A lot has happen since we last met.

Julian Assange struck again.  By now that’s old news I guess, but I love watching the New York Times go bananas.  In other news Interpol may or may not be issuing a warrant for Dick Cheney.  Of course Interpol is also on the look out for Mr. Assange.  It’s going to be real awkward if Cheney and Assange spend a little time in the clink together before they get hauled off to the world court or whoever Interpol works for.

But who cares? The CUNY IT Conference starts tomorrow!!!  Three exclamation points!  Seriously, go check it out.  Tomorrow’s events are over at John Jay College.  First up there’s free breakfast so…you know…total win right there.  My fellow Community Facilitator Sarah Morgano @Sarah_Morgano and CAT member/CUNY Commons all-stars Joseph Ugoretz @jugoretz, Barbara Walters @BWalters and Howard Wach @HWach are going to be presenting on ePortfolios in the morning.  Later on Adam Wandt @Awandt is going to be introducing the “Skunkworks” which sounds, well I don’t know but be there.  I was about to go down the list and keep calling out folks from Commons who are presenting and then I realized that would be a mistake because we’re everywhere on that list.  Basically this conference is like a meet-up for Commonsers.  If you can’t make it tomorrow no hard feelings, you get a chance to redeem yourself December 14th.  The conference’s second day will be at the Graduate Center and will be extra awesome because the CUNY Commons team will be there talking to everyone about what we’re up to.  Stop by and say hello.

Blogs!

Over at ‘Prestidigitation’, the aforementioned Joseph Ugoretz had a great post up showing why keeping student work up and online can have many unforeseen benefits.   There’s a good conversation happening in the comments there too about what privacy means when we talk about online work and the kind of control people are granted in presenting a public face.  I suppose part of the concern there is whether early research might reflect poorly on either the student or the institution if the work has some faults, but who doesn’t acknowledge that education is the process of learning through something?  Of course there are mistakes, higher education is one of the few times you actually pay to make them.

Rob Laurich @madlibrarian at ‘Madlibrarian’ dropped in this week with some mixed feelings about Google and news on the Murdoch/Jobs tablet newspaper.   I had read elsewhere that Murdoch was fascinated with the iPad and looking for a way to take advantage of it, but I’m a little deflated that the best they could do was cook up a tablet newspaper.   Rupert Murdoch announces new newspaper for this new technology…I don’t know what I expected.  Does he know you can watch TV on it also?  Maybe he could start a new channel that will show television shows on the iPad.

Valerie Futch’s @ValerieFutch blog Te(a)ch with Purpose is out to strike up some conversation here on the Commons about how we go about the process of research and writing.  It’s a wonderful post and I hope some of the folks from the Digital Humanities group pipe up over her first point – how exactly are we supposed to keep up with all of the digital information out there waiting for us?

Jeremy Rafal @Jrafal made an appearance after a long hiatus.  Occasional Introspections on the World is just what it says it is – but we’re always glad to see you!  From your blog let me commiserate – I often find myself just about to doze off and then compelled to get back up and write something.  I can see where a $60,000 dollar birthday party for a 4 year old would be just the kind of thing that would keep a person up at night.  Especially where we consider that Tony Picciano is probably right about what’s going to happen to public education this year after the Governor elect gets settled in.

That’s what I got this week folks.  Keep up the blogging and we’ll see you tomorrow!