Man, it is cold outside!

It has been amazingly cold
My sons have been blogging about the cold in Washington and Alaska. I am right there with them! Each of the last three mornings I have had to scrape frost off my windshield. This morning on the way to work it was in the mid 30's. Man, it is cold! I have my thermals on.

Preparing to save lives

The most important training I hope I will never use
My colleague Colin and I have been going through CERT training every day this week.

The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program educates people about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their area and trains them in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations. Using the training learned in the classroom and during exercises, CERT members can assist others in their neighborhood or workplace following an event when professional responders are not immediately available to help. CERT members also are encouraged to support emergency response agencies by taking a more active role in emergency preparedness projects in their community.

One of the greatest constants in the recent disasters this country has faced is that it can often be a long wait between the crisis and when help arrives. We saw it in Katrina and in the 1989 Loma Prieta quake. This area has the potential for an earthquake over ten times that size. If we get hit with a 1906 level quake destruction will be massive. The emergency responders will be totally overwhelmed and the infrastructure loss will be incredible. We may be cut off for a very long time. Who, then will be the first responders? We will! Are you ready? That is the point of this training. There will be no time for learning when disaster strikes, and the experts say, it is a matter of when.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca

End of 163, for now

The end of 163 as we know it
This was an experimental class that started the Fall semester with a blank slate. Formally titled as a class on streaming, we took the view that podcasting is the new streaming. For their mid-terms every student did a podcast, complete with its own RSS stream. We were given a blank slate and so we embraced new media and the class was billed as "New Media in Journalism." Technologies taught in the class included blogging, Second Life, podcasting and RSS. We used Skype as a teaching tool and in the process this class saved Skype at SJSU when the university proposed the ban of it. The Skype story went global. It was an example of amazing timing that this class was in the right place at the right time on that issue. The class not only learned about new media journalism, we became new media journalists.

Our class received national attention, thanks to the resulting media coverage of the Skype story, and there was no way this class was ever going to slip under the radar. Fantastic speakers came to our class, physically and virtually via Skype and Second Life. Despite having poor facilities and few resources the class exceeded all expectations of ours.

I think the class succeeded because we were not afraid to fail.  Dr. Dale E. Turner said, "Some of the best lessons we ever learn are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future." On the first day of class we announced we would make mistakes in this class, but we intended to learn from them. Making mistakes became part of the process.

Even though we were given this class with a blank slate, even though we were a prototype, all of a sudden we became high profile. Folks with preconceived agendas took notice. Partly because of this, only partly, next semester's class will be very different.

But, that would be true even without the new agendas. That is the nature of prototypes. The lessons we learned as teachers of 163 in the Fall of 2006 would demand it. For these students, and us teachers, we were the pioneers and because of it we all had a truly unique experience. What a thrill that has been!

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca, j-school, jmc163, education, web2.0, web 2.0

Academic Technology Christmas Party

Nobody photocopied their butt at this party
Nobody danced on the tables, or under the tables. For an office Christmas party it was a pretty tame event (at least compared to the parties we had at the newspaper I worked for in the 70's.) In fact, after this party was done, we all went back to work (there was no alcohol.) Still, the food was great, it was very well organized and I think everybody had a good time. Thank you to the folks who organized this.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca

Advice: Keep on blogging!

Great advice from Professor Lilly Buchwitz
I am a flash in the pan, a part timer teaching a night class. Professor Lilly Buchwitz is the real deal, a tenure track new professor who has the potential to really make a difference. This semester all the students in her Media and Society class (MCOM 72) did blogs. This her advice to them. I am really happy we have her teaching in JMC.

Family moment: My youngest son

Soon Kenneth will be 20
In just under a month youngest son Kenneth will be 20. He is a good son and a good friend. We get together at least once a week and do things like watch recorded episodes of Jericho, go to meetups or go run model trains. He also comes to some of our events at SJSU. We often go to lunch together and just hang out and talk.

Get trained, save a life

SJSU CERT Training
Should disaster strike we university employees may be the only thing standing between life and death for university students and/or our fellow workers. Are you ready? Next week the university is offering Campus Emergency Response Team Training. It is free! Now that you know about it, how can you not go? What if someday your decision to not go to this training causes another person to be hurt or worse?

New Adobe Software Coming

Adobe to release an beta of the new version of Creative Suite
The new version, Creative Suite 3 (CS3) will be Intel/Mac native and will replace Go-Live with Dreamweaver. Final release version of CS3 expected to ship this Spring.

Fun with trains

I relax by playing with trains
One of my hobbies is playing with little trains. Both youngest son Kenneth and I are members of the California Central Model Railroad Club, located in the old Agnews Train Depot in San Jose.

It is dead day!

Camera Phone Post: A gray dead day at SJSU
It is dead day, that quiet day between the end of regular classes and the start of finals. On top of that, there is a storm coming in and the wind is blowing. The rain is coming soon. The wind is bringing down the leaves and the grounds workers are trying to keep ahead of them.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca