Checked into a new hotel, and for a second I thought that this might have the perfect setup for me to plug in my laptop, phone, and iPad into the hotel television. The desk had ports for HDMI, VGA, RCA and audio. However, attempting to actually getting this to work was futile…
Finished! I have visited all that I can visit at Chicago’s Art Institute. Definitely a museum that needs many days to explore. I now have a decent foundational knowledge of what is on offer and how to navigate the labyrinthian galleries.
Paris Street; Rainy Day – Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894)
I realize that I am extremely lucky to have this museum on my doorstep (literally a walk of only five minutes from work). A good place to decompress.
Still Life with Dead Game, Fruits and Vegetables in a Market – Frans Snyders (1579-1657)
I will be heading back to look in more detail. The less-visited galleries are fun to walk through, lacking the hustle and bustle mainstay galleries. You also get to see artworks that just look a little strange… Such as “Still Life with Dead Game, Fruits and Vegetables in a Market.” The market trader looks like a precursor to Santa Claus.
Ryerson and Burnham Libraries
Still working my way through Chicago’s Art Institute. The current status of visited galleries is:
Portrait of Jeanne Wenz – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901)
Only three more areas to explore (Chicago Architecture, European Art before 1900, European Decorative Arts), and then I am done. But not really. I know that the winter months will find me here at lunch, and I will also have to take a deeper look at the various apps that the museum has created.
Head of Pavlova – Malvina Hoffman (1887-1966)
Sculpture Court
The exploration of Chicago’s Art Institute continues. Yesterday, I visited the Sculpture Court and American Art before 1900. That pretty much finished the first level.
The Cafe – Fernand Lungren (1859 – 1932)
This seems (along with textiles) to be one of the quieter parts of the museum. There is plenty of space to take in the art works, and is a good place to decompress when tired of the heaving mob in some of the more highly-trafficked galleries.
The Herring Net – Winslow Homer (1836 – 1910)
Today, Arms and Armor and Renaissance Jewelry were my galleries of choice on the second level.
What May Come
Continuing my exploration of The Art Institute. Almost finished with the First Level, and wandered about:
Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room
One more gallery to see on the First Level, and for this I will, see how well the museum’s guidebook apps work.
Mother and Child
As mentioned earlier, my mid-year resolution was to properly explore Chicago’s Art Institute. I am slowly making progress. Phase one was the Modern Wing, which I fully explored last week:
The Eventuality of Destiny
From my perspective, the third-floor gallery “European Modern Art 1900 – 1950” was the one that I enjoyed the most. There is a profusion of art there, but just enough space and light to prevent everything overlapping and distracting. This will probably be the gallery that I return to most.
Clown Torture
Whilst there, I did see a school group (kids about seven or eight years in age) mistake Bruce Nauman’s “Clown Torture” for something they would enjoy. They soon left, with a chastened school guide. Plenty of nightmare material…
Waka onna (young woman) No Mask
This week, I started to work my way through the “non-modern” museum. Visited the lower levels, and started on some of the galleries on the first level:
The Mu
I will be heading back to the U.K. for two weeks later this year, and I was getting some of gear together that I intend to take with me. Amidst the various cables and adapters was The Mu. This is another genuinely useful gadget. The U.K. electrical plug is an impressive piece of technology, but has two notable features.
The Mu makes the U.K. electrical packable with some amazing folding action.
I have the original, but I am looking out for the new version that sports two USB ports, with enough output to properly charge a tablet.
At first glance, an ordinary piece of plastic
I will cheerfully admit to owning more than a few gadgets. Most are a clever idea, but poorly realized and of little longterm value. However, every-so-often you come across something that is genuinely useful….
A few twist and turns. Now we have an iPhone stand…
Last year, I supported the “Pocket Tripod” on KickStarter. This was to be a credit-card sized piece of plastic, that twisted and contorted into an iPhone stand. Typically, the travel iPhone stands are frustrating – small, lightweight, but ultimately useless.
Pull it apart for widescreen use.
This particular gadget (the Pocket Tripod) is actually well-machined, and does the job as it should. On those occasions when I need to prop up the iPhone on a desk (to use with a Bluetooth keyboard) or to play music, this does the job. Very easy to carry around, and a particularly ingenious design. I recommend it.
A week ago I spent three extremely rewarding days at the Distance Teaching and Learning conference in Madison (full disclosure, I am on the planning committee). It has taken a few days to put my notes and thoughts in order, and here they are.
