Friday, July 30, 2010

About online courses and certification.

It's been some time, since I wrote.

Moved cities.

Seem to be finally getting a grip of the larger forces at play.

Here our links to some online certification.

The International Computer Driving Licence managed by the European Union.

The official version of ECDL / ICDL Web Editing1 Syllabus Version 2.0 is the version
published on the ECDL Foundation website: www.ecdl.org
ECDL Foundation is the certifying authority of the leading international computer skills certification programme – ECDL / ICDL. The quality and reputation of our certification programmes are built on over a decade of experience in successfully delivering Information Communication Technology (ICT) certification programmes to over 9 million people, in 41 languages around the world.
Their programmes.
http://www.ecdl.com/programmes/index.jsp
An open source offshoot of the above program.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.itdesk.info/eng/ecdl.html

To check through objectives, technical know how of computers.
http://www.itdesk.info/lessons/it%20computer%20network.html

free repository of online resources/training using Social Media for developmen
http://www.imarkgroup.org/aboutimarkintro_en.asp?m=1

http://www.imarkgroup.org/course/moduleW/EN/pdf/Table_Strategic_Use.pdf

http://www.imarkgroup.org/course/moduleW/EN/course.asp?modulecode=W&modulelang=EN&learnercode=AnishaIndia

B-schools are adding courses to teach students what #SocialMedia means for business http://bit.ly/adJEua (Business Week)
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/jul2010/bs20100726_143420.htm
4 the awards and accolades/recognition

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Feb 23th 2010

Hey,
There was a fire in a tower in Bangalore,3 streets away from where I work, My dad in Ahmedavad panicked to call and find out if I was fine...As two women had jumped to their death....I panicked to call and find out if my friend who works in that building was fine...while reading streaming twitter posts...of details and people caught in the smoke tweeting and waiting for help....my colleague who was on a phone call with a relative in kerala,said that the entire building was burning, My friend gave an interview to NDTV, which might have been watched by my dad...That's Virality for you,
rapid sharing, quick reactions,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_phenomenon
Just as in http://blog.findingada.com/blog/2009/01/05/ada-lovelace-day/
'Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Whatever she does, whether she is a sysadmin or a tech entrepreneur, a programmer or a designer, developing software or hardware, a tech journalist or a tech consultant, we want to celebrate her achievements.'
However I feel disturbed by this phenomenon, cause it tests your ability to keep attention to what you are doing and I am sceptical of all the exaggeration hosted by mass media....
I loved the idea behind this shared workspace,its also practised in CIS too!
http://xindanwei.com/%EF%BC%8D/about/

windows 95 basics
http://www.virtuallibrarian.com/research/win95lesson.html

http://www.virtuallibrarian.com/research/faq.html

http://email.about.com/od/mozillathunderbirdtips/qt/How_to_Create_a_Mailing_List_in_Mozilla_Thunderbird.htm

http://ourfamily2007.wordpress.com/
'Film fortunately, as an art form of our times, is an ensemble of many things — “shoes and ships and sealing wax…” (Lewis Carroll). We feel that all these elements add to the richness of the film and many layers and textures. They also help us liberate documentary film from the odious embrace of ‘reality’ and ‘neutrality’.

Poetry has this uncanny ability to take ordinary words and ‘re-present’ them, thereby inviting us to the experience of the word rather than its literal meaning. Poetry thus opens windows to the secret life that these words lead behind our backs. Combining it with music and paintings is electrifying.'
The best training that we have go as self-learning filmmakers is from watching films. Kurosawa, Tarkovsky, Aravindan, Mani Kaul, Dziga Vertov — these filmmakers have been a great source of inspiration for us.
http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/blogchatinstantmessaging/f/email_vs_im.htm
for the funny bone....http://www.chickenmonkeydog.com/about-cmd/
got to read more about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netiquette
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsletter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_architecture
need to digg deeper into digg and find the automatic method of collating posts..
An interesting project by a kerala school to upload resources online
http://kerala.skoool.in/maths.htm

