Cappuccino U

My Saskatchewan Cappuccino U Office

I'm spending two weeks as an artist in residence at the Wallace Stegner House in Eastend, Saskatchewan. I'm working on a book and photographing in this great town on the edge of the Cypress Hills.

The Eastend Arts Council installed high speed internet in the house. I borrowed an Airport Express Base Station (thanks, Lu), plugged it in to a power bar, plugged the ethernet cable into it and now have wi-fi throughout the house and in the yard. It's a wonderful system.

This morning I uploaded a blog entry with photos of the yard from the yard.

Here is my latest Cappuccino U office.

Nomads at last

Wireless communication is changing the way people work, live, love and relate to places – and each other, according to an article by Andreas Kluth in the April 10, 2008, issue of The Economist.

Urban nomads do business, work and learn using wi-fi in cafés and other friendly locations. They are early adopters, empowered by laptops, Blackberries, and iPhones.

Kluth, who is based in San Francisco, has done an excellent job of describing these nomads –people like you and me, people who are always connected to each other and the world through the latest techology.

Andreas and I exchanged e-mails about his article on a Sunday afternoon. I'm assuming that he was sitting at a sidewalk café in San Francisco (one of my favourite cities), answering e-mails and reading blogs. I was at home watching a western Canadian blizzard in action, answering e-mails and reading blogs.

Enjoy the article. It would go well with a cup of fine coffee at your local Starbucks.

Urban Nomads

Free Online University Courses

Openculture has created a comprehensive list of free online courses from great universities. I've downloaded two of these through iTunes and look forward to spending time with them.

We'll soon see more courses available online, some of them for credit.

Jane's Top Ten Tools for Learning 2008

Jane Hart is a Learning & Performance Technologist and one of the bright lights on the blogging scene. Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day features great products for those of us who are interested in e-learning.

She recently asked me to contribute to her Top Ten Tools for Learning 2008 page and my top 10 were posted this morning. She is asking learning professionals from around the world to contribute their top 10 learning tools so please join me and many others who have already contributed their favourites . I've learned about a lot of new online tools by reading the lists contributed by people from various countries.

Technology is wonderful. I'll probably never meet Jane or Clive or Harold in person but I feel that I know them. I've certainly learned a lot from them and the other people who blog about informal learning.

Open Yale Courses

Have you always wanted a Yale education? Open Yale Courses now offers access to some courses to anyone with a computer and an internet connection.

Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to seven introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn.

Find a comfortable spot, connect to Yale (or various other fine Universities through iTunes University) and enjoy learning.

Cappuccino Culture in High Schools

My friend Steve Cavrak from the University of Vermont sent me a fascinating article describing how 'In some schools classrooms are being designed to resemble cyber cafés.'
The article, from The Independent, is entitled Secondary teaching: Cappuccino culture for teenagers.

'At Colne Community School in Brightlingsea, Essex, the ICT Learning Centre – despite its 60 or so matt black, flat-screen computers – is designed to look more like a coffee bar than a secondary school, according to Mark Thomson, assistant principal.
Yet despite the significant increases in GCSE grades, the better coursework presentation and what he calls "rising engagement levels among less motivated pupils" that have followed a £3m investment in technology, Colne's cyber café is just the start of things.'

In the article Virginia Matthews describes how some British schools are using technology and new classroom design to engage students and to help them learn.
Traditional classrooms in schools and other educational institutions are dreadful places in which to spend the majority of one's youth. The are poorly designed and uncomfortable – and they haven't changed appreciably in 200 years. I'm pleased to see that some schools are making significant changes.

My least favourite word

I'm sitting in one of my favourite Cappuccino U cafés. I usually get positive energy from the people around me, but today The Young Women Who Like Like sat at the next table.
'I'm like...'
'So he's, like...
'And so I said, like...'
'And she said, like..'
'Like, I could hardly...'
'Yeah, like...'
'I'm like...'
'So, like, he's like...'
They left and, as a result, I stayed.
I know that language evolves and that certain groups of people adopt certain phrases and intonations: but I find the use of like as every fifth word annoying even from a distance.
Okay. I've said it. Enough.

Net Cafés in Japan: "Home Was Never Like This"

Net Cafés: Home Was Never Like This
"Step inside one of the 90 Internet cafés run by Tokyo's Aprecio and you'll find far more than rows of PCs and baristas pouring tea. Clients who tire of checking their e-mail or playing video games can watch DVDs in rooms with flat-screen TVs, browse a library of some 30,000 comic books, get a massage, or stretch out in a room with tatami mats. Some of Aprecio's PCs are enclosed in private booths with an intercom and a safe for valuables."
Thanks to Steve Cavrak for telling me about this story.

Free Courses Online

Helge Scherlund reminds us in his latest blog entry that The Open University in the UK has a significant number of free courses available. I've browsed some of the free arts and history courses and am very tempted to try one or several.
Find a summer resort with free wi-fi and take a free course while you're sitting in the shade enjoying a cool drink – or, of course, a cappuccino.

Online Courses

I've always felt that all Universities should be offering online courses and that they should also encourage students to consider taking distance courses from other institutions.
Terence Armentano, in an excellent article entitled University 2.0 – Online Courses Enhance Universities, suggests that taking courses from other institutions could provide a variety of benefits:
"Imagine taking a college course in African Studies and your teacher actually lives and performs research in Nairobi, Kenya. In addition, you could imagine the kind of dynamic discussion that would ensue in an online Foreign Policy course when your classmates actually live in 15 different countries."
Indeed.
Let's do it.