Fade to Play

Today I was interviewed by CBC News – The National for a segment they are doing on Facebook. It was taped and will air in the future.  It was my first time being interviewed for TV so I’m pretty excited to see the segment. In the interview, I cited stats from themeaningofweb.com regarding how 10.6 million Canadians use Facebook while talking about the popularity of Facebook.

Here is a quick video I made prior to the interview:

Relevance: Do you think about what you are saying before you post to a public Facebook group?  Do you have concerns about what people might say on a Facebook group you’ve created or are the admin for? Do you monitor the wall conversations?

On January 13th, I was part of a panel hosted by the Office of Learning Technology as part of the Teaching and Learning with Technology Speaker Series at UBC.

Facebook’s popularity is uncontested but questions remain as to its role and purpose in an educational setting. How are students and educators using Facebook? What are the benefits and drawbacks of this social networking tool? Come join our diverse panel for a discussion that promises to provide multiple perspectives, deeper understanding and further questions.

The other two panelist were:
Sheryl Adam, a Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian, Koerner Library
Cyprien Lomas, Director of the Learning Centre in Land and Food Systems

The panel was moderated by Cindy Underhill, Office of Learning Technology

I enjoyed being a part of the panel. It was a great opportunity to learn from the staff and professors in attendance about their opinion regarding how Facebook can be used to network with each other and how they were using it educational purposes. There were comments made that the focus of these discussions shouldn’t be limited to Facebook but should involve how social media can be beneficial for education.

In addition, as there were not alot of students in attendance, there were questions about how best to reach students so that they can be adequately informed about Faceboook privacy issues? For example, for some exchange or foreign students coming to UBC, (e.g. China), this is their first exposure to Facebook.

I would love to see a panel about social media and education in which we discuss the advantages of tools like twitter for learning environments. Another beneficial panel would be about applications like Evernote and how they can enhance time management and productivity for students.

There is a podcast available.

Thanks to Catherine Paul, Office of Learning Technology for organising this panel.

Relevance: Knowledge about the social media, facebook, and online productivity tools is beneficial in understanding not only why a certain application may have value for educational settings, but to clarify why another may be better.

Early this morning at 1:04am PST I received in my email @reply messages that I had been sent through the day. I didn’t change any settings on twitter so I’m unclear whether this is a bug or a new feature.

Anyone else have this happen to them?

Relevance: Trying to sort out why this happened

update: I figured it out. Apparently I signed up for a 3rd party service and forgot I had done that.

Below are some of my favourite photos that I took in 2008 along with a commentary describing how it came to be.

50 mm (1.8), f/3.5, 1/160, ISO 100

On February 5th, I watched the Super Tuesday results and realised that Barack Obama was still in the race to be the democratic nominee. On February 6th, I found out that there might be a rally on February 8th in Seattle. I decided that I would make an effort to attend the rally. Around 2pm on February 7th, my friend Stephanie was able to confirm the rally was a go and we decided to head down that afternoon on the Greyhound. We spent the night at her friend’s house, waking up early the next morning to attend the rally.

While we waited in line, these girls were selling Obama cookies for $2. Unfortunately I only had Canadian money, which was not accepted by them, even though it was worth more than the US dollar at the time. February 8th was by far my favourite day in 2008, as I sat memorised as Barack Obama spoke and energised the crowd. The auditorium was full (18 000) with 3 500 listening outside in an overflow area. I still feel “fired up, and ready to go”.

50mm lens (1.8), f/5.6, 1/6, ISO 800)

I was getting some work done at Blenz cafe in Yaletown while having conversations with Ryo from Japan about why he was here in Vancouver and how he was enjoying his experiences in Canada. I decided to use the opportunity to take a photograph of him. He was surprised with the photo as he was focused on work, not me. He liked it, thanked me, and emailed it home to his friends.

50 mm lens (1.8), f/4.5, 1/40, ISO 800

I attended Congress 2008 this year on a media pass as it was taking place here at UBC. I hadn’t heard about Richard Florida before, but after reading about him at the conference, I knew I had to see his talk.

After his presentation, when he was taking questions, I took this picture. I thought it represented well his confidence in speaking without notes and the cool way he told stories about urban life. I bought his book Who’s my City? and got it autographed. A very good day.

50 mm lens (1.4 USM), f/2.5, 1/1600, ISO 100

For a year, I took a daily self-portrait for a popular flickr group called 365 days. It was a beautiful day so following an afternoon workout, I went outside and tried a number of different poses and stretches before settling on this picture. Of the 365 self-portraits, it is my favourite one, because I probably won’t be this fit again.

