When I first started this site it was meant to be a simple remote repository to aggregate interesting ideas about everything digital, which could be remotely connected to the work I was doing for my doctoral thesis.

In fact, I am one of those people who grew up with technology.  Unlike the previous generation in which many found it difficult to keep the pace with the changes or the following generation, which people like Prensky called the ‘digital natives’, for whom a life without facebook seems boring,  we had an ambivalent and complex relation with technology.

Some critics branded us the video-games generation, just to highlight the fact that the improvement of computing power and miniaturization brought the need for new consoles, but we are also a much more heterogeneous cohort.

One of the aspects which I will explore is the value of digital life between discussing issues between the useful and essential.

There is no doubt that technology has brought massive improvements in our lives, yet I will question whether technology has made us more vulnerable, more dependent, mentally lazy and, in some cases, even addicted. I will also question when digital becomes a necessity or ask if it is at all necessary.

• e-life

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This theme is what has been driving my professional life, the one in which I am hoping to push the boundaries of knowledge and transform theory into practice.

The core question is whether the ‘e’ in e-learning is supposed to represent: is it e- for electronic or for enhanced learning? Is the e- at all useful to represent the learning? My take is that the learning experiences often turn into self-directed struggles with technology and often lead to failure rather than an enhancement of learning. Yet, the internet is an incredibly powerful and varied source of learning, knowledge sharing and development of expertise which is completely free.

Somehow, those considered less ‘social’ in real life, take for example geeky computer programmers, create thriving communities of practice far more effective than formal instruction.

The experts in education know that working with peers is effective, yet in a traditional educational context this often doesn’t work, students like to be taught. Take them outside the context and people can learn from others much more effectively.

So is learning technology useful? What type of learning technology works and why? Does learning technology suit better certain types of people? These are all questions which I will explore under this theme.

Another aspect which I will take into account is the role of tools and technologies for pedagogical purposes and discuss how these can be used more effectively.

• e-learning
• education

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Working in the academia leads to more or less constantly read about stuff in your area of research. However, I always tended to read  broadly and get interested in obscure stuff or material at the fringes, in between disciplines.

In the last few years, however, it became more and more constrictive to travel, especially flying, because carrier reduced allowances and bags, making it more and more difficult to carry around more than one or two books.

Not too long ago I was gifted with a Sony reader and I was delighted about the fact that all e-books and files stored in my computer hard drive suddenly became portable in a little device, without depending on the short battery life of a laptop and without suffering the strain of long hours in front of a glowing screen.

As I like using devices for what they were not designed to to, I also looked quite rapidly in how to hack into the thing and explore the full potential of the reader. Quickly I came across Sygil and Calibre and after some studying I fell in love with Calibre, which allowed me to compile and make easily accessible a daily edition of some italian newspapers which I didn’t have the opportunity to read for years from the UK.

This section is entirely about e-reading, e-books and e-publishing and I hope you will find useful material, starting from my new “Daily Calibre recipe”.

So here is a quick access to some categories:

• the Daily Calibre recipe
• free e-books,
• e-publishing

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From wikipeida:

Open-source software (OSS) is computer software for which the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that meets the Open Source Definition or that is in the public domain.^{[citation needed]} This permits users to use, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified forms. It is very often developed in a public, collaborative manner. Open-source software is the most prominent example of open-source development and often compared to user-generated content.^[1] The term open-source software originated as part of a marketing campaign for free software.^[2] A report by Standish Group states that adoption of open-source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers.^[3][4]

Well, who doesn’t like free stuff? hardly anyone, especially when recession is glooming on all of us… however a little problem is that if people don’t contribute the system is unsustainable. The great thing of open source software is that there is a lot of code which is actually great, and people find very useful, which leads to more use and, because they can customise stuff, often the code is shared again as an improvement, feeding the cycle.

I personally love the internet because most answers to common problems are at your fingertips, and where there is a problem, you can bet that someone out there already looked for a solution. When talking about code, the web is an excellent resource and often learn and use open source code. However, because I’m only a code cruncher rather than a programmer (i.e. I’m much better in biting, chewing and reproduce code rather than writing from scratch), over time I relied on Open source software for a variety of reasons.

In recent times I tried to give back and contributed to a couple of projects: LimeSurvey, Calibre and WordPress as well as give snippets of javascript, asp, php, css, perl and python.

This section is specifically intended to provide a more organised overview of my contributions with downloadable stuff and guides. For the moment I start with three main sections based on their catiegories, but I don’t exclude that things will change over time!

• Calibre
• LimeSurvey
• WordPress & co
• Other stuff

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‘e-what? : strolling in the digital world’, title of the blog is quite revealing in identifying the purposes of the content: a leisurely exploration of all-digital. Sometimes articles published will be more technical, some will be a useful source for the ‘digital immigrants’, those who don’t really feel they can do stuff with technlogy, but are keen to learn.

This blog was originally a solo-effort emerging from the range of activities and involvements of Lorenzo Vigentini. However, later, Lorna H. joined forces to give a non-tecchie view of the digital world.

With a main background in psychology and a deep interest for technology and innovation, Lorenzo supported his doctoral studies exploiting the long experience in IT.
His current interest is divided between the fields of psychology, education and information technology and this blog is meant to provide both original content and syndacted content from valuable online resources offering an interesting viewpoint.

Lorna H. is a polyglot by nature (fluent in French, Spanish and Italian) hidden behind a day job in the legal profession and we can say that a computer is most definitely not her best friend.

If you have any query or would like to join in and write for e-what? feel free to get in touch!

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