Category: SitRep

Things I’ve been doing:

• editing some video for work (I took it as a chance to work on my color correction…)
• building some prototype gear for a new potential project (details to come, soon!)
• re-furbishing an old analog camera (reworking the light seals, as they were leaking…)
• starting the design phase of building a roof rack for my car
• designing a pattern for a new coat (anything resembling a finished project is a long way away here)
• re-engaging with twitter (as an educator)
• looking into a Cinema-DNG -> FCPX workflow (for future work projects, apparently)

After 8 years of exciting and challenging work with Burlington Public Schools, I have moved on. Starting in early August, I’ll begin working for the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. My new position title is “Educational Technology Specialist,” and I’ll be helping the excellent team there towards improving their online and blended course offerings. I’m very excited to begin a new challenge in a new environment. I’m a little sad to leave Burlington- they’ve treated me well there, and I can’t think of a better place to have grown and learned as an educator. It’s a great team, and if you’re a k-12 teacher looking for a job in Massachusetts, you’d be wise to look there. That said, it was time for me to step out into the unknown.  

It’s been a while.

Here’s what’s captured my interest recently:

• Shooting lots of Time Lapse video
• Researching Sketchnoting (lots more to come here)
• Automatic watches
• Small EVF & Mounting ideas
• ENG lenses mounted to modern DSLR bodies
• Sourcing Dot-Grid paper (limited options here- maybe print my own?)
• Data Mining Social Media using statistical analysis
• More automation via IFTTT
• Styluses for iPads
• Activity tracker research (again and some more)

 

Here’s where I’m at (and what’s going on):

• Finally think I have some of the DNS settings surrounding this site working properly
• Experimenting with a Sony NEX3 (mostly for video purposes)
• Figuring out I really, really like pancake lenses
• New England 1:1 Summit logistics
• Drawing more comics (a new series here!)
• Reworking my work gear kit (more on this later)
• Modified my Cuppow mason jar lid (it was squeaking when I drank, so I radius’d the vent hole)
• Working on a setup for digital course material management (likely GDrive based)
• Researching Audio podcasting- hosting and distribution mostly
• Writing a post about OER (Open Educational Resources)
• Always, always, always filming more

I’ve been tinkering again.

I bought nothingfuture.com for the next five years or so, and I’ve directed traffic there to this page. Someday I’ll likely split it off as a separate entity, but in the meantime I didn’t want the URL to be bought be somebody else. I picked up one or two other domains while I was at it, but that’s for some other projects.

I’m going to be doing some messing with DNS settings soon for here, since I’ve not been thrilled with the way the internal links on this site have been looking- though, I need to mention, that’s my fault. I’m a very big fan of my hosting/DNS service.

I just helped getting EducatorU.org moved from a custom WordPress.org installation and hosting to a SquareSpace site. So. Much. Better. Especially for what we’re doing with it. It’s slightly more costly to host, but it’s still a very good deal for the service they provide. The site still needs a bunch of graphics work, but that’s all in the works anyway.

 

So in addition to my slow-to-launch newsletter service, I’m working on a few other things:

• Some new video work. (a couple angles on this for now, but new none-the-less)
• Listening to a growing number of podcasts
• Getting started on working out a community-driven, offline compatible digital storytelling platform
• Custom editing some movies for a teacher
• Reading more novels again- I’m on a Warren Ellis kick
• Looking into some custom electronics for some in car data handling
• Getting back on twitter a bit (for example, I was on #edchat last night (gasp!))