Homework for Tristan!

On Monday night, I will be attending the fifth and final night of "Build Your Online Profile", a course presented by author/filmmaker Tristan Bancks, at the Sydney Writers' Centre in Milson's Point.

And we have homework! We are to present "a plan for our online future", by answering three key questions in five minutes.

1. Where do you want your online profile to be? Show us the kind of profile that you want to establish and why. If you like you can show us examples of people/companies who are already there now.

2. How will you get there? Priorities? And when?

3. How have your plans changed or developed since the beginning of the course?








An evolution of my web presence.

My strengths/interests are teacher-librarianship and TV historian. Both present opportunities for imparting knowledge and skills to others, but my current online presence is fragmented across many small sites. My recent 365 Photos project reminded me of the importance of established routines for blogging, to keep things current and fresh, and to bring browsers in for return visits. Site Meter indicates that Google Images searches of photographic material on the World Wide Web continues to be an important drawcard to blogs.

However, since starting this course, I have already:

* Bought a domain name, www.number96.tv.

* Revitalized my Twitter page - and added "Facebook" and "Twitter" buttons to my blog.

* Designed an "umbrella" webpage that will unite all my random web presences.

* Finally signed up as a channel owner on Youtube.

* Created a user profile for Creative Commons music at ccMixter.

* Created my first book trailer on Keynote, added a soundtrack from a Creative Commons site, exported it as a video podcast via iWeb, uploaded it to MobileMe and promoted it on Facebook, Twitter, Yammer, two teacher-librarian listservs and the NSW DET book rap being held to celebrate Book Week 2010.

I still need to:

* Create and upload the umbrella webpage for www.number96.tv. (Time frame: immediately.)

But, as a result of this course, I will also...

* Brainstorm with Andrew Mercado(?) and begin to create a series of podcast fan commentaries for episodes of "Number 96" which could be hosted on iTunes? (Time frame: next twelve months?)

* Create more book trailers to export as video podcasts. Students to be involved in the productions. Closer ties with a range of children's writers and illustrators. A renewed focus for collaborative teaching and learning with Web 2.0 in our (almost completed) school library. (Time frame: next twelve months?)

* Complete new, unrelated, picture book project - which is currently needing to transfer from my brain to paper. Exploit the online possibilities that will arise with publication and promotion of book. (Time frame: ASAP.)


"Mr Chicken goes to Paris" book trailer

Asian spammers' Top 15!

I awoke this morning to discover that this blog had been deluged with spam comments. Ick.

As I methodically removed the intrusive comments and their identical, hyperlinked, Chinese characters, I realised that their computer had targeted fifteen of my most popular blog posts. Andorians, JJ Abrams' "Star Trek" movie, View-Masters, Smurfs, fibreglass sheep, the "Free Hugs" guy, colour blindness, fan films, Sorry Day, audio books, "Number 96" DVDs, customised action figures, Youtube video clips, "Star Trek" and even more "Star Trek"!

In the pursuit of turning lemons into lemonade, here are my Asian Spammers' Top 15!

Number 15

Number 14

Number 13

Number 12

Number 11

Number 10

Number 9

Number 8

Number 7

Number 6

Number 5

Number 4

Number 3

Number 2

Number 1

Enjoy! Please feel free to comment. (Just don't spam.)

Where I write

Today was the first day of Term 1, and already it feels like the year is chugging along under it's own steam!



Novelist Tara Moss has been running a series of blog posts called, "I've Shown You Mine, Now Show Me Yours", in which she invited her writer friends, colleagues and blog followers to send in photos of their personal/professional writing spaces. Judith Ridge (formerly of NSW DET's "School Magazine" editorial team) was featured last week, actor/writer Rhys Muldoon (who recently co-wrote a children's book Prime Minister Kevin Rudd) the week before that - and today.... my writing desk is featured.

It's a bit of a buzz to be in the company of Tara's esteemed and talented colleagues. Now I really have to get that first book written/published. I do feel the magic tingling, but I sometimes need a bomb under me! (That's a gag for the "Number 96" fans out there.) Thanks so much for your support, Tara! This has been a great and inspiring thread!

My teacher-librarian colleagues, and English teachers looking for interesting snippets about Australian writers to inspire their budding young writers, may well find some useful material on Tara's blog. There are eleven segments in this series so far, with three or four writers' desks featured each time.

See today's entries at:blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=378

Slow and steady still does it...

Today, a hare once again raced a tortoise for a medal and a gold trophy - this time in the intense Penrith heat. Tomorrow, my Kindergarten bloggers will create a jointly constructed retelling of the famous Aesop's fable.

