Edu_RSS
Flickr Adds Geotagging
Thanks to new integration with Yahoo Maps, the popular photo-sharing site now lets users add location data to their photos. In Monkey Bites. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 10:45 p.m..
Gerald or Geraldine?
What would you do if you woke up and you were the opposite sex? OK, well, what if you were French? In Table of Malcontents. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 10:45 p.m..
Footballers Save Umbilical Cords
The new trend among professional soccer players is storing their children's umbilical cords. They're hoping the cells might treat future cartilage injuries. In Bodyhack. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 8:45 p.m..
The dysfunctional attention economy
Jeneane is banging on the rebirth of interest attention: ...anyone concerned with what you're paying attention to is out to make money off of you. Trying to paint attention monitoring or tracking or trust or what have you as anything other than that is dishonest. You and I are not that important. No one, I mean no one, besides a suspicious mate cares what you pay attention to online unless they're looking to divorce some bread from your wallet. Well, or just checking to see whether you need to be shipped off to Guantanamo. I like what Jeneane says. When... From
Joho the Blog on August 28, 2006 at 7:48 p.m..
Technology in Meet Space
There have been a spate of posts of late that talk about the role of technology in general and Web 2.0 technologies specifically in the classroom and also about the larger question of the acceptance of technology in general as a teaching and learning tool. Not surprising, is it, that these threads would pop up [...] From
weblogged News on August 28, 2006 at 6:48 p.m..
[foocamp06] Welcome to Foo, you lucky few
FOO (Friends of O'Reilly) Camp is perhaps my favorite conference because it is more like a camp than a conference. Tim O'Reilly invites a couple of hundred people (it's getting bigger as it gets older) for an unstructured 2.25 days. If you want to lead a session, you write it onto the paper-based wiki. The sessions are almost universally highly informal, and the structured ones tend to be well worth the structure. Plus, perhaps because there are something like a dozen simultaneous sessions, skipping one to hang out and talk with the incredible people here doesn't seem like From
Joho the Blog on August 28, 2006 at 5:49 p.m..
[foocamp06] Posing for Google Earth
The Google Earth camera plane is going to be flying over the O'Reilly campus at noon today, shooting at a resolution of two inches (i.e., 1 pixel = 2 inches). As someone said last night when this was announced, "Brush your teeth." So, there's discussion of what to do for the plane when it passes. Here are a few ideas: 1. Reenact a scene from Hieronymus Bosch, although we may not have enough time to make the pig demon heads.(This is a real chance to get in touch with the bottom up grassroots, so to speak.) 2. Create a street... From
Joho the Blog on August 28, 2006 at 5:49 p.m..
Web -1.0
Web -1.0 is the successor to Web 2.0 unless we're vigilant and refuse to allow our permission-free Web to be turned into pay-for-play, always-ID'ed, ask-before-you-post, 100%-terrorist-free, professionals-only tubes. [Tags: digital_rights ]... From
Joho the Blog on August 28, 2006 at 5:49 p.m..
[foocamp06] Future of news
Mike Davidson of Newsvine.com opens by saying this is a time to talk about how to improve the editorial process. How to decide which stories are important and interesting without human intervention? E.g., Techmeme.com looks at what A-Listers and B-Listers are linking to, while Digg lets everyone vote.Newsvine measures how long you spend looking at a story. Jay Adelson of Digg.com says he'd like to see the mainstream media reflect more of what people actually are interested in. Steven Levy of Newsweek worries that this would result in even more coverage of runaway brides, etc. Digg says th From
Joho the Blog on August 28, 2006 at 5:49 p.m..
[foocamp06] First life in Second Life
Julian Bleeker is interested in how first life and second life (with SecondLife.com as a good example) overlap. E.g., he designed a game in which players got a word square (jumbled letters that contain words) that they had to track physically in a field, wired with GPS. Some decided instead to "draw" by walking in a path that created a picture. Nikolaj Nyholm talks about how Imity.com uses Second Life to prototype user interactions. Matt Bidulph has been doing Second Life mashups. You can use http, he says, to pipe out info from SecondLife, including what people are saying. Cory... From
Joho the Blog on August 28, 2006 at 5:49 p.m..