Monday, February 22, 2010

First faculty orientation. February 18th and 19th 2010.

well, you might have guessed by now that your madam's and sirs and me have met some where before, infact we have been thinking and talking about each one of you from a long time now...and yes, I have tried to capture the moments for you...Here goes the minutes of the first orientation The Centre for Study of Culture and Society and the Centre for
Internet and Society came together on the 19th and 20th of
Febraury,2010 for the first orientation of the Pathways project.
The place:- Uttrahali, one of those moors away from the city, with its noise and pollution...
The setting:- clear blue sky and white fluffy clouds in the horizon....
The transport:- Two huge qualis's for the comfort of your teacher's...
the grand escape,the kick start:- well,a mailing list has been configured for determining what we can do with you..(:)) and looking forward to seeing you all in person...
enthusiasm among the participants and organisers engaged them in an
active conversation on diverse topics. The Ford foundation is planning
to re-look at the 'Pathways' project which it runs worldwide. Program
officer Ravina Aggarwal,reaffirmed Ford foundation's commitment to
support innovation,diversity and inclusiveness while taking care of
quality and retention. Professor Tejaswani gave an overview of the
Higher Education Cell at the Centre for Study of Culture and Society
which strives to help connect Undergrad colleges, universities and
research centres. It also shepherds the Networked Higher Education
Cell,the Regional Language Resources cell,the Social Justice cell, the
Gender Studies cell and the Integrated Science cell.Professor Milind
pointed out the necessity to recover our subjugated pasts and tap into
knowledge which is mostly de-legitimised in the classroom.The Pathways
project seeks to set up Social Diversity Cells in each participating
institution that will help organise and coordinate
activities.Professor Ashish emphasised that personalised needs of
learners could be targeted through this project . Thus it would help
generate research in the field of pedagogy. He drew the connections
between an Institutional repository with archives of material that
complements the course, put by the course teacher. Thus the
teacher/students actively participate not only in download but also
upload of information.

The larger objective of this Higher Education Cell initiative is to
make higher education hospitable to hitherto marginalised students by
improving the quality of their access to the institutions.On the first
day, Professor Ram, placed the intentions of the pathways project in
juxtaposition of the law of our country. He highlighted the struggle
for access to public spaces and equal opportunities. He also pointed
out the persistent inadequacy in representation, ambiguity in defining
classes and necessity for new data to review and question the law.
Through the Pathways project, 20 -25 students from a marginalised
background would participate in a communication and technology
workshop conducted by the Centre For Internet and Society. Ashwin
commented on why the existing efforts to address social justice issues
have not been successful. 'Initiatives with focus on spoken English
skills do not efficiently translate in the purposes of knowledge
production.According to a survey 13 percent of Internet usage in India
is in English,while 83 percent of regional languages are used.Most
standard parameters to measure higher education have been
ineffective.In class, rather than development of critical skills being
the goal, the present mode resonates with an absence of resource
culture.The real demand of higher education, would only succeed in
developing clusters of researchers among small institutions at the
undergraduate and post graduate level.He strongly feels, that if the
approach to study is linked to problem based learning, which would
exist through virtual and physical means it would help to generate
resources to deal with the student's context. If linked with
organisations which act as training spaces. The Young trained
researchers,go back to the classroom with an angle of interaction
which has changed their perspective for life.The problem of
'un-learnabilty' is also linked to the 'un-teachabilty' of our present
curriculum.Through the workshops keeping in mind student competence we
hope that the students take up questions, use resources, develop
written output taking the questions asked forward and collating
present resources.' The model is open ended which creates alot of
opportunity for the teacher/student to negotiate with
blogs,wikipedia,institutional repositories and worldwide wealth of
information.Professor Srinivas pointed the embedded nature of social
conflict and culture. It is not possible to look at stereotypes as
good or bad but to try and understand what is happening.