Weekend photo roundup

A kitten stretches and yawns. 17 October 2009.


A new virtual home for my old website. 18 October 2009.


Peace lily blooms in the library, having stayed alive during two weeks of school holidays
- note the nearby book cover: Adventure and survival. 19 October 2009.

Mere seconds to midnight! Again.

Mere seconds to midnight!



My Andorian teddy - from the now-defunct "Star Trek: The Experience" attraction (that was in Las Vegas). I've been transferring my old Geocities' "The Andor Files" website, and many, many images of Andorians, across to a blog format and my Flickr account. An exhausting job, quietly observed by this furry little blue guy sitting behind the laptop.

See my efforts at:

The Andor Files. Still so much to do before Geocities closes, forever, in a few more weeks. I think I have everything archived to my hard drive now, but uploading fresh versions that people can see, and finding all the places on the "Net that link to my old site URL, can be very time consuming... and tricky!

Presenting...

Seminar aftermath - returning from a day on the Central Coast.

Today I had a very restful and scenic train ride to Gosford Station, to attend a teacher-librarians' gathering at Brisbania Public School. I was presenting a session on wikis, blogs and Web 2.0.

Many thanks to the organisers and attendees for making me feel so welcome. It's always fun to share innovative educational strategies with others and even more rewarding to get feedback that one's work has already been inspiring others!

And thanks also for the gift, which doubled as the subject of today's "365 Photos" project, winning out even over glimpses of the majestic Hawesbury River.

In the picture

The ISLA group of teacher-librarians has posted some photos of the professional development day I was asked to speak at in Shellharbour last October. I was particularly chuffed by this line on their blog site:

"Many Illawarra teacher librarians are now busy planning and creating wikis thanks to the inspirational Ian McLean."

I look forward to seeing what they get up to!


Ian draws the winning raffle (er, guessing competition) ticket.
Also pictured, from left, are ISLA committee members, Margaret Cooper
and Celia Owen.

Journey to the centre of the blog

I've just been watching tonight's episode of "Rove". Rove McManus finished the show with his "Things I love" segment, claiming to love blogging. For two reasons: he gets to be opinionated, and he can do it while wearing no pants.

Sounds good to me.

Over on the "Star Trek" bulletin boards, the avid Trek fans are still sweating over whether they are going to like, love or detest JJ Abrams' new "Star Trek" movie. One of the more reasonable fans said today, "If I can sit down for two hours and be entertained, then that movie is a success in my book."

Sounds good to me.

In fact, I just got back from seeing the remake/rejig of "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D", starring the prolific and versatile Brendan Fraser. Hard on the heels of "The Mummy 3", it was just as silly, it had some great SPFX, some likable characters, typically breath-taking action sequences and some funny one-liners. And it was eye-popping 3D! The movie also paid respectful homage to the Jules Verne novel and the old 1959 movie version with James Mason and Pat Boone.

I'm sure "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D" will sell plenty of licensed tie-in books, T-shirts and stickers, theme ride tickets, and it will probably even inspire some people to track down some Verne books from their local library.

I can imagine it has also polarized fans of Verne, Henry Levin (director of the first filmed version) and James Mason. But I had fun, so who cares?

If JJ does the same for "Star Trek XI", or better, with its source material, as Eric Brevig did for "Journey...", well, it sounds good to me.

Sunday's magic number: 94.0 - Sigh...

Reversal of fortune, or, About Face

In complete contrast to yesterday's gorgeous weather, today was overcast/drizzling/pouring all day.

I spent the day finally tweaking my Facebook page. Sorely neglected, and never of particular interest, I get the occasional automated email from friends updating their Facebook profile.

Considering that, in a very short time, I'd jumped from five to 35 friends I'm quite pleased! I can certainly see that it could become as all-consuming as a blog, or Flickr, or a bbs (bulletin board service).

I'm sure I have plenty of other tasks awaiting, but all these acknowledgments of linking keep popping through on the email! What fun! It's like a virtual school reunion here!

Sunday's magic number: 93.6 - Okay. Drat. 'Cos I felt much skinnier!

Virtual housekeeping

Why is it more pleasurable and stimulating to spring clean and detail a blog site than a real house?

Ah, sweet irony, as I sit here surrounded by clutter, whether at home or work, but it's so rewarding to tinker with HTML, jpegs, widgets and gadgets until they're just so.

Pardon my virtual dust!

Testing, testing

Take 2.

