Joys of Programming

3:49 AM

OK, it’s very early in the morning. I have so much to do, so many projects going on, and I hit the road this morning for a week of travel. This morning, I will be keynoting a week-long staff development institute that is put on by some very dedicated educators and the Wake Education Partnership. They’ve hired me to talk about contemporary literacy, but I will be plugging in some info about blogging and wikis. It’s all about the new information environment.

I have enjoyed my many weeks of very little travel. Probably too many weeks. One must make a living. But during that time I’ve written one book, revised another, and am currently finishing up a chapter for an ICT book that will be published in Europe. I’ve also done a great deal of programming. Writing is work. Programming is play.

When I was 11, I loved to play with Legos. I actually think that they were invented around that time. The joy of Legos is that you have a limited variety of shapes that you can assemble in an unlimited number of ways to create objects of personal value. Programming is the same. You have a limited number of commands and functions. However, you can assemble them in a limitless array of constructions that have value not only to me, but to others. It is the same pleasure as Legos.

I am working on several contract programming projects that I am very excited about, but have also been working on some personal projects, such as The Education Podcast Network (EPN). This is a directory of podcasts programs that may be useful to educators. They range from programs about education and the future of education, to podcasts on specific content areas.

Yesterday morning, I got up early with a new idea. The National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) will be held the end of this week. Although there were a few sessions last year about weblogs, blogging has hit is stride during the past 11 months, and I am sure that people will be blogging about the conference as it approaches, during its proceedings, and afterward.

Yesterday, I put together a web page that accesses Technorati’s index of podcasts and generates an RSS feed of those entries that include the terms NECC and 2005. It then lists the most recent 20 or so postings, the titles hyperlinked to the original weblog. I’m calling it NECC Web Dog, though I’m sure that name’s already been taken. There is also a modest Word Map that highlights the most often used terms in the blogs, and a link to Flickr, and all pictures that mention NECC in the description or as a tag (only three three right now, with some images of New England Crafty Chicks, and New England Conference Center).

It occurred to me that this type of tool could be easily adapted for other topics and events. What do you think?

Oh Yeah! If you blog about NECC, be sure to include NECC and 2005 somewhere in your entry. 😉