Mr. Nishant Shah observed that in the trend of Internet
technology,tools are obsolete within a short span of time. The
workshops would focus on developing and sustaining skills to be tech
savvy. He affirmed that technology was for the marginalised but it
cannot be envisaged as a solution for all problems.The solution was
outside technology but we can use it to enable conversations.In his
painting of the digital classroom, the teacher can remove the burden
of being the primary and the only source of education. He emphasised
that choices for what platform to be used would be taken by the people
who use it,that we rather not endorse or question it
negatively.Through introducing the students to 'conditions' of
learning and being 'stakeholders' in the learning process we can open
dialogues and debate. The Pathways project hopes to successfully
design circles of trust inside,among and in between the 9 colleges and
the participating organisations. Thus the student don't have to wait
for 20 years to say what they want but in conversing with their online
community they create knowledge collaboratively.

Mr. Sunil Abraham, co- director of the Centre for Internet and society
emphasised that the trust placed in the youth is not misplaced. He was
enthusiastic about the potential of collaborative authoring. Citing
the example of the Mata Amritadamand College's private archive
containing four terabyte of information created and maintained by the
students. He visualises the potential of recording college lectures
using affordable mobile phones to help students go through concepts
more than once.He showcased the large variety of items that could be
uploaded on the Eprints. The Pathways project has chosen to use the
Eprints software to create a digital repository. Each repository would
have its server located in the college and would be linked with the
other participating colleges. Thus giving the students across colleges
an opportunity to solve their doubts and learn together. The
permanence of Internet histories would make most students vary of
doing harm as accountability would be linked in this circle of trust.

The participating colleges from Karnataka were St.Aloysius
College,Mangalore, Fr. Stany Souza and Mr. George Roderigues, Dr.A.V.
Balinga College,Kumta;Dr. M.G. Hegde and Shivanand Bulla,
Vidhyavardhaka College,Mysore, Dr. S.V. Marigowda and Mr.Sunil kumar.
From Maharashtra St.Xavier's College, Mumbai; Professor Sangeetha
Chavan and Professor Jyotiram Gaikwad; SIES,Mumbai,Professor Asha gala
and Ms. Sarita Balkrishnan, Ahmednagar College, Ahmednagar, Dr.S.B.
Iyer, Mr.Vilas Londhe. From Kerala, Farook College, Kozhikode,
Ms.Aysha K.Swapna, Mr. Muhammed Rasheed, Union Christian
College,Aluva, Ms Geethika and Mr. Eldo Varghese, Newman College,
Thosupuzha, Professor Ravi K Pillai and Professor Joe Jacob.

Fireflies...