Well, you almost didn't see Take 1 because the screen froze and I had to reload, so I'm trying again. I haven't had the chance to read and absorb all the instructions yet and, if I did, I'd be offline for ages.

I haven't had the capacity to have titles before, and have had to add them manually with HTML. So we'll see how they look...

While I stress over the appearance of my blog's template (now known as a layout - see I know that much!), my Jack Russell terrier is running "wacko" all around the house. I finally found him a new (supposedly indestructible) black nylon cylinder, with orange stripes (as close as a tiger as I could find! If you've been following the Toy Tiger Saga, you'll know how it's embarrassing to ask a dog to "Get the tiger" and then have to praise him for retrieving a yellow ring toy.

This new toy is a "Crunch 'n' Crackle", filled with all manner of crinkling sounding objects. The tube is supposedly "designed for the toughest chewers" and even "suitable for visually impaired dogs".

Oh...

Well, Jack just took "Crunch 'n' Crackle Tiger" to bed for me - and both ends are already looking frayed.

Mmmm. Back to the old drawing board, perhaps.

Stumbling around

Take 1.

All dressed up - or rather, half-dressed - and absolutely nothing crosses my mind to post about, and thereby test out my new template.

Frozen screen...

A bold new look?

Yesterday, I noticed an error in the way my blog's template was (not) creating new monthly archives - I guess it's a holdover from my template disaster of a few months ago.

So I've taken the opportunity to switch templates, as a precursor to some more revamps. I'm still trying to work out how to restore a few regular elements of the old template.

Watch this space...?

Search terms desperado

"collaborative team teaching sucks", someone typed into Google this morning... and found my blog, according to Sitemeter.

Some teacher-librarian out there is having a bad day! Luckily they found my uplifting words of wisdom! (The "sucks" bit only came up because a previous post of mine mentioned a famous "Star Trek" episode, "Obsession", which featured a blood-sucking cloud creature.)

A lemon tree grows in Lemongrove

I should start this blog entry with a cheerio to Judy E., a regular reader who starts her day with a brief check on both of my blogs. (I know she reads both because she noticed I cross-posted the other day!)

I toasted Judy with a refreshing glass of homemade lemonade this morning, squeezed from the bounty of a little lemon tree that is espaliered to a freestanding trellis out in my backyard. (It came along as a housewarming gift; a friend, Rhonda, thought that if I was going to live near a locality called Lemongrove, there should at least be one lemon tree on the property.)

Despite its size, its had several successful crops of lemons (and a few fallow years) since 2001. The lemons have been ripe enough to use for a few weeks now, and I finally found the time to squeeze three cups of lemon juice from the current crop!

A few years ago, I found a great recipe for a lemonade syrup/cordial base over at the Lemonflower website. It is a foolproof recipe. So far.

Basic Lemonade Syrup Base:
1 1/2 cups Sugar
1/2 cup Boiling water
Zest of 1 lemon
1 1/2 cups Lemon juice

Dissolve sugar into boiling water, turn off. Add zest and lemon juice. Refrigerate in jar or covered container.

To use: Mix 1/4 cup syrup base to 3/4 cup of cold water. For larger amounts, mix proportionately.

All I needed to do was double the quantities. Easy! What was putting me off this year was knowing that, if homemade lemonade (with all that sugar) was sitting in the fridge, I'd drink it till it was gone - and bang goes the diet!

Then I heard a set of radio ads for Splenda, the low calorie sweetener, which I've never bothered to try before. But it worked a treat. No icky aftertaste!

Yummo.

Staying power

Well, my congratulations to Reader Anonymous, who, at 10:23:38am on the 10th of August, stayed on this site for a total of 40 page views. Elapsed time: 120 mins 37 secs, according to Sitemeter.

Was it a slow day at work, buddy? (But seriously, thanks. Obviously you found plenty here of interest.)

Congratulation to my Jack Russell terrier, Jack, who yesterday destroyed a supposedly dog-proof lizard toy in about five minutes. I knew the fact that it had a "squeaky" in its head meant that he'd be predisposed to attempt to remove it.

But he played happily with the poor thing (nicknamed "Tiger" for a brief moment in time, of course; click the link for more info) for several hours till my housemate arrived home about 7.30pm. He showed off his new toy with great excitement and pride, then snuck off to devour the "squeaky". Oh well, easy come, easy go.


I'm ready for my frontal lobotomy, Mr DeMille..."

And congratulations to me:
Sunday's magic number: 94.9 - Just as well, with all the yummy food I turned down this week.

