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September 4, 2023

FIBA World Cup Rankings: How does Canada stack up in the quarterfinals field?

Team Canada had two aims entering the summer of 2023: Punch a ticket to the Olympics, and win gold at the World Cup. There may never be a better window to accomplish that second goal and become champions of the world. Here’s where Canada ranks in the final field of eight.

Half the goal is complete.

Amid a well-deserved celebration that Canada had qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics on Sunday, that was the sentiment of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. This group, he said, had two aims when they got together for camp at the end of July: Punch a ticket to the Olympics, and win gold at the World Cup.

It took a pair of dramatic comebacks against Spain, but the first part is accomplished. For the first time since 2000, the Canadian men are Olympics-bound.

There may never be a better window for Canada to accomplish that second goal and become champions of the world.

As Olympic-focused as North American sport can be, the World Cup is a bigger, deeper, more difficult tournament, one that’s weighted more heavily in world rankings, and one that truly helps Canada measure itself against the rest of the basketball world. Canada made the quarterfinals a few times in the past, but not since 1994, and they have never made the semifinals, let alone the podium, at this event.

History was made Sunday. History is right there once again.

Let’s see how Canada stacks up.

RANKING THE QUARTERFINALS TEAMS


 

His defensive skills reached new heights as he started to overwhelm an erratic Djere; Djokovic broke in the first game of the third and fourth sets, gaining the upper hand and applying key scoreboard pressure before eventually completing a 4-6, 4-6, 6-1, 6-1, 6-3 comeback victory.

Djokovic’s resilience in the best-of-five format continues to separate him from the field.

He’s now had comebacks from down two sets eight times in his career, and four times over the last three seasons.

His next match would prove to be much more straightforward as he defeated Croatian Borna Gojo 6-2, 7-5, 6-4.

Djokovic is into a 57th career major quarterfinal.

Much like Carlos Alcaraz produced at Wimbledon earlier this summer, it will take a truly monumental effort to defeat him in New York.

Speaking of Carlitos…

The defending champion has been firmly in control and dictating play through his first week of play.

Alcaraz has been the hottest tick

September 4, 2023

Supporting cast comes through as Blue Jays weather storm to win series vs. Rockies

As rain fell amidst another Justin Lawrence meltdown, the Blue Jays put the finishing touches on a 7-5 win thanks in large part to the supporting cast. Horwitz hit his first MLB home run while adding two singles; Mason McCoy scored the go-ahead run on a Whit Merrifield RBI single; Clement drove in an insurance run with his third hit of the game.

DENVER – When Kevin Gausman jogged to the mound for his Sunday afternoon start, his focus was on limiting damage by the Colorado Rockies, not the few dozen friends and family in attendance at Coors Field or the teammates playing behind him.

But if he’d looked around while he warmed up for a critical game in his home state of Colorado, this is the infield he would have seen:

C: Tyler Heineman
1B: Spencer Horwitz 
2B: Davis Schneider
SS: Ernie Clement
3B: Cavan Biggio

An excellent story by Emily Giambalvo in the Washington Post, written while Leake was starring at the University of Maryland in 2019, offered a glimpse into his history.

Leake had irregular visits with his biological father Thomas Kelly Jr. before he was killed in a shooting when Javon was in fifth grade in New York. Javon and his mom, Natasha, didn’t find out until two years later.

The man Javon calls dad, Joel Simpson, was in prison for four years from 2016-20 after being convicted of assault and criminal possession of a weapon. Simpson met Natasha when Javon was one and formed a close relationship with him before the adults split up when Javon was in middle school.

Before high school, Natasha and Javon moved to North Carolina with the mother thinking it would be a better place for her son to grow up.

The adversity didn’t st

August 6, 2023

Automattic Gets $300M Investment, Now What?

Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com and many other services like JetPack, WooCommerce and more has received $300 million USD in funding from Salesforce. What does this mean WordPress going forward? The post Automattic Gets $300M Investment, Now What? appeared first on HighEdWebTech. Last year, I wrote about my experience of getting to 500,000 public story views on Snapchat. While fully acknowledging that I am not Snap’s target demographic, it’s been interesting to watch the rise, dip and potential rise again of this company. This is a critical time for the social media platform, as new networks like TikTok are gaining a lot of steam globally, especially in higher ed. Today, I write to let you know that earlier this summer, I crossed the million public story views milestone. On my Snapchat. I know, it’s nutty. It’s strange to think people around the world have watched 40 days worth of my content. My content? It’s not terribly interesting. It’s a lot of food shots taken while I’m travelling and vinyl I’ve been listening to lately. Observations on a million Snapchat views First, Snapchat isn’t dead. While it’s certainly not aimed at me and people my age, it’s still used heavily by its younger users. My oldest is nearly 18 years old, and most of the time his phone is open to Snapchat or Instagram. It’s a big communication tool for one to one and group chats. Second, the analytics available to power users haven’t changed all the much. I wrote about Snap’s analytics tools when they first launched last year and the tool hasn’t evolved. The stats are still top level, and while they’re interesting (location, interest), they aren’t much more than superficial. There isn’t much in the way of actionable intel here to work with or make decisions with. Snap tells me I’m popular in Greater London as well as my public Snaps are 7x more popular than average amongst people who are fans of cricket. I dig cricket, but I’ve never posted a Snap or story about cricket. There’s a lot of room for improvement here. Third, consistency is key when it comes to views. When I was posting regularly, often daily, I would get more views, often to the tune of 7-10k views per story.  I haven’t posted much this year, and that number hovers between one and two thousand views per post. If you want to grow your public views, post a lot and regularly. Finally, Snap will still not give you a total number of views. Maybe if you’re a big brand that has a high ad spent, you can see those types of analytic data, but I can’t. I’d love to know how many people follow me, instead Snap just tells me who recent followers are. That’s disappointing. I hope Snap rebounds and keeps adding new and interesting features. They certainly are doing great work around their lens and filters and just this week they announced a new version of their Spectacles wearable. The post What I’ve Learned from a Million Public Story Views on SnapChat appeared first on HighEdWebTech.
August 6, 2023

