:Title:    Welcome Members
:Author:   John Powers
:Date:     Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:24:23 PST
:URL:      http://www.ned.com/group/ugandabooks/news/0/

Hi. I thought we could begin work here by introducing ourselves.

My name is John Powers, you can call me John.  I'm 52 and live in western Pennsylvania, which is in the Mid-Atlantic region of the USA. Part of the Ohio Valley, what that means is there is a river called the Ohio River which is an important geographic feature in the whole region.  I live near a city called Pittsburgh.  Sometimes Pittsburgh is called Three Rivers because right in the center of the city two rivers, The Allegheny River and the Monongahela River converge to Make the Ohio River.  The Ohio River is one of the biggest rivers in the USA, the biggest river is the Mississippi River and the Ohio joins the Mississippi River just South of Cairo Illinois.  My house is high along rolling hills above the Ohio River.

I studied to be an elementary school teacher, although I didn't teach for very long I have an abiding interest in education.  One of my strengths is being interested in many things, but that leads to one of my greatest weaknesses too.  It's good to know about many things, but it is also necessary for understanding to go deeply into subjects.  It takes great discipline to really learn about a subject and intense focus.  A lack of focus is one of my weaknesses.

I'm very interested in this project because book publishing is an idea I've thought about for a long time.  I have a crazy idea for really small books which I call `Cracker Jack Books`_.  That link is to a post on my blog which I wrote in October 2005.  I've thought about the idea since then but not done the hard work of organizing and solving the challenges to make the idea a reality.

I do like blogs.  Blogs are a very easy way for ordinary people to make Web pages and to host them on the Internet.  I strongly suspect that blogs will play a important role in the Book Project for Ugandan Students.  

Another easy way to make Web pages besides blogs is wikis.  Wikis are a kind of software that allow many people to edit Web pages, so they are especially good for group collaboration.  One place to learn a bit more about wikis is to use the workspaces here in this group.  I started putting a few things up on workspaces here.  These workspaces will be a very good place to develop lists of useful information.

Won't you take a minute to write a little something about you?  We can use this thread to get to know each other better.  That way we can begin to develop trust and understanding which will help us to collaborate well together.

.. _`Cracker Jack Books`: http://bazungubucks.blogspot.com/2005/10/cracker-jack-books-cracker-jack-books.html