"Why are we getting ripped off for wi-fi?"

The Sydney Morning Herald travel writer, Clive Dorman, has some interesting points to make on why hotels charge for internet use. He suggests that the trouble is, that:

'...while wi-fi is a simple and cheap installation, most hotels regard it as a cash-cow in the same way as most airlines now price-gouge for so-called “ancillary services” that cost next to nothing to provide.

Most hotels wouldn’t dream of turning expensive air-conditioning systems or refrigerators into an ancillary revenue stream, but it’s still open slather for wi-fi.'

Read more here.

"The rain in Spain ...

... falls mainly on the ground". And plenty of it. Due to the wet weather and rising flood-waters both at the Tweed and Wilson rivers, the catch-up class today scheduled for 1.30 will not take place face-to-face, but instead will be run as an Elluminate session using Blackboard Collaborate. All students (internal and external) are invited to attend. Go to MySCU, click on Blackboard Collaborate, and join the session from there. I have already put a short 7 minute "test run" session under "recorded sessions": feel free to explore that one beforehand. The sound doesn't start till around the 1:37 mark as I was setting up the audio.

The first photo above shows the sudden rise in river height at the Wilson river crossing. Where the river is usually about 1.5 metres deep, it has risen to nearly 4 metres deep overnight. Once it washes over the bridge (about 5 metres above the river), I'm marooned physically. But we still have ICT :-D

The second photo is a snapshot of the radar loop showing cloud and rain formation over the Northern Rivers at 10 am this morning. Both sites are provided by the Bureau of Meterology. If you're in the Northern Rivers you can find your river heights here; and the Brisbane radar can be found here. Right now Southport is being subjected to a deluge!!

Putting things in perspective...

Worried about your studies? Worried about how the trimester will pan out? It's OK. Relax. Give yourself a good sense of perspective: have a look at the "interactive scale of the universe tool".



Now ... where *did* I put my car keys?

Welcome cohort 2012

Hello students from Southern Cross University (Australia), Naresuan University Bangkok City Campus (Thailand) and the Management Development Institute of Singapore. Welcome and be part of our transnational team for the unit ISY00244. My name is Dr Mieke Witsel and I'm the unit coordinator for this unit. Today is Friday 13 January 2012 ... and I'm working from home (see photo of my farmhouse, taken in 1885), using technology to communicate with all of you, all over the world ... I still think it's amazing!!

There are four 'cohorts' this trimester: there is a small group studying internally at Tweed Gold Coast campus (with myself as facilitator); a group of external distance-education students (with myself as facilitator); a group at Naresuan University (with Dr Thotsapon Sortrakul as facilitator) and a group at MDIS in Singapore (with Mr Jonathan Lim as facilitator).

Most of the unit resources can be found in two places: all publicly available material can be accessed here on this blog (follow the labels on the right hand side) and non-publicly accessible material can be found under our university blackboard site, known as MySCU. Your SCU student login will gain you access to our ISY00244 MySCU blackboard site. Having said that, MySCU will be down this weekend for upgrades and will be live again on Monday 16 January.

Your first task is to familiarise yourself with the unit resources and the unit information guide. The unit information guide is available on the MySCU site under ISY00244 > Unit Documents.