What I’ve Learned from a Million Public Story Views on SnapChat

Last year, I wrote about my experience of getting to 500,000 public story views on Snapchat. While fully acknowledging that I am not Snap’s target demographic, it’s been interesting to watch the rise, dip and potential rise again of this company. This is a critical time for the social media platform, as new networks like … What I’ve Learned from a Million Public Story Views on SnapChat Read More » The post What I’ve Learned from a Million Public Story Views on SnapChat appeared first on HighEdWebTech. Yeah, that’s a slightly clickbait-y title, but these are scary times. Schools are cutting programs, scaling way back and in some extreme instances, closing altogether. It’s hard to go a full week without seeing an article in the news about the impending death of higher education. Is higher ed dying? No, I don’t think so. Is it sick? Yes, I believe so. I recently read this news story about big companies like Google, Apple and Netflix no longer requiring college degrees for its employees. This quote jumped out at me: Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said that about half of Apple’s US employment last year included people who did not have four-year degrees. Cook reasoned that many colleges do not teach the skills business leaders need most in their workforce, such as coding. That’s worrying, but not surprising. It’s challenging to quickly pivot at enterprises as large as a university. Apple can decide tomorrow to stop making X and instead make Y. That’s a much harder thing to do for us. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as we go through the college search process with our oldest child. I’ve been focusing like never before on outcomes and cost, and what kind of experience my son will have. I wonder what the experience will be like 5 years after that for my younger son. Expect a large number of posts in the coming months about my experiences of this search process. I know how the sausage is made, so I’ve been both surprised and downright shocked at what some schools are doing to reach potential students. That’s a (series of) post(s) for another day. I watched this video last week, and while I disagree with some of what Patrick Bet-David is saying in it, some of makes a lot of sense, especially the parts about speed, memory and technology changing so fast that some programs are out of date before they even start. Have a watch and let me know what, if anything, jumps out at you and what parts you think are applicable. The post Is it time to panic about the future of higher ed? appeared first on HighEdWebTech.
August 6, 2023

Is it time to panic about the future of higher ed?

Schools are cutting programs, scaling way back and in some extreme instances, closing altogetomy”>ther. Is this tomy”>the end of higher ed?

The post Is it time to panic about tomy”>the future of higher ed? appeared first on HighEdWebTech.