[foocamp06] All technology is neutral
[As always, all of this is me rapidly paraphrasing, paying attention most to what happens to interest me, and putting everything worse than the speakers did.] Chris Csikszentmihalyi says science doesn't work the way it thinks it does. For one thing, only 3-5% of experiments are re-proven. Often that's because they're so sensitive to instruments and materials. Also, much of the knowledge is tacit. Instead, scientific conflicts are usually settled by looking at the lab it came from, etc. So, his lab wants to know what types of research isn't getting done. Three dualisms: 1. T From
Joho the Blog on August 28, 2006 at 5:49 p.m..
Interview with moi, part 2
The second part of Mitch Joel's TwistImage Six Pixels of Separation podcast with me about Cluetrainy stuff (with a little Everthing Is Miscellaneous thrown in) is up. (Part one is here.) [Tags: marketing podcast cluetrain]... From
Joho the Blog on August 28, 2006 at 5:49 p.m..
Ask.com reads feeds
As Ask.com continues to explore ways to do make its searches yet more relevant and more thought-provoking — provocativeness is a possible fourth horseman riding next to precision, recall and relevancy — it's now leading its search results with the latest three entries from the appropriate RSS feed. So, if you search for "boingboing," the list is topped by the latest three posts on boingboing.com. Currently, the feature only works for the most popular blogs, and it spottily finds the feeds for search terms other than the blog's name (e.g., the "cory doctorow" results page From
Joho the Blog on August 28, 2006 at 5:49 p.m..
[foocamp2006] Thinglinks
Early this morning — so early, that you had to ask people if they were on their way up or down the path to Lethe — I had a chance to catch up with Ulla-Maaria Mutanen, who blogs about design tech, and is the founder of Thinglink.org (I've written about Thinglink before.) It's a fascinating idea. Web pages have unique URLS, but how can people who make physical unique stuff refer to their things uniquely? Go to Thinglink (it's open source) and get a 6-character random code, which is expressed as THING:123ABC. Simple idea. Some big consequences could accrue. For... From
Joho the Blog on August 28, 2006 at 5:49 p.m..
[foocamp06] Everything is miscellaneous, chapter 8
Since I first talked publicly about Everything Is Miscellaneous (a book I've been writing for the past few years) at Foo Camp, and last year I had a session to kick around my proposed outline, at this Foo I read a chapter from the penultimate draft. (On Monday I get my editor's comments and write what is presumably the final draft. Well, besides copy editing. And changing my mind. And being obsolesced.) Chapter 8 is on the virtue of messiness and includes a section on the Semantic Web, since I figured it'd be better to be eviscerated in a small... From
Joho the Blog on August 28, 2006 at 5:49 p.m..
[foocamp06] Foo is over-ish
The tents are coming down. People are seeking out the one person they really wanted to talk with but did not run into — Foo has grown to 325 people or so. A comically long stream of pizza boxes are streaming in and being emptied one octal bite at a time. It was a great Foo. Probably the best, at least for me. It is as an astounding set of people with a wide range of interests (within the tech field, of course) and a wonderful group ethos. There's a time for calm discussion of hard issues. Right now is... From
Joho the Blog on August 28, 2006 at 5:49 p.m..
StopBadWare lists AOL 9.0
StopBadWare.org, an organization sponsored in part by the Berkman Center, has put AOL 9.0 onto its list of malefactors because it installs additional software without telling the user, it forces the user to take certain actions, it adds various components to Internet Explorer and the taskbar without disclosure, it may automatically update without the user's consent, and it fails to uninstall completely. That's a big, gutsy step. But don't those same criteria mean that Windows XP should be on the list? [Tags: stopbadware aol ]... From
Joho the Blog on August 28, 2006 at 5:49 p.m..
FairUse4WM Benefits Music Fans *and* Online Music Services
My
report on FairUse4WM, the Windows Media DRM evasion tool, focused on whether users would care. Again, I think most music fans won't care about the tool, though the few subscribers who are unwilling or unable to use the readily-available alternative avenues for acquiring unencrypted content will be quite happy. But the question remains: will online music subscription businesses be harmed by the tool? And will Microsoft block music fans' ability to make fair use of legitimately acquired music and respond From
A Copyfighter's Musings on August 28, 2006 at 5:48 p.m..
