robert fitzgerald, phd

In the US at least, you can now send the location of businesses that you find on Google Maps to your Garmin GPS. It works through Firefox with my Garmin nüvi 760: first of all find the business you want in Google Maps (it doesn't work in Australia, but I've made it work for US businesses), then click the Send link towards the top-right of the Maps window, between Print and Link to this page (with the icon of the envelope to the left).

In the 'window' that appears, click the GPS link on the left. If the GPS link isn't there, the location can't be transferred to your GPS.
Choose the location you want to transfer from the Include: popup, then choose Garmin from the Make: popup. Click the Send button. This should take you to the Garmin website. The first time you try it, you will need to install the Garmin Communicator plug-in. This works with Firefox for me, but not Safari. Download and install the plug-in, then follow the instructions. Be careful the installer doesn't take you back to Safari after the installation, make sure it's Firefox.

How about other locations, apart from businesses, Google?

The March 2008 edition the Carrick Institute's, Carrick Communique, carries an article on our Digital Learning Communities project. The article covers some of the key findings that are emerging from our project. You can download the PDF document (4MB) here.

Stephen Barrass and I have just had our paper, Social Software: Piloting MyToons As A Digital Learning Community For Teaching New Media, accepted for Edmedia 2008 to be held in Vienna, Austria later this year. The abstract follows:

This paper describes a pilot project using the MyToons.com animation social networking site to teach a New Media unit at the University of Canberra in 2007. MyToons, modeled on MySpace and other popular social software sites, has additional characteristics that focus on the construction of social identity and peer networking. The location of MyToons in the public space beyond the classroom embeds the students in an authentic community of practice, with exemplars, technical support, and opportunities to network and showcase their creativity and productions. In this study we reflect on the process of integrating MyToons into the unit syllabus, and the results from an evaluation survey of the students. This analysis confirms the importance of usability and sociability for the creation of an online community of practice for peer learning.

I have just upgraded to Drupal 6.1 though I am still waiting for a decent WYSIWYG editor for this version. I must admit that while I think Drupal is great for database-driven websites, I am stuggling with it a bit as a personal publishing platform and still regualarly consider hosting Wordpress myself or making the leap to fully hosted solution from James Farmer and the team at Edublogs.

In our annual report to the Carrick Institute we referred to, "Mordac, The Preventer of Information Services" a character from Scott Adams' Dilbert cartoon series. Mordac's approach to the management of IT services has struck a chord with both IT professionals and users around the world (and the DLC team). The cartoon below is one example of what has become known as the Dilbertisation of IT .

COPYRIGHT: UNITED FEATURES SYNDICATE INC. Permission to reproduce granted by Auspac Media

Two years after first announcing that Garmin would support the Macintosh within the year, more software (still in beta) was announced at San Francisco MacWorld this week.

Codednamed Bobcat, the software "allows you to transfer waypoints, tracks, and routes between your Mac and Garmin device and manage your data using your Garmin maps". Garmin maps still aren't available in Macintosh format (you have to convert your Garmin PC maps with MapConverter for Windows, then use MapManager on the Macintosh to make them accessible to Bobcat).

If I have a few spare moments I'll fire it all up and see how it goes. Will only work with Garmin USB devices.

Chet from Garmin is teasing us about "Bobcat": code name for a Garmin software product for the Macintosh to be released at San Francisco MacWorld next week.

Two years ago Garmin promised to move its software to Mac OS X "by the end of 2006", but it has been rather slow. There have been some recent releases from Garmin to support using Garmin GPS devices on the Macintosh, though: POI Loader for Mac, MapInstall for Mac, and MapConverter for Windows. (Thanks, MacOS X Hints!)