Edu_RSS
Gmaps Pedometer
Gmaps Pedometer: Gmaps Pedometer calculates the distance of a route you choose on a Google Map in miles. Great for walkers and runners. (Via Lifehacker...)... From
Education/Technology - Tim Lauer on July 6, 2005 at 9:47 p.m..
Conducting successful SME interviews
Jennifer Lambe has written an article on interviewing subject-matter experts (SME's). To quote: Interviewing subject matter experts (SMEs) is one of the most common and useful methods for obtaining the information needed to create quality documents. Successful SME interviews require... From
Column Two on July 6, 2005 at 9:45 p.m..
Who's Speaking?
When the doors of journalism are thrown open to broad participation, the first questions that arise are: Who's speaking? Can I trust you? How am I to interpret what you say? You might expect that more than 10 years after the Internet launched a new wave of online participation, we'd have answered these questions by now. But apparently not. Dan Gillmor, author of "
We the Media" and founder of Grassroots Media Inc., is pushing a system called
HonorTags in which bloggers and commenters c From
Poynter E-Media Tidbits on July 6, 2005 at 7:55 p.m..
A New Wave?
Joe Kraus, one of the founders of Excite (and now leader of startup
JotSpot)
suggests in his blog that "it's a great time to be an entrepreneur." Excite, he says, required $3 million in funding before launch, while JotSpot needed only $100,000. Why the difference? Cheaper hardware, free software, offshore programmers and search-engine marketing (which is much less expensive than the mass media advertising we saw mill From
Poynter E-Media Tidbits on July 6, 2005 at 7:55 p.m..
Moodling Around
Tomorrow is the first full day training for our Tablet PC pilot and I've been hammering away on the Moodle site I've created for the course. This is my first attempt at
Moodle and I have to say I am very, very impressed. Once you get the feel for it, it's very intuitive, and it's got a very rich feature set. The wiki tool alone was enough to sell me. (No blog, however...) Anyway, just thought I'd share
a link to the site and invite anyone who is interested to take a look around. Just clic From
weblogged News on July 6, 2005 at 7:47 p.m..
A Crash Course On Complexity, Emergence and Collective Intelligence
George Siemens links to this site, a closer look at the concept of emergence. One of the best things about this item is that it links to a 1996 web page by Mitchel Resnick and Brian Silverman called Exploring Emergence. The idea of emergence is that organization appears out of the autonomous actions of smaller entities; this idea is nicely illustrated by 'The Game of Life', demonstrated on this page. The Crash Course, meanwhile, builds on this concept, identifying emergent phenomena on the web at large. By Wally Glutton, Stung Eye, October 1, 2003 [
OLDaily on July 6, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..
RSS Readers: Narrowing Down Your Choices
Some good analysis giving us a good look at the use of different RSS aggregators. The results are based on FeedBurner's 1,000 largest-circulation feeds, with the impact of Yahoo default feeds removed. There's probably still some bias, then, but the results now look somewhat like my own intuiotion: Bloglines with about 20 percent leading the pack, NetNewsWire second with 10 percent, and the rest arrayed below. Via
Dan Gillmor. By Brian Livingston, Datamation, July 5, 2005 [
OLDaily on July 6, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..
Software Patent Directive Rejected
Happy news as the European Parliament overwhelmingly rejects software patents... The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) described this decision as a "great victory for those who have campaigned to ensure that European innovation and competitiveness is protected from monopolisation of software functionalities and business methods."
Much more coverage. By Ingrid Marson, ZDNet UK, July 6, 2005 [
R From OLDaily on July 6, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..
The Australian e-Research Agenda
Good overview with many links related to e-research and the Australian government's new consulting exercise. Personally, I've grown weary (and wary) of consulting exercises - what I have observed in practise is that power (and decisions) remain centralized. Anyhow, some interesting items - Australia has an AUD 19 billion ICT trade deficit, and one in 20 Austrialians is now working overseas. Of course, Australians probably don't like being called "human capital" any more than I do. Yes, it is all about cultural change - but Australia, like Canada, must be very careful about how t From
OLDaily on July 6, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..
It's Who You Know
George Siemens has been doing some interesting work recently on networks. This (mistitled) item links us to
Barry Wellman, director of an interesting rpoject called
NetLab. You will want to read his
connecting Community: On- and Offline. "In the old days, before the 1990s, places were largely connected -- by telephone, cars, planes and railroads. Now with the Internet (and mobil From
OLDaily on July 6, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..