Setting up the Blogging School
Tim Lauer posts today about Moving to Drupal to create a more complex and flexible blogging/learning management environment for teachers at his school. I have to admit that Drupal is not something I know very much about other than it seems to be very customizable depending on your work flow requirements. (There are times I wish [...] From
weblogged News on August 28, 2006 at 5:48 p.m..
Blog Best Practices Award
I’m happy to report that my old school won a New Jersey Best Practices award for an ESL Literature Circle Weblog that we started last year with the ESL classes and the library. From the press release: The ESL Literature Circle includes the selection and discussion of reading material in a Literature Circle format and is [...] From
weblogged News on August 28, 2006 at 5:48 p.m..
Intranet questions (Melbourne, Australia)
I ran one of our Intranet Planning Day workshops in Melbourne last week, and these were the (unedited) questions that participants had about intranets: What is an intranet? Intranet roles? Intranet versus ECM? Radical solutions? Portals? Business case? Feral forums?... From
Column Two on August 28, 2006 at 5:48 p.m..
August 2006 MIT OpenCourseWare Newsletter
The latest OCW Newsletter lists 11 new courses at MIT, bringing the OCW total there up to more than 1400. There is also news about the
OCW Portal that permits searching for courses across all the OCW member institutions. _____JH _____ "The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of more than 100 higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model. The mission of the OpenCourseWare Consortium is to advance education and em From
EduResources--Higher Education Resources Online on August 28, 2006 at 5:47 p.m..
The Electronic Hallway--Case Studies and Teaching Resources
The Electronic Hallway is maintained by the University of Washington Evans School of Public Affairs; it contains case studies and teaching resources. "The Electronic Hallway serves as an online repository of quality teaching cases and other curriculum materials for faculty who teach public administration, public policy, and related subjects. Cases are available in numerous policy areas; economic development, education, environment and land use, human services, international affairs, nonprofit, state and local government issues, utility and transit issues, and urban and regional issues. Many Ha From
EduResources--Higher Education Resources Online on August 28, 2006 at 5:47 p.m..
Botnet Attack Sentence: 3 Years
A young California man will serve prison time for launching a computer attack that hit tens of thousands of computers, including some at a Seattle hospital, the DOD and a California school district. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 5:46 p.m..
Engineers Doubt Big Easy Levees
After nearly a year of work on the levee system in the Crescent City, the commander of the Army Corps of Engineers admits it's likely not up to holding against a big one. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 5:46 p.m..
Judge Blocks Ban on Violent Games
Louisiana is the latest state to have courts block a law banning sales of violent video games. A federal judge rules the ban unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 5:46 p.m..
Patent Fight in Online Academia
E-learning company Blackboard grabs a patent on the basic features of online education software. To prove their claim to ownership, they're suing other providers for royalties. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 5:46 p.m..
Make It a Double -- Ethanol
Even if car manufacturers embrace another tech than ethanol power, the appetite for booze and cough syrup will surely stick around. So researchers are trying to make food-grade ethanol. Corn martini, anyone? From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 5:46 p.m..
China May Take Hybrid Lead
With pollution, stop-and-go traffic, cheap labor and a booming economy, China is likely to become a leader in making hybrids more affordable. In Autopia. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 5:46 p.m..
Microsoft's Music DRM Cracked
A new app makes it easy to strip the DRM protection from "PlaysForSure" subscription files, creating a loophole for acquiring massive quantities of music for next to nothing. In Listening Post. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 5:46 p.m..
Sci-Fi Erotica Censored
Renderotica changes its terms of service to accommodate a credit card processor that got the willies. Or lost its willies, more like it. In Sex Drive Daily. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 5:46 p.m..
Clash of the Office Titans
Google announces plans for a web-based suite of collaborative productivity tools for businesses, taking direct aim at Microsoft Office. Can Google unseat the Redmond's king? In Monkey Bites. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..
New Engine Combusts Old Ideas
Inventor Carmelo Scuderi breaks a cardinal design rule on his way to rethinking the internal combustion engine. By Dan Orzech. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..
