Late Night Thoughts: Grad School Visits, Mobile iTunesU, Photoshop, New Music
I've had a lot of time on my hands these past few days. Funny what a 'vacation' can bring you. Of course, this vacation is about two very important things: Grad School visits and Baseball. I set up visits with the University of Illinois and the University of Michigan about a month ago to kick start my search, I couldn't be happier with the responses I have gotten. I took my UI visit yesterday, things were very personal and one on one oriented. I got a personal tour from a very friendly staff member, sat down with a few professors, and learned about the UCUI GSLIS program. University of Michigan SI kicks off in about 9 hours promising about 4-5 hours of activities and meetings. Needless to say, I'm excited. In between the visits I have some baseball games (at new stadiums!) scheduled. I went to my first White Sox game, I'm returning to Comerica Park in Detroit, and will make my first stop at Milwaukee's Miller Park over the coming days! This trip marks 22 major league stadiums down!
As I said I have been granted some free time and this evening I ventured over to my good friend Cole Camplese's blog. A few days ago he posted some thoughts on Apple's new App Store and made a plea for a mobile version of iTunesU. I have shared the same sentiments regarding the need for mobile iTunesU for a few months now. I truly believe that it completes the circuit for distribution of educational content and material. Cole's post also got me thinking about a more creative idea I had for creating an icon for the mobile iTunesU space.
So, re-energized, I fired up Photoshop and went to work creating my version of mobile iTunesU. Here is a working draft of my PSU specific icon. I couldn't find a good custom shape of a school, but my idea was to have a Parthenon-esk center icon for a generic version of the icon.
What else? Ah yes, NEW MUSIC. Today I was watching a Target commercial and heard a very simple, yes intoxicating saxophone line in the background. Immediately, I fired up google and had the song downloading on my iPhone. The song is called Calabria by Enur and I can't stop listening to it. What makes me sick is that the line is so easy; its just a simple E-Flat minor progression, something you could write in seconds after a little music theory training. Go download one of the versions from iTunes, there are several and some are iTunesPlus. Personally, I chose the 2007 Club Mix.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Late Night Thoughts: Grad School Visits, Mobile iTunesU, Photoshop, New Music.
TrackBack URL for this entry: https://blogs.psu.edu/mt4/mt-tb.cgi/12838
Jason ... sounds like you are having a great trip! I'm terribly proud of your efforts to find the right place for you. Not many people take this kind of time to pick the place they want to continue their education at.
Funny about the mobile iTunes U stuff ... I was banging through some ideas with some our developers in ETS and they are going to look into how the SDK can work with the iTunes U API to make something real happen. It could be very cool! An app that could alert you when you have new content from one of your classes and let you search across the public iTunes U space would be killer.
Enjoy the travels and see you soon!