Technologies of Cooperation
Howard Jaqrche points to this useful paper by Andrea Saveri, Howard Rheingold, and Kathi Vian. The bulk of the paper is a survey of emerging technologies of cooperation, for example, self-organizing mesh networks, peer-to-peer networks, or knowledge collectives. This well-written (and well designed) paper illustrates each in detail, offering examples and 'strategic principles' to guide their development. Jarche also links to a large version of a chart of the eight technologies, highlighting structure, rules, resources and more for each. Impress your peers; print this and post it on y From
OLDaily on July 6, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..
Canadian Council on Learning
Summary of one of those high-level meetings that happens from time to time in this country, in this case, an introductory videoconference hosted by the newly minted Canadian Council on Learning. My thoughts (I floated around the edges of the meeting and have read another, emailed but sadly not available online (I asked)), summary, echo Jarche's: "I don't want to appear too cynical but my first impressions were - It's a new organisation with a new pot of money, but the same players from other initiatives that have gone by the wayside, with the same issues and agendas as well as t From
OLDaily on July 6, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..
Blogs @ Anywhere: High Fidelity Online Communication
Comparison between blogs and LMSs in education. "Whereas an LMS stores and presents all information on a centralised and hierarchical basis, bound within the subject and the organisation, blogs are distributed, aggregated, open and independent." However, "The application of weblogs in an education setting will, at best, have a limited impact if due consideration of these developing communication dynamics (is) ignored." By James Farmer, incorporated subversion, July 4, 2005 [
Refer][
OLDaily on July 6, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..
Spoken Alexandria Project
Launched yesterday: "The Spoken Alexandria Project is creating a free library of spoken word recordings, consisting of classics in the public domain and modern works (with permission). AAC, Ogg Vorbis, and MP3 audiobooks available for free download and redistribution." Via
Rick's Café Canadien. By Various Authors, July 5, 2005 [
Refer][
OLDaily on July 6, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..
Supply, meet demand
Several years ago, Gamespy's Daily Victim column spun a colourful yarn about a company that did nothing but play online RPGs all day and then sold their loot on eBay. Apparently, a cottage industry has sprung up in Asia where peasants and university students are paid peanuts to play games and collect items for sale. And it's a million dollar enterprise. Macros control the actions of the ingame characters for the most part; the workers' duties mostly consist of keeping an eye out for the fuzz, since bots are illegal. Plus they spend their days in chairs in air-conditioned comfort From
silentblue | Quantified on July 6, 2005 at 3:56 p.m..
Why DRM is the wrong economic model
Umair does an excellent job putting DRM in an economic context. For example: "...the problem with DRM based on analog property rights is not that consumers won't accept it - they might, for a while. It's that it's a brittle solution, which sets huge incentives for it's own disruption." His approach is to create "...economic solutions which massively distribute incentives to share, by virally redistributing revenues." (This is something Kevin Marks — the mediAgora — has also been talking about since a quarter before forever.) [Thanks for the link, AKMA!] [Technor From
Joho the Blog on July 6, 2005 at 3:49 p.m..
Spoken Alexandria Launched Yesterday
Introducing the Spoken Alexandria Project + Podcast By Jenny Levine at the Shifted Librarian "The Spoken Alexandria Project launches today at http://www.spokenalex.org/ with free MP3, AAC, and Ogg Vorbis audiobooks, all without DRM constraints and all licensed with Creative Commons... From
Rick's Café Canadien on July 6, 2005 at 2:54 p.m..
4x for Rasiej, if you live in NYC
Andrew Rasiej will be a force for progressive values in NYC — not to mention all the free wifi you can eat — if he's elected to the llittle-noticed office of Public Advocate. If you're a NYC resident, the city will match any contribution up to $250 with a 4x donation — so your $250 gets the campaign $1250 — but only if you act by Monday, July 11th; by then the campaign has to have raised $125,000 to be eligible for the matching funds. Donate here. (Andrew was featured in the NYer recently.) [Technorati tags: rasiej politics nyc]... From
Joho the Blog on July 6, 2005 at 2:48 p.m..
