watching for the Wave

Google Wave launched this week with a limited number of Beta users (see related story on CNN). I wish I were one of them!

It’s a whole new take on how to communicate online … although, interestingly, I’ve had several instructors on campus ask (in frustration) where they could find a tool that would allow them to message, collaborate, use apps, use tagging, share photos, archive, etc., all in the same space and, if possible, synchronously. Well, get ready, because here it comes. According to Google: “Google Wave is an online communication and collaboration tool that makes real-time interactions more seamless – in one place you can communicate and collaborate using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps and more.” I want.

Here’s a video showing off 15 features of Google Wave:

Topping Out Celebration

Watch the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital Topping Out Celebration at 10:30am on Wednesday, Sept. 30, on UK Cable channels 16 (Insight Cable, campus and community) and 48 (Insight Cable, campus only). The program will repeat on those channels until 7pm, so if you miss it live, you can pick it up later that afternoon.

Princeton students and the Kindle

Open Culture reports that Princeton students are not liking the Kindle for e-books. Read more about it at Open Culture’s post and in the Daily Princeton.

read a banned book

We’re reading challenged books and banned books in our house this week in honor of Banned Books Week, Sept. 26-Oct. 3. If you’re interested in finding out more about Banned Books Week or banned books in general, you might want to visit the America Library Association (ALA) Banned Books Week page and ALA’s listings of Frequently Challenged Books (use the menu at left on the page to find the listing that interests you). You can read a few banned books (or listen to them) for free at Project Gutenberg and  at the Banned Books page on the Internet Archive.

Celebrate reading in a yummy way by attending Good Enough to Eat (4-6pm on Sept. 29), sponsored by The McConnell Center (Room 504, King Library) for the Study of Youth Literature here at the University of Kentucky. Just $2 to judge and eat, and you’ll be helping provide books for local children!

Teaching Technology Toolkit

I’m finally emerging from work on TASC’s Teaching Technology Toolkit, which my colleagues and I developed to support H1N1 planning at UK. It includes all kinds of tips for using technology to help bridge the gap in case of a disruption in classes … including tips for instructional strategy to consider now. Visit it at http://webteach.mc.uky.edu/techtoolkit/. The best news is that this is something we’ve been talking about creating for the past year – which is why we had enough content to develop it over the course of two weeks – and so its debut will allow TASC to continue to refine it and offer it as an ongoing resource.

UK Celebrates Constitution Day | uknow.uky.edu

I shared the information below by using ShareThis off of the UKNOW page (then edited the resulting post to add this text). Be sure to check on UK’s Constitution Day activities at the URL below.  Speakers and music highlight the week. Be sure to pick up your copy of the Constitution and your free apple pie on Thursday.

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UK Celebrates Constitution Day | uknow.uky.edu

Posted using ShareThis

Common Reading Experience in Second Life

Newbies in the virtual world Second Life who are interested in participating in the Common Reading Experience book discussion taking place on University of KY Island on Oct. 12 are invited to a “real-world” introductory SL session.  This class is for anyone who wants a little help getting started, whether you have an avatar already or not.

Date: Friday, Sept 18, 2009
Time: 11:00 AM – noon (EST)
Location: Young B-35 (Student Computing Lab classroom, basement, Young Library)

More information may be found on the UK Island blog. If you cannot make this class but want some help getting started in SL, contact kraemer@email.uky.edu or erskine@uky.edu.

we’ve got that H1N1 fever

I am not avoiding you, dear reader, nor am I absent. I’m simply putting everything I’ve got into some H1N1 planning, which is providing TASC the opportunity to build some nifty resources for UK’s campus. I’ll be able to share more about that soon.

In the meantime, something YOU can do to improve your own preparedness is to use UK’s instant messaging/audio-video chat tool. It’s called Office Communicator, sometimes abbreviated as OCS. If you aren’t using it, please take a few minutes to set it up on at least your work computer. It could become a vital tool for communications, and it’s available free to all faculty, staff and students with UK logins, courtesy of UK IT. Read more about it and link to tutorials.