A big thank you to Zainab and Kiran for telling me about this event and a sorry to the malu gang for not taking into account their being there from 6.00 p.m. and sitting right in front of them, literally on the stage!
I am hoping people on the fireflies group could help me supplement this article with photos, videos about this event.
As I waited in the long queue outside, I could faintly hear Shabnam Virmani read out kabir. At that time I could not understand why was some one speaking so long at a music concert! I guess that is the charm of Fireflies, it not only had great music but also great poetry. There was random dancing,spontaneous jigs and some awesome performances. I think,I saw and heard more than 23 musical instruments. As I got to the amphitheatre which was flowing with people, smell of good food,drink and smoke wafted through. People were hanging out in comfortable groups, some had come prepared with pillows, and chattais. 'It's like Goa!', My friend exclaimed. There were all age groups of people there.
Moments of note, memories for life
the audience doing their bit in picking up the garbage around the amphitheatre.
Hotel california played as farewell.
'Iris' crooned by two St. Joseph's college students as sunlight touched the banyan tree and the water behind the venue became visible. (hey rini they played halleluiah after that, gosh I missed you.)
The fujara flute and banjo.
Low rhyderz hip hop,rap and reggae's political statements unfortunately could not be heard in the muffled sound system. However as I was close to the stage, I could hear the tamborine their band mate had with its river like sound. Its such a ooh instrument!
I wish the vayalli goup could have performed in the silence of the morning, their personal composition with the bamboo instruments was mesmerising.
The crowd reacting to the qawali, Bharat sargam and group, the energy, rummaging through notes behind suitcase cover hit the chord with the audience, who didn't want them to leave the stage.again the 2nd lead singer seemed miffed by the mike.
Prakash sontakke and group's jugalbandi was superb, especially the drummer and the table notes being sung in tandem.
Lounge Pirhana's alternative rock,as they choose to play only peaceful music!!..Gosh they awesome.... the lady rocker2...
now I am not sure if I liked hulivesha, cause I don't think a traditional dance form can be directed by one person.(which seemed lacking in synchronisation) But I was engaged with the main lion cradling the necks of all its cubs...The amphitheatre setting with its height made it seem 4real..
I loved the ambience of the place...The fact that we were cribbing
about no night life....but celebrating it!! The fact that music has no
language barriers, As the main artist of the Vayalli group said he
didn't know English,he was cheered on....bilingualism...freedom of expression...youth finding new methods of connection, discussion forums,anonymity,randomness, beauty,art,music,...outside the realms of syllabus,structures ability to connect to other students, peer to peer networks,demanding, stakeholders,dynamic process of knowledge production, people were talking and sharing....
all in talk at the workshop on Saturday and through being engaged in this activity enthusiastic about the Pathways we taking....

however the icing on the cake, was bumping into Girsih Karnad ji on
the drive back home!!!!
--

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Cheers to an uncluttered rss feed!

Cheers to not forget true clueless-ness and frustration of nearly being there!!!

Dear reader/student/future anisha, I hope this blog in its wayward, long passages and collections leads to some interesting connections for you....

In your enthusiasm of discovering google reader if you have indiscriminately added more subscriptions from too many sources or invited mailing groups with active senders...You might end up like me with too much to read and not knowing where to begin!!
To combat this, zero in the settings options

Its best to get to this, after, you have been through the adrenaline rush of subscribing to many magazines and blogs.Then hit on the trends button on the right hand side of your google reader,Now you have 'your own' data pattern of consuming information in 'Google trends'!
(A blog to demystify the trend http://www.mymindleaks.com/blog/archives/unclutter-your-google-reader.html)
1.Preferences highlight:- Languages, start page,scroll tracking,navigation pane display,Likes etc.
2. Un clutter subscriptions. (its like throwing out old clothes from your closet, will you actually read this?) You can add folders according to your interest,following,trends analysis.
3. Choose the private or public settings of your tagged and foldered items.
Add tags and folders to your google reader from firefox, iggogle, net vibes or blog lines...
and now that you can take a breath of fresh,cleared air in your google reader, let's browse through the 'next' tool to plug right back in...
'The next bookmark is an innovative way to read your subscriptions. It allows you to use Google Reader through just one link - clicking on it takes you to the next unread item, marking it as read in the process. It is particularly useful for subscriptions which only include snippets or when you want to read an article in context.'
Also don't forget to add the 'subscribe' click to your toolbar so you can easily subscribe as you surf!
you can also export your subscriptions from your other accounts or choose your subscriptions 2!!!....digg,reddit,tumblr r some interesting sites to link with...

you can also link to www.postrank.com or aide rss for filtering post that publish too many..

Monday, February 15, 2010

Feb 15th

Have been comparing the number of languages provided by hotmail, rediff, yahoo and gmail....
Impressive that rediff has atleast 11 languages....
http://www.medianama.com/2009/07/223-the-new-rediffmail-minimalist-text-ads-no-indian-languages/

Once upon a time we had to use external services such as these to keep the junk away,
http://wiki.junkemailfilter.com/index.php/Email_Users_Guide
now what a marvel we have I say!

