Tama Talks Blogs

Firefox 3 … Go Get It … Today!

2008-06-18T00:25:00Z

Unless you’ve been hiding under a digital rock, you’d know that the best browser in the world has released an even better incarnation: Firefox 3 is here. I could write about all of its improvements, but you can get a fuller version here, suffice it to say it runs faster, takes a lot less memory (20 tabs open suddenly takes about 300mg less RAM for me!) and has some spiffy new security features. And let’s not forget, it’s an open source creation, made by the people, for the people! To celebrate, Mozilla...(read more)

Should academia boycott "locked-down" academic journals?

2008-02-07T07:26:15Z

Open-access to scholarly research has been very topical the past few years. The internet as a means of communication and distribution seems to have led down to paths, increasingly divergent: either academic journals are going open-access, allowing anyone to read the contents; or, they're becoming part of large corporate conglomerates which charge university libraries (and very few others since they can't afford it) very large fees for access to all the journals in their catalogue. Graduate student...(read more)

Tips for academic job applications

2007-11-29T00:07:12Z

Alex Halavais has posted a very useful set of Tips for academic job applications which, if you're even thinking about heading in that direction, you should read. All the points are worth thinking about, but I thought I'd highlight two. Firstly: Teach . Even for Research I universities, the committee usually wants some indication that you are not a total disaster in the classroom. If you are a graduate student, do whatever you can to get your own class. At universities where this is impossible—or...(read more)

From YouTube to UniTube?

2007-11-14T07:59:50Z

It would appear that the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has the dubious honours of being the first Australian university to have their own YouTube channel . In the past couple of months, there have been a number of reports of US universities setting up on YouTube. For example, this article from News.com on UC Berkeley's channel: YouTube is now an important teaching tool at UC Berkeley. The school announced on Wednesday that it has begun posting entire course lectures on the Web's No.1 video-sharing...(read more)

A Vision of Students Today

2007-10-13T05:30:00Z

Michael Wesch and his 200 students in ANTH 200: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, Spring 2007 collaborated in exploring what exactly a student does these days. Their results make a fascinating video and a timely reminder of the way (some) student experiences are changing: Some of the noteworthy results from 133 of the students survey included : “My average class size is 115.” “18% of my teachers know my name.” I complete 49% of the readings assigned to me. Only 26%...(read more)

Free Burma!

2007-10-03T16:01:00Z

Support a Free Burma. Visit www.free-burma.org ....(read more)

Reflections on the Australian Blogging Conference and Blogging in Education

2007-10-01T04:25:00Z

As readers of my main blog will know , I spent Friday at the Australian Blogging Conference at QUT's Creative Industries Precinct in Brisbane. It was a fabulous, stimulating and intellectually rich conference and a great end to Tama's-month-o-conferencing . I was the facilitator for the 'Blogging and Education' session so thought, in the spirit of the conference, I'd better get my notes up here: Blogs and Education The session ran for two hours, with a good balance between K-12 educators and those...(read more)

Creating an Online Presence During Candidature

2007-09-23T05:34:35Z

The talk I have during the PSA's Research week on 'Creating an Online Presence During Candidature' is now online, complete with slides and audio , thanks to Lectopia. At 36:45 in to the presentation, I talk explicitly about MyResearchSpace and what it offers UWA's research students. If you're not sure if you're getting the most out of MyRS, why don't you have a listen?...(read more)

What would YOU want to know about creating an online presence during candidature?

2007-09-07T03:36:39Z

So, if you were attending a talk called 'Creating an online presence during candidature', what exactly would you want to know? Rather than this being some vague question, it's a very real one, as I've agreed to talk on this topic at next week's Research Careers Week for research students. I've got some ideas - how to make connections with researchers using blogs; how to use your own blog as a promotional and networking tool for you and your work; the importance of trying to publish in open-access...(read more)

On the Importance of Proof-Reading ... everything!

2007-08-28T03:00:12Z

Typos can really ruin almost anything if you let them. As they say, a picture paints a thousand words ......(read more)

Ultimate Simpsons Visual Humour ...

2007-08-06T14:57:00Z

If you don't get why this is funny immediately, then you need to watch more of The Simpsons. (Brought to you by Tama's wacky brain and The Customer Keyboard Generator. )...(read more)

Eight Things About Me (A Meme)

2007-07-11T03:09:56Z

Chuck tagged me a few days ago with the Eight Things meme; although I'm generally fairly anti-meme, I've been enjoying a bit of back and forth with Chuck in his blog and on del.icio.us, so figured I could add one more procrastination on a writing day. Apparently, I have to start with rules ... Rules: 1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts. 2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves. 3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things...(read more)

Out-Geek Me!

2007-07-11T01:14:14Z

Yesterday, Karen called me a geek. She's right; but I suspect a fair few postgrad bloggers are in the geekerly way, too, but: can you prove it? Here's evidence of my uber-geekery... If you've got the same tool , can you out-geek me? :)...(read more)

John Howard and Kevin Rudd Are on Facebook. Are you?

2007-07-05T06:07:42Z

Warning: Segue into politics and digital communication... What is Facebook? Should you care? Does the fact that John Howard and Kevin Rudd (or their team) have Facebook pages mean anything about Australian politics in a digital era? If any of these questions have perked your interest, click here . (At the very least you might enjoy seeing which of John Howard's three profiles are fake!) PS If anyone would prefer to take this post as a provocation to think about whether social networking (like Facebook,...(read more)

Would you use an ePrint/pre-print online archive at UWA?

2007-07-02T08:36:34Z

Given that Robyn's been sharing her heightened enthusiasm for various eResearch tools and David's been talking about some of the eResearch (or, at least, digital communication about eResearch) options already available , I thought I'd throw in an idea I've been thinking about for a while, which is an ePrint archive. In the simplest terms, a UWA ePrint Archive would house digital copies of the work of UWA academics and research students; while a straight-forward idea, in practice this raises all sorts...(read more)