The Power of Women

Once again, here I am doing my homework for class. I COULD be outside (well, technically I am outside, on my balcony, but I am not playing, so it doesn't really count), enjoying the company of my colleagues at The Annual Garden Party. But no, I just finished my ning assignment by developing a social network (really, it's mostly informational, not so much social) called The Power of Women. The assignment was to research female technologists who have used technology to advance their respective areas of interest/inquiry/science.

I actually learned a lot by researching these brainy, inquisitive, amazing women and their inventions and discoveries. I first decided to research female scientists, and WOW! Was I ever impressed! I then narrowed my search down to marine biology, just for fun and giggles, and again, oh so impressed. I chose, however, not a marine biologist, but a woman, who when she was just twelve years old...wait a minute. You'll just have to go to my ning site and check it out for yourself! I'm not telling you HERE! Maybe I'll get extra points for number of people checking out the ning thing. Go ahead, click on The Power of Women and have a look. Leave a comment (remember, be nice and it's for school, so be clean about it), follow it, whatever. Thanks. I bet I can use those extra points. My transcript will thank you. I thank you. Mostly, my 4.0 gpa thanks you.

EDIT 024 , ning and the power of breakfast

One of our assignments is to join ning.com, and announce our URLs. So my URL is http://www.ning.com/leslieaawilliams . The only thing I know about ning (besides joining it in a very hurried fashion) is that Mr. Handyman (my little brother, John) went to fix something at ning (I think they are in Palo Alto). Later that night in recounting all the places he traveled to that day, he exclaimed "They have everything you could ever want for breakfast!". He went on to explain, in great detail, all the choices the young techies have when they manage to roll in to work, hair tousled, sleep still in their eyes, wrinkled shirts and all. Not one or two choices for cereal, seven or eight! Not one or two kinds of juice, every kind imaginable! And fruit. Lots of fruit. Fruit that he had never seen before.

He was rather sad he couldn't stay to enjoy a bowl or two of cereal, or maybe sneak in a doughnut or other fancy pastry, or even heat up a waffle or two, as a mid-morning snack. But duty called, and on he went to another Mr. Handyman job after finishing his tasks at ning. It definitely made an impression on him, my breakfast-loving brother.

So, that's really about all I know of ning. Oh, except little Johnny Handyman also told me that the people who work at ning think of themselves as the "Cadillac of social networking". A rung or two up from Facebook or MySpace, I guess. Even in social networking, there seems to be a pecking order. Humm.

EDIT 024 assignment - Tweeting on Twitter

My tutorial is how to sign up for Twitter and begin tweeting! (And, yes I know the images are difficult to read.....I'm working on that. This is a work in progress! At least you will be familiar with what the pages are supposed to look like!)

1. First, go directly to twitter


2. Sign up!

3. Complete your profile. Note: if you have difficulty uploading your profile photo, you are not alone! There are problems with this application, and the twitter people are working on it (found this out by going to "Help" and further searching the blog for "problems with photos")



4. Begin tweeting! You can tweet from your twitter account, or you can set up your cell phone to tweet (you will need access on your cell phone to the Internet to do this) as often as you like.

5. Follow other twitter friends by signing up as a follower.

6. Have a very exciting life (or at least make it sound like you are living an exciting life), or your tweeting may be boring (mine is....I don't live a particularly exciting life!)

7. Enjoy yourself!

Viewing videos on blogs for EDIT 024

Being the dutiful student that I am, I viewed a couple of videos on classmates' blogs. Specifically, I viewed Robin's video on reproductive technology within the Jewish community, and was fascinated to learn that it is the female that determines whether the baby is Jewish or not. In other words, when a woman is considering implantation of an egg, the egg should be from a female who is Jewish, because that determines whether the baby will be born Jewish or not. The baby can convert to the Jewish faith, but technically speaking, according to the video, the ideal situation is where both the donor and recipient are Jewish. Furthermore, getting these eggs from donors who are Jewish is sometimes difficult, because it narrows the possibilities down from all egg donors to just those who are Jewish.

The other video I watched was on Cat's blog and it was a very cute video of sea turtles! One of Cat's top wishes when she was in Hawaii was to swim with sea turtles and she not only got the chance, she videotaped it! Very cute!

There. Assignment done.

EDIT 024

Since I have been asked to submit a video on my blog for my class, although I have two other videos in previous posts, I am posting this one, which is a little about my new dean, Tammeil Gilkerson.(Mostly about her parents, but a little about her, too) I hope you enjoy watching it. She did mention that she wants NO wisecracks about her hair (in one of the photos; the "do" is quite curly and amazing in that photo; uh, oh, I guess that constitutes a comment. Oopsie!)

nComputing - the power of n

I was watching this tech program over the weekend on NBC and one of the topics covered was n Computing. The rest of the world probably knows and uses this all the time, but it was news to me! With this small device that costs very little, you can hook up many stations (without separate towers), add a monitor and a keyboard, and presto! Computing for many, for very little money! Using only one PC, and sharing the resources on that PC, allows many users to complete their computing work at a fraction of the cost. It's being used a lot in schools globally. It's different than cloud computing, which allows access via the Internet.

Grace in Small Things: 19/365

1. Using my fashionable and practical rain boots week after week! It's still raining!
2. Learning about nComputing
3. Less really is more
4. My friend brought me Starbucks at work (I'm trying to kick the Starbucks habit)
5. The daffodils are coming up all over!

Love the Delicious!

I was so excited today! As I was explaining and demonstrating assistive technology to my students in class, I forgot to include some websites for assistance and freebies. Viola! I logged onto my delicious bookmarking website, and lo and behold, there everything was, right at my fingertips! It was so great! I am definitely hooked! No more trying to remember this or that website. Nope! Not anymore. I am a fan! (The website I was going to search for was 101 Helpful Websites for Every Learner) Yeah!

The Joy of Learning

Welcome to my new blog for class! I enjoying reading some blogs, and I would like to be a creative blogger. Stay tuned!