50 mm lens (1.4 USM), f/2.5, 1/160, ISO 800

At the VIDFEST PopVox awards after Jenn Lowther and Nadia Nascimento won an award for memelabs, I went outside with Nadia and took a picture of her in front of the train car. It was a beautiful setting and she looked great which helped with my confidence. This picture has inspired me to learn to take more fashion photos in the future.

Canon SD 400

The day before I headed down to SXSW, I was walking by a candy store in Vancouver and in the window display was a Junior Mints lunch box. I thought it would be the perfect gift for someone I was meeting there for the first time – ijustine.

I gave it to Justine with treats inside at Gary Vaynerchuk’s impromptu twitter party at the Cork & Co. It was placed in a plastic bag inside a larger cloth bag so she didn’t have time to look inside the bag as she was running to dinner .

I took this picture outside the DIGG party that night.  She told me she loved the gift and she showed me how she was using it as a purse – rad! She had already eaten the treats at dinner leaving lots of room for night-out essentials.

Relevance: Photography is fun for me.

Arisa Cox interviews Kim Cattrall for E! – BANFF World Television Festival

Tomorrow Kim Cattrall of Sex and The City fame will be on campus (see The Straight and the UBC Department of Theatre and Film). She will be interviewed by Jerry Wasserman, the acting head of the Department of Theatre and Film.

Frederic Wood Theatre (map)
12 to 1 pm
Wednesday January 7, 2009
Free Admission, Everyone welcome
Call 604-822-2678 to reserve your FREE tickets (maximum 2 tickets per patron).

Award-winning Sex and the City actress, producer and author KIM CATTRALL returns home to BC to talk to Jerry Wasserman about her professional work in television, theatre and film, her life challenges, women in the work force, post-feminism, self-image, and her 35+ years of success in one of the toughest, most competitive businesses out there.

Relevance: A cool Canadian and hard-work person that would be amazing to hear live. Way to go UBC!

In December I rented a couple lens (Canon 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM & Canon 16-35mm f2.8 L II USM) as well as a tripod from Beau Photo and took photographs at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and West Vancouver.

Special thanks to Lisa Bettany, who tweeted about Beau Photo as a place where she rents equipment. I have found the people there to be very friendly and accommodating. It is also convenient to reach from where I live.

I thought that the first day of the new month, I would share my favourite photos that I had taken the previous month with my Canon Rebel XTi, note the relevant statistics, and outline how the photograph came to be.

50mm lens (1.4 USM), f/16.0, 1/60, ISO 200

On December 14th, after the first snowfall, I walked across the Granville Bridge and took this picture of the boats on English Bay. You can also see the mountains in the distance. This is the first photograph I have taken from the bridge. As I stood watching the water, I felt it was a good moment for a photograph, to remember my experiences walking across the bridge for the first time.



10-22mm lens, 13mm, f/20, 1/10, ISO 100

The Irving K Barber Learning Centre is simply a beautiful place to study. It is a favourite place among many students and it is packed during exams. One of rooms I like to work in is the Ridington Room which has a beautiful chandelier designed by John Nutter.

On December 16th, for this picture, I wanted to provide a different perspective than the usual head-on photograph from the upper level. I had the chandelier lighted and pointed my camera to the ceiling while using my tripod low to the ground. My objective with taking evening photographs was to use the window as a mirror of the chandelier, which resulted in this final image.



16-35mm lens, 22mm, f/25, 1/30, ISO 100

On December 21st, I went outside to see how much snow had been accumulating through the night. I wanted to take a photograph outside and thought that the bike covered in snow would make a interesting picture. Initially I tried a number of pictures with different settings using my tripod, but when I looked at them on my laptop, I wasn’t happy with the shadows.

So I added my Canon 580 EXII flash for a shot and felt happy with the final result. The light peaking through the bike was an added bonus as I didn’t notice it until I was post-editing my pictures.



16-35mm lens, 25mm, f/10, 1/250, ISO 200

On Christmas Day, I woke up and observed that the sky was fairly blue and partly sunny. I realised that this was a pause between snowfalls, so I grabbed my tripod and lenses and spend a couple hours taking photos on campus. I then thought I should take some pictures in Vancouver so I headed downtown to take photographs of the mountains.

On the way as I was passing Kitsilano Beach Park, I got off the bus for some spontaneous pictures. The park was busier than I expected as many families were taking a walk around enjoying the Christmas day weather.



16-35mm lens, 10mm, f/25, 1/20, ISO 800

Once downtown on Christmas Day, I decided to travel to West Vancouver using the seabus from the Vancouver Harbourfront. On the trip back to Vancouver, as it started to get darker, I took photos just before we arrived back at the harbour. This one taken at 4:37pm shows a beautiful view of the city. The sky was darker than visible in the picture. The higher ISO (800) provided a lighter sky which complemented the exquisite reflection on the water.

Relevance: Sharing my love of photography