Beijing, books and bungee-jumping

This term, I'm working with at least seven very enthusiastic groups of Stage 2 students on the New South Wales Department of Education & Training's Beijing Olympic Games & Book Week 2008 rap.

Firstly, as with the other raps which ran this year, I’m promoting the rap blog URL in the school newsletter so that students can show off their group’s rap responses with their families each week.

In case the URL doesn’t make it home, I’m also explicitly modelling a search strategy (ie. how to use Google to find the rap pages) each time the students come for their blogging session. I show them what happens when we type in raps and book raps as search terms (almost 1.5 million hits!) and how the abundance of riches can be reduced by using inverted commas. (ie. “raps and book raps” gives only 5000 possible sites - and, in any case, the NSW DET Raps webpage appears as choice #1).

Also I demonstrate the pathway to get to the blog itself. For the last two raps, many students tried out visiting the rap blog from home, and we received great parental feedback.

Secondly, I brought in a collection of stuffed animal toy mascots (plus others that were already decorating the library). The Bruce Whatley drawing of Tammy the Tortoise (in the Children's Book Council of Australia shortlisted book, The Shaggy Gully Times) is uncannily like a toy tortoise I had at home, especially with the addition of a battery-operated pocket fan strapped to her back.

Now each group is selecting (and often naming) one of the animal “reporters”, who’ll represent them in the upcoming newspaper article rap point. Each one has his or her own “Press card” to get them into Olympic venues. The animal characters (a flying fox, the aforementioned tortoise, a Puffin Books puffin, a Chinese New Year dragon, a large green frog, Selby the taking dog, and my trusty big, black, furry, bungee spider - it's a long story) might prove useful for some f(p)unny photojournalism in the playground. We'll be able to upload the pictures to the Gallery of the rap blog - and they should provide inspiration for some typically Jackie French-esque animal puns.

Disaster averted!

A huge thank you to The Other Andrew and Sephyroth, who just nursemaided me through a blogger's ultimate nightmare:

I ended up with a weird glitch in my Blogger template last night. I tried to fix it ("cleverly" taking a copy of the HTML from another window I happened to have open - but it was only of one recent post) and, of course, everything looked perfectly fine when I previewed it. Then I've realised I'd managed to cause a logic loop of some kind.

Following some advice, I managed to do more of the same (ie. with more archived posts showing up, but the page itself was still "static".) Every link in my template kept me (and any readers out there) looping back to that same small sample of blog entries.

Time to seek out some HTML experts! (Surely, I kept telling myself, two years of earlier entries couldn't have been wiped out by one small coding error. I mean, I never pressed "Delete". The old posts must still be stored somewhere, even though I've seemingly severed all the old links?)

While waiting (im)patiently for an answer to my pleas (Sephy's on US time), I started grabbing Google caches of various "important pages", retrieving the HTML of my two annual indexes (so at least I had the titles of two years of entries). I started to imagine that, over time, I could rebuild the whole site from Google's cached pages. But, did I even need to? If it was just a minor HTML correction needed in the template I'd rather do it that way...

Then, at about 4.45am this morning, Sephy came to my rescue. Thanks everyone at Aussie Bloggers for all your good vibes, and especially thanks to Sephy, kathiemt, Snoskred and The Other Andrew. I could visualise what needed to be done, but that little voice in my head kept telling me I'd created a mess that wasn't fixable.

Essentially, all that was needed was to restore the Blogger template back to the one I was using, as it had all the specialised tags that Blogger uses to make posts appear (which the HTML I pasted in, in my panic last night, didn't). Then I just had to find all special code I'd so bravely added over the years (the sidebar, Sitemeter, etc) from the code in the static page I still had, save that to my computer, and then put it back in where it needed to be in the refreshed, but now-generic, template.

Easy! (When you're thinking straight, and have wonderful Internet friends to support you.) Yes, I did get a few hours of sleep overnight, but not enough.

Oh well, it's breakfast time...

The Lazy Bloggers' Post Generator

The wacky team over at Aussie Bloggers suggested this great post generator as a celebration of the bbs' six month anniversary:

Crikey! I just climbed out from under my rock and realised I have not updated this since you last visited... You would not believe how tidy my house now is (Ha!). Apologies to my regular readers! Even the little blue ones!

I am distracted with discovering time doesn't stand still, personal projects, just generally being the life of the party to my colleagues, my day is passing in a blur from crawling out of bed at 6.30 to midnight. I am not growing up. I wish you could be here to share it.

I will try to remember I promised you I will make more of an effort to blog more often until the nice men in the white coats come back. Sincerest apologies. This is for my ever faithful, devoted public.