Rich Finlinson

my.uen and the new me

BEFORE AFTER
my.uen my.uen

Within just a few days of using my.uen, I felt younger. Soon my hair grew thicker and darker. My barber was astonished, "Are you using Rogiane to make your hair grow? And who did the dye job, your gray hair is gone." I told him "No drugs, no dye, the only thing that's different is I'm using my.uen everyday."

At my next eye appointment, my optometrist was shocked. "Did you have LASIK without telling me?" "No way, but since using my.uen I've donated my glasses to charity. Better yet, I feel strong, fit, and healthier than ever. I always used to take the elevator, now I leap up the stairs two at a time. And when I swim laps, even the college kids can't keep up with my pace."

At my dental checkup, my dentist was concerned. "Are you using something harsh to whiten your teeth?" "Honest Doc, no bleach," I told him, "but I do smile a lot more now that I'm using my.uen and I feel as bright as my smile. I used to fall asleep reading, now I can read a whole textbook before midnight. In fact, to be honest with you I feel better than I've felt in decades. With my.uen it's almost as if I'm a teenager again."

Now my barber, my eye doctor and my dentist are all using my.uen and they, too, seem much younger, stronger and brighter.

Rich's IDET Blog

Web 2.0 Explorations

I explored BackPack, Delicious and Flickr. I also explored how Delicious could work to create content at my.uen via RSS feed. When I found this actually did work, I went back to a Delicious account and updated it. Using Delicious to a create an RSS feed on the fly from one-click bookmarking is a real time saver. It empowers an educator, or any web surfer for that matter, to maximize the impact of what they learn by sharing it with others via Web 2.0 technology. Months ago I had created a Delicious account with the user name of uen.org. I obtained a new password for this account and shared it with my colleagues at a staff promotional meeting. I encouraged them to use the site to bookmark any items they encounted that would be helpful to our readers. I also suggested that they bookmark any news or opinion items about the Obama economic stimulus package. We had a short white board discussion about how multiple eyes on a story can help win the prize and counteract lies.

Here a link to my my.uen. post of this paragraph. http://my.uen.org/18059

Simon Pulsifer: Encyclopedist

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT WHAT HE DID?

Pulsifer's contributions are voluminous and instructive about the power of contributing to a collaborative enterprise in the guise of doing your homework. SimonP., as he is known on Wikipedia, is an example of someone with a positive addiction. The addiction, rather than causing a downward spiral, contributes to society and tends to improve the individual. Since publication of the Time article, SimonP. has worked on political campaigns and did relocate his residence, according to an article about him in, you guessed it, the Wikipedia. (here's the article)

WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEARNING AND WEB 2.0 TOOLS?

In SimonP's case, I doubt that his addiction would have taken hold and had such an influence if he had not had the reinforcement of being published, read and edited. As a recovering broadcaster, I strongly relate to the addictive high of being heard by thousands of people. But in traditional broadcasting the feedback loop is much weaker. I think the immediate and often strong feedback provided by Web 2.0 reinforces the rewards felt by contributors.

IS THIS HOW PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS LEARNED AND THE WEB IS JUST CATCHING UP?

In a sense this is how people have always learned, through interaction with content, culture and other people. However, Web 2.0 applications are turbo-charging the process. Information that used to take days, weeks or decades to reach others, now traverses the planet in hours, seconds and minutes. Just as the printing press changed the way people read and learned, and the automobile changed the way people lived, vacationed and where they worked, Web 2.0 is redefining who can create and criticize, meet and mobilize.

Note: I've cross posted this blog entry on my my.uen page at:
http://my.uen.org/18059

What is IDET?

IDET is the Instructional Design and Educational
Technology MEd program of the University of Utah Department of Educational Psychology.

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