Macquarie a review: The Good
This is a multi-part review of my experience as a distance student in the Macquarie Applied Linguistics (TESOL) program. Go to the table of contents. The Good Now that we have gotten the ugly parts out of the way, it is time to talk about what is good with Macquarie. For the most part I found the content of the courses to be very relevant to teaching with the exception of two classes. The first, I knew was not relevant because the course dealt with managing language programs rather than with teaching. This course had problems which I will address in a later installment reviewing the individua From
Language, teaching, and all things EFL on July 6, 2005 at 12:56 p.m..
Surviving the Digital TV Shift
Soon, TV stations will give up their old analog licenses and broadcast solely in digital format. This means older TV sets will no longer receive broadcast signals. Here's how you can prepare for the big changeover. By Michael Grebb. From
Wired News on July 6, 2005 at 12:46 p.m..
Fantastic Four Meets the Fanboys
Marvel's latest adaptation endures a rough ride with a key Hollywood power broker -- legions of the classic comic book's faithful. By Jonathan Bing from Wired magazine. From
Wired News on July 6, 2005 at 12:46 p.m..
Stem-Cell Firms Woo More Funding
Investors shy away from embryonic stem-cell companies, and have done so the last few years. But researchers are optimistic that the money is poised to pick up. By Kristen Philipkoski. From
Wired News on July 6, 2005 at 12:46 p.m..
Bad Trip for Online Drug Peddlers
Operators of a handful of websites that sold experimental psychedelic drugs similar to LSD and mescaline can now look forward to life in prison. By David McCandless. From
Wired News on July 6, 2005 at 12:46 p.m..
Blog Bares Sex Offender's Demons
An ominous online journal maintained by accused kidnapper Joseph Duncan becomes a forum in the wake of his alleged crimes, as revolted web surfers condemn the convicted sexual predator. By Kevin Poulsen. From
Wired News on July 6, 2005 at 12:46 p.m..
Too much to read
The other day, when
Will Richardson picked up on David Weinberger's public announcement of
overload and exhaustion, I recalled a few things on that theme. But first, of course, I identified with it. Some weeks it's all I can do to find time to think and write, without reading the work of others -- knowing very well that... From
Weblogs in Higher Education on July 6, 2005 at 11:53 a.m..
Lebkowsky on extreme democracy at The Well
Jonl is engaged in a very interesting conversation about "extreme democracy" at the venerable The Well. (The book Extreme Democracy, to which I contributed a chapter that I am now afraid to read is available for free here. (Since my chapter isn't one of the numbered ones and I can't get Acrobat working with Firefox this morning, I don't know if my chapter is actually in the book.)) [Technorati tags: extremeDemocracy politics jonLebkowsky]... From
Joho the Blog on July 6, 2005 at 11:49 a.m..
Blogday
Blogday is suggesting that on August 31, all bloggers link to five new blogs. How about if we link to 5 blogs from countries we don't know enough about? (Sounds like something Global Voices would be interested in.) I personally still want to see the blogosphere declare the first two weeks of August a global blogiday so we can all work on getting over our blog-induced carpal-tunnel syndrome... [Technorati tags: blogday2005 blogiday blogs globalvoices]... From
Joho the Blog on July 6, 2005 at 10:48 a.m..
Lesson Plans for the Read/Write Web
The Social Studies Department at my school has started using a
Weblog to archive lessons for the various classes in the department. I'm thinking now that it probably should have been a wiki, but they wanted the ability to comment back to the author of the lesson and it seemed that a blog would be more functional in that respect. They also wanted the ability to tag their entries and to search by those keywords, a feature that the Manila
metadata plugin allows for. So now, From
weblogged News on July 6, 2005 at 10:47 a.m..
Supercomputers step up the pace - BBC
A partially built supercomputer has kept its spot at the top of the list of most powerful machines on the planet. The BlueGene/L machine currently under construction at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US was crowned top number-cruncher. From
Techno-News Blog on July 6, 2005 at 7:45 a.m..
Collaboration sessions: How to lead multidisciplinary teams
Sasha Verhage has written an article on the role (and benefits) of collaborative sessions during the design phase of user-centred design projects. To quote: The process should not be "design by committee" but rather design for common understanding. When the... From
Column Two on July 6, 2005 at 1:47 a.m..
Enterprise Content Management: An Introduction
ICFAI Press have just published a new booked titled Enterprise Content Management: An Introduction. This is an anthology that draws together material from a range of authors, including an article that I wrote on "successfully deploying ECM". This is a... From
Column Two on July 6, 2005 at 12:45 a.m..