit manager that you could ask for, she is a generally useful person to have around.

Situation Satisfactory

After the last week's cancellation, the Wednesday MM Platforms class covered a lot of ground. We dealt in detail with mind mapping, the interface design of Dreamweaver, then the business case for a website business. Everybody got the mind mapping concept a whole lot better than I expected. I look forward to see what they come up with for their individual business case.

Calmer Water

Touch wood, I am ahead of the game at this teaching caper for the first time since starting at CIC. No class changes, the syllabus working properly, I'm enjoying myself. To walk into the blogging class knowing I was up to date was a real weight off my teaching shoulders. I've found it easy today to just enter the posts required to stay up to date. Now I have just got to get my professional blog up.

Watching the Headlines

I subscribe to several business magazine blogs, watching their headlines in my inbox, reading the papers, comparing print versus online editions of fact and opinion.

I have just in the past months - by my interest in Griffin's ideas - discovered The Henry George Club in Hardware Lane, up Bourke Street hill from where I teach. Henry Georgists have been a very bunch to be around as the financial crisis gathered momentum. Environmental Georgist economics makes a single tax based on the long term sustainable use of owned land. It makes the case for developers building sustainably for community land trusts.

Evening Cancelled in Frustration

I turned up to teach and found that the projector in my class was in the same state as the previous week. Attempting to find and set up a replacement produced such an unsatisfactory result that I cancelled the class. Last week this incapacity was remedied by changing rooms, an option not available this week. After marking all attending, I caught a train, on the train I was called to say the projector was now working.

Frustrated!

Multimedia Platforms Starts to Gather Momentum

All students without a visual diary and colored pens were sent out to buy them. All students presented for ninety seconds about the type of business they will be building a web site for this term. We walked through structure mapping, argument mapping, concept mapping, mind mapping, getting an overview of the thinking that should be integrated into site design and mapping.

Individual discussion followed about the details of each website project as a business case. Each student has to be aware of the scope of what they are attempting.

Blogging Class Again

So when we all arrived in the classroom, had we met our blogging commitments? None of us. So we established the outline of competence for completing the subject. A blog the process of blogging, a blog about Melbourne, a blog about our home towns, another blog to be decided next week. Each blog posting must be no less than a hundred words; four postings a week for each blog.

Then They Took My Classes Away!

Just as I was getting into a rhythm of teaching, I get a call from the faculty office, my Friday class that lasts all day has decided they want to be a night class. Am I available to teach the classes at night? No I am not as I have other commitments and so does my family. So eight hours less teaching; hopefully first pick of cherries to teach next term....

How to Juggle No Childcare, A Sick Partner & 50 Students Without A Net!

The Ringworm Kid is still in the lockup, joined for the moment by Migraine Mama the brains behind the outfit. This means that the backup position of letting my partner look after the Kid while I look after my students and clients is not on.

So I cancel all client appointments keep the entertainment flowing to my home inmates and try to prepare raise the expectations of my students.

Ringworm Chaos

My daughter has got ringworm which means she cannot go to childcare, its too infectious. So my partner Susan has to take the Ringworm Kid (from the film of the same name) to work with her. When I finish teaching I then have to dash to Swinburne Uni to pick the dangerous outlaw up and take her back to county lockup (our lounge room). There she is forced to submit to cossetting and being waited on with vegemite sandwiches.

Monday Night Second Week

So here we are all blogging away frantically because all of us have been slack about posting. This wouldn't matter if the point of the subject was not the value of regular Blog posting.

So we shall see if we improve our score this week...

Teaching Prepess

Friday Morning - Spent most of the class printing course outlines and then explaining them. I gave the students a quick overview of what was covered in Repro and what sort of financial outcomes arose from easy mistakes.


Friday Afternoon - We watched the OH & S DVD. We talked through the fire procedures for the building, I distributed the course material

MM Platforms in the Evening

Wednesday Evening - What a different group the evening MM Platforms group is! There are so many! A full class turned up for the first time for me at CIC. The energy level is a lot higher and I have to work a bit harder but it was fun!

I was asked at the end to do some research into how Google Adwords can help a business, so I am going to catch up with Brian this week to talk about it

MM Platforms - Tidying up the Act

Tuesday Morning - This morning I taught MM Platforms, apart from introducing the subject, I outlined how to plan a website and what I considered the acceptable range of MM for inclusion in assessment.

The class started in some confusion as the timetable indicated a different group for the room and after half an hour all the students change to their correct room and I had to introduce myself again.

Blogging 101

Monday Evening - I had no idea that setting up a blog was going to be hard. I am so surprised that it is so easy. The hard part is actually finding something to say.

The students were laid back but interested in the subject. I had to outline the course material and define the way in which it would be delivered and assessed.