Saved by the Bell
The zombies are closing in and I'm scared. No, really. If I blow it here, and get eaten, I'll have to start the game over again from the beginning. Commentary by Clive Thompson. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..
Joe Schmo vs. the 'Experts'
Peer review -- the unsung hero and convenient villain of science -- gets an online makeover. By Adam Rogers from Wired magazine. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..
Gallery: World of WorldCon
Nerds unite for the 64th annual science fiction convention in LA, and the notoriously unphotogenic give it their all for our Wired News photographer, Quinn Norton. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..
New York to L.A. in Two Hours
Lockheed Martin prepares a successor to the Concorde -- a supersonic private jet that will fly at almost twice the speed of sound. By Robert Andrews. From
Wired News on August 28, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..
No more losers
The August 21 issue of Business Week was a special double-issue on competition. It’s a one-sided, testosterone-fueled celebration of beating the other guy. The editor kicked things off, writing about “The Winning Spirit.” How competitive are you? What’s the inner game of competition all about? What separates the winners from the losers? [...] From
Internet Time Blog on August 28, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..
Nature or nurture?
Associated Press, Washington “For all the differences between the sexes, hereTMs one that might stir up debate in the teacherTMs lounge: Boys learn more from men and girls learn more from women. ThatTMs the upshot of a provocative study by Thomas Dee, an associate professor of economics at Swarthmore College and visiting scholar at Stanford University.” Disclosure: [...] From
Internet Time Blog on August 28, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..
Justin Pope - Patent Fight Over Online Schooling - Business Week
Business Week
has discovered the Blackboard patent fight and in a typically one-sided article attempts to depict the fight as being between Blackboard and "the academic computing community, which is fighting back in techie fashion -- through online petitions and in a sprawling Wikipedia entry that helps make its case." Blackboard is given credit for an invention (though it is characterized as "obvious" and "incremental") although it should not be (even Blackboard's "obvious" and "incremen From
OLDaily on August 28, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..
Weslet Fryer - The Children's Machine - Moving at the Speed of Creativity
In what is an astonishing bit of rebranding, the $100 computer is now being called "The Children's Machine". I do like what I'm seeing of the development - wireless mesh, possible VOIP support, digital images and video support, and more. I wonder, though, whether this rebranding reflects a change in the mission of the project - is it still geared toward the developing world (which, the last time I checked, contained millions of people who are not children)? More from
Tim Stahmer [
OLDaily on August 28, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..
Paul N. Courant and Rebecca J. Griffiths - OOSS (Organization for Open Source Software) Study - OOSS
According to this study of open source software in education, "there has been increasing interest in the potential of open source to address longstanding concerns in the higher education community regarding the cost and performance of commercial software products." The authors suggest that "the problem lies in the distance between the software producers and users developers working in the commercial world do not have a nuanced appreciation of the ways in which software is used in higher education." Via
EDUCAUSE From OLDaily on August 28, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..
Jeff Howe - No Suit Required - Wired News
One of the reasons I have supported open source and open content is that it favours small producers. When content, copyrights and intellectual property in general are owned, this favour large producers. Nowhere is this clearer than in the music industry, where (somehow!) people king William Hung and Paris Hilton are made 'stars' via marketing hype. If you're not part of the program, you can forget it. Now I happen to be a fan of artists like the Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLaughlin. And I have seen these quality acts get little, if any, promotion through traditional means. So I From
OLDaily on August 28, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..
Charles Nelson - Code of Ethics - Explorations in Learning
More discussion on the question of whether there should be codes of ethics for internet use. This longish post from Charles Nelson continues the defense of codes of ethics, in opposition to my own position. I think a lot of the disagreement is based on (what I would call) a misunderstanding as to what constitutes a 'code' - a code isn't merely a set of suggestions, guidelines or instructions. It is a definition of what is right and what is wrong. Nelson writes, "Without laws, there would be no need for judges to interpret their application." This is false. While th From
OLDaily on August 28, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..
Judy O'Connell - Google Offerings - heyjude
This has been covered all over the place. "Google this week will launch Google Apps for Your Domain, a software bundle aimed at small and midsize companies." In the process it has completely messed up my login for Blogger. Nerts! [
Link] [Tags:
Google] [
Comment] From
OLDaily on August 28, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..