August 6, 2023

The Future of Live Events in Higher Ed

This year has been much different than we all expected. Obviously. Sorry for the hyperbole, but it’s true, especially when it comes to hosting events in higher ed. We all saw our large planned events like admitted student open houses, commencement, alumni reunions, lectures and more postponed, done on Zoom, or cancelled. I have sat … The Future of Live Events in Higher Ed Read More » The post The Future of Live Events in Higher Ed appeared first on HighEdWebTech. This year has been much different than we all expected. Obviously. Sorry for the hyperbole, but it’s true, especially when it comes to hosting events in higher ed. We all saw our large planned events like admitted student open houses, commencement, alumni reunions, lectures and more postponed, done on Zoom, or cancelled. I have sat through many Zoom events this spring and summer as the parent of an incoming freshman college student. Some were great. Some were OK. Some were bad. There are just so many variables when it comes on online events, especially when it comes to having multiple people participating from multiple locations. There are so many variables when it comes to people’s webcams, lighting, microphones, echos, backgrounds and more. These variables means that our events don’t have a consistent look and feel. Perhaps we need to rethink how we’re doing live events in higher ed, and not just during a pandemic. Let’s be honest, this won’t change once this pandemic ends or a vaccine is available. People are going to be apprehensive of large gatherings for the foreseeable future. I watched a live event this past weekend that really opened my eyes to new ways to do live events, and it came from a Scottish rock band called Biffy Clyro. Before I go much further, I’m a big Biffy fan. I’ve seen them four times, I’ve got all their albums (many on vinyl.) Last week, they released their eighth full length album, A Celebration of Endings. Traditionally, a band would release an album and do promotion around the world, including live shows. Since just about every live, in-person event is cancelled, it’s forced artists to find alternate ways to connect with fans and promote their work. Biffy Clyro are no different. In addition to an acoustic series earlier this summer, the band promoted a live worldwide event where they would be playing their entire new album live. Prices started at $20 and went up from there. Costs were slightly higher if you ordered a CD or vinyl along with your purchase. I will admit I was skeptical at first about the event, despite being a super fan. I was apprehensive about the quality of the stream, given the cost, for an event that would be less than 90 minutes. Thank goodness I had a change of heart and bought a ticket. The show was absolutely awesome. The Live Show There was a 30 minute pre-show before the album playthrough started, consisting of the band playing some older tunes in soundcheck as well as a few acoustic numbers., During those acoustic songs, the band used one of those binaural head microphones so the sound was all around you. The band took full advantage, walking around the mic singing and playing. Finally, some behind the scenes footage from the studio was shown, and then it was showtime. The band kicked off the album playthrough in the famous Barrowlands ballroom in Glasgow, Scotland. They started on stage playing a few songs, but as the set went on, they spread out all over the event space, including the floor where the audience usually is. A string quartet joined them there, along with additional instruments. A third set filled the corner, but the highlight for me was when the band moved to large glass cube to play, not unlike their performance for BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend earlier this year. Yes, they were dressed in pajamas. Here’s the thing about this event. It wasn’t technically live, happening at the exact moment I was watching it. It was pre-taped, despite being promoted as being live. It’s nitpicking, but I guess technically the band was indeed playing live. Even though the show was 1 long live event, it was recorded a few days before for the reasons I mentioned before. For as high a profile event as this, you couldn’t afford to have anything go wrong and keep your paying customers from getting what they paid for. Recording it in advance also let the band stream it at different prime time slots around the world. The UK and Europe got the stream at 9pm their time, and we got it a hours later here in the U.S.A. Given the high level of production that went into this show, I don’t mind it was pre-recorded. The ticketing process was also interesting. About an hour before the show, customers were sent their ticket. The ticket consisted of a link to an unlisted YouTube live stream of the event. You may have noticed the fact it was YouTube in my screenshots. In a way, hosting the stream on YouTube is genius. Why not use the infrastructure of maybe the world’s largest technology company (Google) to deliver your product. After all, YouTube is setup to do live streaming, will stop people from downloading the stream (best they can) and turn the video off at a certain time. This greatly reduces the barrier of entry for colleges, universities and small businesses. That has to be easier than maintaining a video streaming infrastructure. Does that mean that I could have shared my link with everyone I know? Sure. That’s definitely something to think of you are going to use YouTube as your technology back-end. What does this mean for higher ed? I can see this becoming an interesting option for some campus events going forward.  Having the ability to pre-record, edit, caption and more before a promoted event would be a lifesaver for over-stretched marketing teams. This type of setup would be great for a “live” admission event, for example. You could pre-tape introductions from your president, admission leader, students, even do things like a campus or dorm room tour. There would be no live Zoom challenges or lighting or bad sound, sketchy backgrounds and more. You could set the video to premiere at a certain time and promote that as a big event. It’d be up to you if you want the chat to be there, but if you do, have a moderator there. If your school has award ceremonies, such as an alumni awards event or academic awards, a pre-taped “live” event might make sense. This model would work for free events but I can see a market for paid events. There’s an opportunity here for an alumni office to offer a 30 minute presentation by a beloved faculty member (though it would mean not take live questions.) Perhaps its a musical performance by students or faculty. A poetry reading would be a great experience. And what’s nice about this method is that you aren’t limited by location. Sure, you can tape a faculty member reading poetry in a lecture hall or auditorium, but why not have them read from the top of the bell tower? Your virtuoso guitar student? Have them play in the middle of the quad while they circle around you and your immersive microphone. There’s so much opportunity there to do something really special and break out of very boring Zoom calls and streams we’ve been doing for the last few months. I’ve blogged about tips to improve your videos in the past, it’s worth revisiting if you’re taking on more video in the year ahead. A great example of this type of event was Apple’s WWDC keynote this past June. They pre-recorded bits from around their amazing new campus and it really helped drive the story. Instead of watching slides on a screen behind someone on the stage, you were watching that person in Apple’s silicon development lab. It really helps sell the message. When it comes time to promote your “live” event, you can drive interest by using scarcity. Even though using video and a platform like YouTube means your video can be online forever, you can limit access, much like the Biffy show. Once the show was over, I couldn’t go back and re-watch it. It was live, and one show only. And I’m okay with that, it made the experience feel special and made me pay more attention and be more engaged. I wasn’t checking my phone, or had the video playing in another window. My son and I sat around my nice big monitor and good speakers and shared the experience together. I want to say I am still a fan of the live event. My family attended many such events this past spring and summer and they were very informative. They were a great way to connect with schools on our son’s list and narrow down where he would end up going. But this… this could be something really special for this next academic and going forward.       The post The Future of Live Events in Higher Ed appeared first on HighEdWebTech.
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