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Mahi Papaho Conference | National Association Media Educators (NZ) 2012 Keynote

Social media killed mass Media (how social changed everything & nothing).

When we (the conference organisers) heard DK’s presentation on social media at a CORE Breakfast last year, we knew we wanted him to come and talk at the conference, and we were really excited about the eye-popping possibilities of social media in a classroom that he would introduce. We thought; we smiled. Thanks, DK!
Diane Henjyoji, Conference Organiser

The title of the above keynote I delivered for the National Association of Media Educators (NZ) and TRCC, Mahi Papaho Conference in Wellington, NZ, 6th July 2012.

It was a great opportunity to revisit some of the topics I studied during my degree days and it was delivered as part of my role as Social Media Manager for CORE Education.

Special thanks to the organisers for both filming and allowing me to share. As stated in the talk, would love to be involved with the curriculum development specific to this subject—anyone out there listening / watching from NZQA? Please get in touch.

YouTube version
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Hearing Aids (Understanding) | Can You Hear Me Now?

eartestresults

From a speaker who can’t hear.

Above are my results from a recent hearing assessment (an audiogram—please note the grey areas in the four graphs as they indicate the ‘normal’ range!

The ‘bad’ left ear (one which has a history of operations) is only functioning at 25% and at 40db (bottom left graph), the volume most people speak at.

The ‘good’ right ear is also under-performing (bottom right graph)—just 50% at speaking volume—therefore, I’m basically picking up maybe half of what people are saying at best…

The specialist discussing my results last year stated I’ve probably become very good at figuring out what people are saying rather than totally understanding their words (this is not a compliment).

There are two options:

  • hearing aids—for an instant fix to raise my hearing to within normal range;
  • (potential) surgery—first on my ‘bad’ ear to raise the level of hearing before doing anything with the ‘good’ ear (as the latter has a retracted ear drum which could require surgery at some point before it causes further problems)

All of the above left me gutted at the end of last year and after recently gaining a second opinion it’s time to face reality and make some decisions.


You have to understand that most of my childhood is littered with memories and issues relating to my ear problems. The constant poor hearing, ongoing visits to speech therapists from about age six (as my deficient hearing meant I couldn’t hear sounds properly to form them—how ironic that part of my living now is made by public speaking: irony or awesome…?). Then the teenage years, living with constant ear infections and three big surgeries which ate up months of my life with long hospital stays and even longer recovery times.


There are three parts to the decision of accepting and exploring hearing aids as part of my future:

  1. Fun—to embrace this with a smile and surround it in joy. There’s simply nothing to get upset about. It is what it is and who knows what I’ll learn and discover about myself during the opportunity I’ve been given to go on this journey;
  2. Sign—it’s always been on my to do list but now it’s more relevant to learn sign language to supplement my hearing impairment;
  3. Hack—to explore the hearing aid hacker scene (inspired by the news of the tuning being done already to existing devices:

Any thoughts, ideas, assistance, advice, help, links etc to assist in this will be humbly received.

Fun fact: ‘here’, ‘hear’, ‘ear’ and ‘year’ sound the same when spoken due to my Welsh accent.
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How To Retain Links Whilst Retweeting | Hacking Twitter

This is for folks who use the browser based Twitter.

Ever get frustrated about why Twitter removes the copied links in tweets you’re trying to retweet?

Watch the video above for two fixes / ways / hacks.

Question for anyone at Twitter HQ: why do you force us to do this or what’s the reasoning behind removing the links from copied tweets?

YouTube version
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Cesar’s Bark Canoe | 57mins 55secs & No Narration

Caesar Newashish, a 67-year-old Attikamek of the Manawan Reserve north of Montreal, uses only birchbark, cedar splints, spruce roots and gum. Building a canoe solely from the materials that the forest provides may become a lost art, even among the Native peoples whose traditional craft it is. The film is without commentary but text frames appear on the screen in Cree, French and English.

Via Wood Gives Me Wood
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YouTube Loves Bebo | The Little Things

why bebo

What’s wrong with the above picture?

Click the ‘share’ button under any YouTube video and you’ll get these options.

It’s not until you click ‘more’ that the opportunity to post to much more popular social sites like Twitter, tumblr, Blogger etc. appear.

So why does Bebo get the nod before these other sites?

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50 / 22 / 37 | Irrational Art

Failing to deliver on the majority.

But kicking ass on the minority:

Fifty years, twenty two projects and we’ve failed to get permission for thirty seven projects.

A lesson there maybe…

Source
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Book Binding | Spell Binding

Proving the process over product principle.

For without the back story and insight into the whole 10-year exercise, the outcome would lose it’s importance.

Here’s where to buy the $35 version of the wonderful piece of art (as the deluxe copies shown in the video is from an edition of 26 is $4600, but there is also the regular run of 100 books (doesn’t have fingertabs) in $3200 binding, $2600, and $1800).

Wonderous.

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