Madison, 2012
Early morning saw me boarding the Megabus to Madison. The cost of the trip was shockingly low – just five dollars. I spend more travelling to and from work on the El each day.
I arrived in Madison in time to meet with Dawn Drake and finalize our presentation for one of the Communities of Practice sessions that afternoon (on Management and Administration). I enjoyed discussing the topic with the folks there.
I was slightly shocked to discover an inadvertent promotion on page 33 of the conference brochure (I am not Dean of the College of Commerce).
The trending topics of the conference from my perspective were mobile learning and MOOCs. Previous conferences had been abuzz with discussion on Second Life, Google Wave, and Social Media. The focus on mobile and MOOCs seemed to me to be more pragmatic. Mobile communication was ever present during the conference – the effective use of Twitter heightened my enjoyment of the sessions (and muted any dissatisfaction with particular presenters). The keynote from James Zull was not the strongest part of the conference. Zull is a far better researcher than large-venue presenter. His premise did make me think, and his presentation style gave me plenty of time to tweet and retweet with others in the room. This was particularly refreshing, with a vigorous discussion and commentary taking place along the back channels.
Norma Scagnoli’s and Seung won Hong’s presentation on “iPads is graduate professional education” was enjoyable. Norma admitted that the use of iPads at the University of Illinois in the Management program was flawed, with students and faculty not knowing initially whether they owned the iPads or had to return them. I hope they are able to repeat the experiment and train students and faculty on effective use, rather than discover what happens organically. I wanted to know whether students were able to use etextbooks on the iPad effectively in a classroom situation (I have observed that students are able to make notes and refer to material more rapidly in printed textbooks).
Ray Schroeder’s “eduMOOC: Open online learning without limits” presentation was packed, and worked as an iceberg presentation – there was much more material below the surface. I will have to return to his site and explore more:
https://sites.google.com/site/edumooc/
Ray Schoeders talk about MOOCs was probably the most productive session for me.
Scott Schopieray’s “One Week, One Course (OWOC): A rapid prototyping concept for courses” contained a little smoke and mirrors – the courses were not completed in a week, but the idea is intriguing. The design of the rapid prototyping model was clever, and effectively implemented. I am tempted to see if this is an idea that can be implemented at work.
The “iPad apps for utility and learning” was not a presentation that I should have attended. Unfortunately I was in the front row as the presentation started, and when I realized my mistake it was too late to leave….
I did not see much at the vendor presentations that was new and exciting, but I am taken with the idea of Camtasia Relay. This may be an effective way way to scale classroom recording and adhoc lecture capture. This is something I will look later.
Thursday evening ended with a delicious meal with some of my colleagues from DePaul at Harvest, a little restaurant with a great view of the capitol.
The Capitol in Madison, and a statue of Hans Cristian Heg
Friday morning began with a fun follow-up discussion of Administration and management. I then attended Dean Blackstock’s and James Mudie’s presentation on “Streaming high quality mobile video: A conversation and some code!” Dean and James developed a great solution to automatically serve up the right type of video to mobile users. Not a solution that I need at the moment, but fun and interesting.
I next attended Johanna Dvorak’s and Laura Pedrick’s presentation on “Developing a comprehensive campus-wide online student services initiative.” What they presented was a work in progress, but the policies applied to assemble the stakeholders and determine what needed to be done are ones I will gladly borrow.
The last concurrent session of the day was “Using mobile technology in faculty development and training.” This was a Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt session, with George Engel providing most of the information I was interested in. Their handout is on the web, and can be found here:
http://mobilefieldworkshop.wikispaces.com/file/view/Faculty+Training+Using+Mobile+Technology.pdf
What I didn’t see answered was how mobile devices constrain focus. Anecdotally, I have noticed that those that I correspond with on mobile devices frequently cannot process multiple concepts in the same email. This topic is deserving of a conference presentation (and research).
The conference ended with a keynote from Judy Brown. Already I am looking forward to next year.
Merchandise Mart Station
Monday was the final official day of exploring The Pedway. Now that I have a good grasp of where the underground/overground passages and pathways go, I will be sure to walk The Pedway as part of my regular travels through Chicago – and may discover additional features along the way. I believe there are some segments that are private, connecting buildings and businesses that are no longer open to the general public.