Once upon a time when emails used to get clogged up with spam bouncing off real mail! wow isnt it cool now where we have reached!
http://www.junkemailfilter.com/spam/how_it_works.html...here Span assassin is trying to do a 'batter' job!!
I am sure students by the end of the year the ppt I am making will be outdated....for right now its this table I have depended on ...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_webmail_providers

have been holding the bull of the unwilling table created in excel to enter its pen in the ppt, but Boy it wont cooperate!!!
Just discovered I am not alone with this problem...warm hug to google my friend..Hope I will hit on the solution soon.
http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=45923


I feel numbed by the shootings at colleges, However this dean puts it in perspective #

"It's about someone who came unhinged and committed a horrible crime, and about the losses of several innocent people."
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions_of_a_community_college_dean/thoughts_on_the_alabama_shooting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre
'On the fifth anniversary of Columbine, the FBI's lead Columbine investigator and several psychiatrists went public with their conclusions in a news article.[33] There they argued Harris was a clinical psychopath and Klebold was depressive. They believed the plan was masterminded by Harris, who they thought had a messianic-level superiority complex and hoped to illustrate his massive superiority to the world.'
'As they got into trouble, the two teenagers started to get their computer access restricted. Jerald Block believes that anger that was being projected into the games was now unleashed into the real world. In addition, the computer restrictions opened up substantial amounts of idle time that would have otherwise gone towards their online activities. They increasingly used that time to express their anger and their antisocial tendencies likewise increased. This, in turn, generated more restrictions. Finally, after being arrested and banned from their computers for about a month, the two teens became homicidal and began documenting plans to attack the school.'
does labelling them psychopaths answer the question, I am afraid no.
http://www.slate.com/id/2099203/

nd from that to this, rights for our online avatars...
http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/playerrights.shtml

'that by the act of affirming membership in the community within the virtual space, the avatars form a social contract with the community, forming a populace which may and must self-affirm and self-impose rights and concomitant restrictions upon their behavior. That the nature of virtual spaces is such that there must, by physical law, always be a higher power or administrator who maintains the space and has complete power over all participants, but who is undeniably part of the community formed within the space and who must therefore take action in accord with that which benefits the space as well as the participants, and who therefore also has the rights of avatars and may have other rights as well.'
'Liberty consists of the freedom to do anything which injures no one else including the weal of the community as a whole and as an entity instantiated on hardware and by software; the exercise of the natural rights of avatars are therefore limited solely by the rights of other avatars sharing the same space and participating in the same community. These limits can only be determined by a clear code of conduct.'
'# The code of conduct shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted according to the provisions of a code of conduct promulgated before the commission of the offense; save in the case where the offense endangered the continued existence of the virtual space by attacking the hardware or software that provide the physical existence of the space.'
must add a quote of a quote.
"You just defined "the aim of virtual communities." That's not liberating, that's severely limiting! The beauty of virtual communities is their ability to be whatever we want them to be.
# What about a virtual world for psych experiments? Or one which is not open to the public? Or one which is solely for the admin's amusement?

# Who gets to define hurtful?

# You just made admins immune from harm. This means that they are not part of the community and subject to the same things as everyone else. This means this document vanishes in a poof of logic and doesn't exist. QED.
Who decides what contributions are worthy?

What about virtual meeting places for businesses, or online universities. I'd argue that the need for rights applies even more in such environments. But it is clear that there's a sliding scale of applicability here. It raises the question of what a mud is for, and what lifecycle it has. Common wisdom has it that "a mud must grow, or stagnate and die." If so, then the common good means anything that works against increasing the population of a mud. However, a mud that grows into something which all of its members despise is not developing towards the common good. So a better definition might be, the common good is that which increases the population of a mud without surrendering core social tenets or mores. But that word "stagnate" is in that bit o' common wisdom too. So it may be good for a mud to evolve its core social tenets in order to adapt to the changing population. Free immigration means that this will be accelerated--note that nowhere does the document say that you can't simply not accept people into the mud who aren't aligned with the mud's key social tenets."

# "Hurting others" needs to be defined in the code of conduct."

Apture