Author: James

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My 25th High School Reunion

The class of 1983

I waited a while to write this post because I wanted to let the events of the last few days sink in fully. You you see last Saturday I attended my 25th high school reunion. Now I am not a fearful or anxious person by nature, but I have to admit that the thought of returning to my old high school unnerved me. High school for me was like it was for most people, difficult. Typically it is a time in a young person’s life when they are struggling to determine the type of man or woman that they want to ultimately become. And yes in typical fashion, it wasn’t a fun time for me. As a result I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to go back and revisit those days. But since I am a firm believer in facing your inner fears and demons, and Des called me a wuss if I didn’t go, I went and hoped for the best. Continue reading “My 25th High School Reunion”

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3rd Annual New Media Conference: Blender Guru confirmed

Nick PorcaroFinally some more good news after a week of anxiety. It is official, Nick Porcaro, one of the founders of the NYC Blender User Group, is confirmed to present at our 3rd Annual New Media conference. I had been working on getting Nick to present for awhile. This week he emailed me and graciously agreed to give an overview of the Blender application at our conference. Nick’s talk will be an introduction to computer graphics using Blender. He will address topics such as, mesh modeling, texturing, rendering, animation, and real time interaction.

Continue reading “3rd Annual New Media Conference: Blender Guru confirmed”

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Times are a’ changing!

 

change-roadsign

I just found out that LaGuardia is going to be reorganizing the Computer Information Systems (CIS) department by merging the existing CIS programs with other departments throughout the college. The purpose of the reorganization is to improve overall departmental efficiency. The plan hasn’t been fully explained yet, but it was made clear that the students should not be impacted by shift since the majors will not be phased out, merely repositioned to other departments. We were also notified that the existing faculty will continue working for the college, we will just be teaching our courses in different departments.

All I can do for now is to keep teaching and keep a positive attitude. Change is always difficult. I know that better than some. But just like I tell my students, as long as you keep your skills up and work hard, you should never have to worry.

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Demonoid is back….. but hold up!!

DemonoidAfter nearly six month offline, Demonoid is back. The best of the bit torrent sites has finally returned. Many people have been praying for this to happen since none of the other torrent sites are as user friendly, or contain as extensive a library of items as Demonoid. I know many people will want to run out and buy one of those new Mybook 1 TB hard drives from Amazon just so they can load up on pirated software. To those people I would say, slow down.

I reported on the initial demise of Demonoid in one of my earlier posts. But the six month hiatus of Demonoid leaves me a bit suspicious about the return of the site. Why has the site returned and why now? Information on the site states that Demonoid is under “new” administration and that the former admin, Diemos, won’t be back and has left to attend to personal issues. Diemos has turned over all control to the new administrators. To that I say, be careful. We all know that the RIAA and MPAA have been pressing a full out attack on any and all sites that are supportive of P2P file sharing. So the sudden return of Demonoid leaves me with the same feeling that one might get hanging around a mobster who just got pinched by the feds and comes back acting like nothing happened. It could really just be business as usual, but how do you really know for sure. Who is to say what the mobster might of talked about, or more importantly, who might be watching him now. I don’t know about you, but I would advise waiting for a few months before logging on to Demonoid again.

But then again I have been known to be overly suspicious. I guess you can just chalk it up to that New York upbringing.

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I need a stress reliever so…..

You gotta love torrents. I downloaded the latest episode of Doctor Who from the ‘net. The 4th season of the new Doctor Who series is currently airing on the BBC but it won’t be available in the US for awhile. However, I seriously needed a break after the LaGuardia ePortfolio conference, the kids, and my 25th high school reunion (I’ll talk about that later). Plus I just heard that my department is rumored to be undergoing a massive reorganization shortly. That type of change can always raise your stress levels. I’ll find out on Monday. Until then, I am gonna zone out for an hour or so and watch the good Doctor.

*Note to self….. I should really think about shooting a Doctor Who fan film after I finish “Dark Vengeance“*

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ePortfolio Conference: Day Two

The second day of the ePortfolio conference was pretty much the same, just shorter. I had only one breakout session to cover, and it was a repeat of one of the sessions that I gave yesterday on the topic of ePortfolio system selection. This was a good thing because presentation partner, Susan Lambert, and I had a chance to work out the timing and presentation flow during our first run. As a result the second time through was a little easier. I was pleased that the turnout for the session, an early Saturday morning session, was so strong. We had a full room and the participants were very interactive. This is always a good sign because it means that they are at least interested in what you have to say. Nothing is worse than a quiet and unresponsive room. Luckily this wasn’t the case. The only negative was that I couldn’t stop thinking about my 25th high school reunion that was scheduled to take place later in the day.

The  presentations slides from my breakout sessions at the Making Connections Conference on ePortfolios (4/10/2008) can be found below:

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ePortfolio Conference: Day One

ePortfolio Systems Presentation

The first day of the LaGuardia ePortfolio conference went off without a hitch. I was amazed at the turnout and how smoothly things progressed. I have been to many conferences but I’d have to say that this was one of the best organized events I have seen. Bret Eynon and his team from the Center for Teaching and Learning put together an impressive lineup of sessions throughout the day. We had conference speakers and attendees from as far away as England and Nova Scotia. The breakout sessions covered a wide range of topics central to the subject of electronic portfolios.
Continue reading “ePortfolio Conference: Day One”

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ePortfolio Conference Planning

ePortfolio Conference Planning

I am starting to stress out just a little bit. You see over the next couple of days I have a series of presentations that I am giving at a major national conference LaGuardia is hosting. The conference, “Making Connections: ePortfolios, Integrative Learning and Assessment“, is on the topic of ePortfolios and how they can be utilized to assess student and institutional growth. Continue reading “ePortfolio Conference Planning”

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Microsoft IT Tech Trends Speech

The footage above is the actual video of the speech that I gave to a group of High School juniors and seniors during the Microsoft sponsored IT Tech Trends seminar earlier this month. The purpose of the seminar was to get high school students interested in IT careers. While it wasn’t my finest speech (I rambled a little bit), overall I think I did okay. The students seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say.