Stairs to Wells Street
I began this leg of the tour by stopping off on the Brown Line at the Merchandise Mart stop. Here the Pedway options are either a staircase to the Wells Street, or an enclosed walkway across the road to Apparel Mart.
The Loop 97.9
The Loop 97.9
I took the enclosed walkway. Walking through Merchandise Mart you pass a hub of fast food options to the north, but more interestingly there are radio stations along the passageway that runs east-west. The Loop 97.9 has its studio here, and you can peer in through the windows.
Bridge Across North Lower Orleans Street to Apparel Mart
A bridge spans North Lower Orleans Street to Apparel Mart, where weary travelers can check-in to Holiday Inn, and where The Chicago Sun-Times has its offices (after vacating the spot where the Trump Tower was built.
Bridge Across North Lower Orleans Street to Apparel Mart
Bridge Across North Lower Orleans Street to Apparel Mart
The bridge has some pleasant views of the river, but unless you live or work in the area there is little reason to venture far to this segment of The Pedway.
Chicago Sun-Times
Well, my little project is over. I am going to revisit my steps over the next couple of weeks and check off the segments based on Will Vaughn’s data:
| Segment ID | Name | Length (ft.) | Visted |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Renassance Hotel Concourse | 1956 | |
| 2 | Aon Center – Fairmont Hotel Walkway | 184 | |
| 3 | Aon Center – Lakeshore Athletic Club Concourse | 538 | |
| 4 | Aon Centre Lobbies | 433 | |
| 5 | Apparel Center Ground Level Walkway | 733 | |
| 6 | Apparel Center Upper Level Walkway | 271 | |
| 7 | Bc / Bs – Monroe Garage & Grant Park Concourse | 1182 | |
| 8 | Chase Tower Ground Level Concourse | 280 | |
| 9 | Chase Tower Lower Level Concourse | 935 | |
| 10 | Chicago Title & Trust Center Walkway | 270 | |
| 11 | City Hall – 120 North Lasalle Walkway | 283 | |
| 12 | City Hall & County – Cultural Center Concourse | 2836 | |
| 13 | City Hall & County – Thompson Center Walkway | 247 | |
| 14 | City Hall & County Building Hallways | 682 | |
| 15 | Daley Plaza – Brunswick Building Concourse | 813 | |
| 16 | Fairmont Hotel – Park Millennium Concourse | 833 | |
| 17 | Garland Court – R.R.Donnelley Walkway | 280 | |
| 18 | Grant Park South Parking Walkway | 921 | |
| 19 | Jackson CTA Subway Station Connector | 852 | |
| 20 | James R. Thompson Center Ground Level Concourse | 928 | |
| 21 | James R. Thompson Center Lower Level Concourse | 779 | |
| 22 | Macy’s – 25 E Washington Concourse | 630 | |
| 23 | Merchandise Mart Ground Level Concourse | 2079 | |
| 24 | Merchandise Mart Upper Level Concourse | 1119 | |
| 25 | Metra Millennium Park Station Concourse | 1660 | |
| 26 | Metra Van Buren Station Walkway | 748 | |
| 27 | Michigan Plaza – Illinois Center Concourse | 920 | |
| 28 | Michigan Plaza Walkway | 691 | |
| 29 | Millennium & N Grant Park Garage Walkway | 1814 | |
| 30 | N Leo Burnett – S Leo Burnett Walkway | 385 | |
| 31 | Ogilvie Ground Level Concourse | 845 | |
| 32 | Ogilvie Metra Station | 1723 | |
| 33 | Ogilvie Upper Level – 2 Riverside Concourse | 927 | |
| 34 | One Illinois Center – Columbus Plaza Concourse | 855 | |
| 35 | One Illinois Center – Two Illinois Center Walkway | 202 | |
| 36 | Prudential Plaza – Aon Centre Concourse | 665 | |
| 37 | Renaissance Hotel Walkway | 276 | |
| 38 | Smurfit Stone Walkway | 90 | |
| 39 | Thompson Center – Concourse At 203 Walkway | 203 | |
| 40 | Three Bank One Plaza – 33 N Dearborn Concourse | 879 | |
| 41 | Three Illinois Center – Swiss Hotel Concourse | 755 | |
| 42 | Two Illinois – Three Illinois Concourse | 990 | |
| 43 | Two Illinois Center – Hyatt Regency Walkway | 201 | |
| 44 | Two Prudential Plaza Concourses | 278 |
For those who want to explore, here are some resources that I picked up along the way: