wandering thoughts and general catch-up stuff
Quick catchup on the last couple of weeks...
The trip to Anaheim was great. Worked my ass off, we showed some awesome new software, and pretty much stole the show by all accounts. Was nice to back up on stage for the old firm, as it always is. And very nice of the new employers to give me the time off to go, which was much appreciated. The recession was clearly biting though - there wasn't one single after-show party during the entire week, which is is astonishing. I've been going to that show for over a decade, and every other year there were several parties each evening. It actually worked out ok, meant that every evening after the show I basically just retired to my room, ate pizza, watched Dexter and crashed out. It's the only trade show in memory where I came home actually feeling refreshed. I hope there will be more to come in the next months...
Went right back to college the day after I got home and did a pretty good day's teaching, though I started feeling a bit woozy during the afternoon. I put it down to jet-lag, but the moment I got back from work I ended up running to the bathroom and staying there for the next 12 hours with horrendous gastroenteritis. Cue me out of action for the next few days. Damn, I hate gastroenteritis. I assume I picked it up on the plane. Yeah, the glamorous life of the jet-setting rock star...
Of course I then gave it to Cathryn - luckily just as she was coming down with it I was on the upswing, so I've been able to take care of her a bit since then, while trying to catch up with the teaching work I've been missing. Which is a good cue for me to sing the praises of Moodle here I guess...
I really wasn't sure about Moodle when I first encountered it, but since the college uses it for a lot of its academic infrastructure I decided to I'd better start learning how to use it (especially since very few of the other lecturers use it on more than a extremely basic level). A couple of months later and I can't live without it now. Another victory for Free Open Source Software... I've even read several books about it. And damn, they were all (apart from one notable exception) completely shit. No wonder so few teachers actually know how to use this rather elegant piece of software, the user manuals are written by idiots.
Anyhow, the reason that I bring this whole thing up is that while I was ill in bed, I was actually teaching a class using Moodle's built-in Chat function, setting assignments, reading students' work, marking it and sending feedback - all in Moodle. That's damn efficient. Of course there all still things that Moodle could do better, but it's Free Software, which means that it will and it's only a matter of time (probably a short time, knowing the speed of Open Source these days). I really want to get more involved in Moodle... I think I'll need to pick up some more books and stuff on it.
Anyhow, was back in college last couple of days, cooking and looking after Cathryn, and still trying to recover a bit. So I'm pretty damn tired this eve... am going to try to relax a bit cause we have a Cassandra Complex gig in Holland on Friday. Am really looking forward to it, but I wish it was next week instead of this one... I don't think I'll be running around quite as much on this one as I usually do :-(
Still will be good though, we've got some new lights... heheheheheh.
The trip to Anaheim was great. Worked my ass off, we showed some awesome new software, and pretty much stole the show by all accounts. Was nice to back up on stage for the old firm, as it always is. And very nice of the new employers to give me the time off to go, which was much appreciated. The recession was clearly biting though - there wasn't one single after-show party during the entire week, which is is astonishing. I've been going to that show for over a decade, and every other year there were several parties each evening. It actually worked out ok, meant that every evening after the show I basically just retired to my room, ate pizza, watched Dexter and crashed out. It's the only trade show in memory where I came home actually feeling refreshed. I hope there will be more to come in the next months...
Went right back to college the day after I got home and did a pretty good day's teaching, though I started feeling a bit woozy during the afternoon. I put it down to jet-lag, but the moment I got back from work I ended up running to the bathroom and staying there for the next 12 hours with horrendous gastroenteritis. Cue me out of action for the next few days. Damn, I hate gastroenteritis. I assume I picked it up on the plane. Yeah, the glamorous life of the jet-setting rock star...
Of course I then gave it to Cathryn - luckily just as she was coming down with it I was on the upswing, so I've been able to take care of her a bit since then, while trying to catch up with the teaching work I've been missing. Which is a good cue for me to sing the praises of Moodle here I guess...
I really wasn't sure about Moodle when I first encountered it, but since the college uses it for a lot of its academic infrastructure I decided to I'd better start learning how to use it (especially since very few of the other lecturers use it on more than a extremely basic level). A couple of months later and I can't live without it now. Another victory for Free Open Source Software... I've even read several books about it. And damn, they were all (apart from one notable exception) completely shit. No wonder so few teachers actually know how to use this rather elegant piece of software, the user manuals are written by idiots.
Anyhow, the reason that I bring this whole thing up is that while I was ill in bed, I was actually teaching a class using Moodle's built-in Chat function, setting assignments, reading students' work, marking it and sending feedback - all in Moodle. That's damn efficient. Of course there all still things that Moodle could do better, but it's Free Software, which means that it will and it's only a matter of time (probably a short time, knowing the speed of Open Source these days). I really want to get more involved in Moodle... I think I'll need to pick up some more books and stuff on it.
Anyhow, was back in college last couple of days, cooking and looking after Cathryn, and still trying to recover a bit. So I'm pretty damn tired this eve... am going to try to relax a bit cause we have a Cassandra Complex gig in Holland on Friday. Am really looking forward to it, but I wish it was next week instead of this one... I don't think I'll be running around quite as much on this one as I usually do :-(
Still will be good though, we've got some new lights... heheheheheh.