ITC Cyber International

It's a good feeling to have the ITC Cyber Group straightened out and with the foundations for successful operation established. We have a group where we can store documents and where we can chat and share ideas. It will also be useful for submitting writing for evaluation - one way to develop communication skills. We can then also use the internet to practice spoken word assignments and to have meetings and chat in another way. Website is now up at http://www.itccyberinternational.org. Basic so far but will grow. This is a group for ITC members who cannot attend meetings. There is also an ezine to which non-members can subscribe. I will upload issues to the website in the next few days and set up subscription from there. At the moment, you can just send an email to me.

tag:

communication

Autumn joys

Isn't this weather just wonderful? For you in the Northern hemisphere there is all the promise of spring, but here ... I have energy from the first cool days after a long hot summer. I have joy in the sunshine flooding in our north windows. I have spiritual renewal from the beautiful blue skies of autumn, and I have a reminder of my mother who always rejoiced in autumn. It's good to be alive!

Grow your organisation

Grow your organisation with posts about organisation management, leadership, communication, successful meetings and publicity at the Grow your organisation blog.

Tags:
organisations

Are you a librarian, or interested in libraries?

Visit the library web pages for ideas to share, library marketing and library news.

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library
organisations

Is intolerance too trendy for us to Care for kids?

A news headline today announces Childish behaviour a road hazard: NRMA.

Ooh goodie, more on road rage!!

But no, it continues “Parent drivers are being driven to distraction by the silly backseat antics of their kids, according to new research.”

Oh is that all? Are you a parent? Were you a child once? Had we not noticed this phenomenon?

Ok maybe we needed to be reminded of the dangers. Or maybe we need to be reminded to be tolerant. Is that the problem today? We’ve forgotten tolerance? Tolerance is not trendy. This is the me generation still is it? And my anger will be vented? Therefore the massive increase, not to mention dangers involved, in road rage. And therefore the need to remind us to be tolerant of our children – to remind us not to be distracted by their antics in the car, and maybe to take some time to be prepared so we don’t have the antics in the first place. Hope it works.

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tolerance
driving
kids

Latrinalia - learning from the scrawls in the bathroom

I have to say I am fascinated by what people scrawl on toilet wells. It is a tiny picture of lives and values and philosophies often wholly different to mine, or maybe expressing my thoughts with a wit I will never possess. I’m not surprised that study of toilet graffiti is old and taken very seriously. But there’s humour there are well. Fun, then to find his article and its links to further sites on the internet.

Latrinalia - Learning From the Scrawls in the Bathroom

Bathroom Graffiti Taken to Another Level

— - It's the one private moment one has when out in public.

The visit to the latrine, the bathroom, the commode is a time for eureka moments, private thoughts, emptying of contents, and fixing of the unruly hair or smudged mascara as well as a time for many people to scrawl their deep thoughts on bathroom walls.

"It's a time when you are able to vent and be open," said Alex Kotch, a Brown University senior who put together a sound installation called "No one will see us."

Read on …

Tags:
communication
graffiti
latrinalia

Online education promises much

If online education can deliver education to people cheaply and easily, then we have a chance to redress the balance in our world.

(And on a personal note, I am fascinated by the global communities we form when we share learning online. The social and cultural implications in the long-term are immense.)

“Seven of the world's largest distance education universities—where students and faculty alike all use some form of computer-assisted learning—are located in developing countries. For these communities, educational resources available via the Internet can offer cutting-edge applications of cyberspace. Yet, roadblocks—from inadequate national communications infrastructures to teachers reluctant to adapt to e-learning—exist for the full success of online education for higher education. Meanwhile, the use of online delivery in corporate training is predicted to overtake higher education usage in developing countries, becoming an estimated $150 billion industry by 2025. This Special Report looks at lessons learned, innovations that work, and the future of ICT in education for developing countries.”

Read the report

Tags:
education
elearning
communication

What defines a generation of young women

Imagining Ourselves connects women in their twenties and thirties around the globe, inspiring them to create positive change in their lives, their communities, and the world. Join us for this historic global conversation, including an online exhibit, a series of global events, and a new book.Each month the site nominates a topic and women around the world contribute their thoughts.  They make for fascinating, inspiring reading.  

Visit Imagining ourselves
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women
inspiration

Too busy being unprodutive to learn how to be productive

"One of the paradoxes of modern life is we're too busy to learn to do things that would make us less busy and more productive."

Read the whole blog post

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productivity

But what about the antioxidants ...?

Just when I was revelling in the little snippets coming my way that said chocolate was good for hearts - especially the dark variety, (of chocolate that is ...) and that there were antioxidants there as well, I come across this little gem ...

"Chocolate may deepen depression

Chocoholics can happily eat chocolate for pleasure but for those who are stressed and clinically depressed, the high is short-lived and chocolate may even deepen the downer, a review shows."

You can read more …

What a wet blanket to throw over my hopes for the benefits of chocolate.

But then I hearken back to late teens when I was melodramatically "depressed" over some cad, and decided that other people used alcohol to "drown their sorrows" and that was what I could do too. Went out and bought a bottle of whisky. Didn't work, did it? Made the miseries worse.

Further experimentation with alcohol made me come to the conclusion that whatever crutch you were using was just that - a support to whatever you were feeling at the time - happy, and the alcohol made you happier, sad and you drowned in it. So ... maybe the same applies to chocolate.

Ah well - back to the attempts (mostly successful!) at moderation.

Tags:
chocolate

The Selfish gene

"They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines."The words are from The Selfish Gene, by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. And the evening was a celebration of the thirty year anniversary of the publication of his classic book.

Listen to the audio of the event

Is this a scary sign of the times or just another example of "Only in America"?

“When Homeland Security director Tom Ridge recently released anti-terror tips that included stocking up on duct tape and plastic to seal off a room against gas or biological attacks, the idea of creating a "safe room" in the home wasn't just for America's elite anymore. ..” Read more

catlovers with too much time on their hands?

Cory Treffiletti writing in Online Spin:
“I was surfing around a few sites I was made aware of exactly how much free time everyone else seems to have and the extent to which people will go to fill those lonely hours”

And this is one of his discoveries.

StuffOnMyCat.com. “As the title implies, and the tagline confirms, "stuff + cats = awesome."

And just love the comment …
“This site provides hours of fun as you scroll through page after page of interesting photography, which of course leads me to thinking that it's strange how many people can find new and "exciting" ways to embarrass their cats.”

But there’s more …

“At this point, as if I wasn't already questioning the sanity of some of my fellow netizens, along comes CatsInSinks.com. Yes, the site is exactly what it says it is. The site provides page after page of cats... in sinks. I showed the site to a few other people and they confirmed that cats actually do like sinks, which I find strange since cats don't like water.”

How much do you love cats?

tag: cats
web
humour