Edu_Rss

WigiWigi
Bill Brandon summarizes: "WigiWigi is the first public release of a video over IP application that is built on a completely new and unique protocol. Unlike other desktop videoconferencing applications, WigiWigi one does not require any specific DLLs, drivers, codecs, DirectX or dedicated third-party libraries. It doesn't even require an installation. WigiWigi has just entered its beta-testing phase and the GUI (user interface) is still crude and semi-functional - but the results on your screen may in From OLDaily on August 10, 2005 at 9:45 p.m..

Princeton to Launch DRM'd Textbook Program
A bit of a tempest has been launched with an announcement that Princeton University will now be selling DRM-enabled textbooks. "So let's see -- your laptop gets fried? Gotta buy a new book. Going home for break and the book is on your dormroom desktop machine? Tough luck -- no printing, neither, y'hear? No returns or buybacks, either. Wow, what a deal!" Here is more coverage. It's not clear that this initiative is an official Princeton initiative, and several commentators wrote From OLDaily on August 10, 2005 at 9:45 p.m..

Wisconsin Center for Education Research
Paul Baker sent me a note to advise me of this RSS feed, "A news digest from the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison" which, of course, goes immediately into the aggregator. By Various Authors, August 10, 2005 [Refer][Research][OLDaily on August 10, 2005 at 9:45 p.m..

Manifesto for a Free Curriculum
More commentary on the free curriculum idea. James Farmer weighs in: "in 95% of cases curriculum is artificial, unhelpful and obstructive. Learning has in many contexts become what it is not about, content." A K M Adam offers the suggestion that organizations "such as the AMA, the ABA, AARP, ACLU" should spend their money creating learning content rather than expensive television ads. "If a professional association really wants its members to g From OLDaily on August 10, 2005 at 9:45 p.m..

University of Phoenix Becomes Ecumenical, Spurns Non-Christian Faculty
Well the other shoe has dropped in the University of Phoenix's excursion into faith-based education. As Dave Taylor reports, in order to qualify for a teaching position in this new in itiative, you must agree to a statement of faith (and get a letter from your Pastor attesting this). As Taylor writes, "when a non-denominational institution like the University of Phoenix starts sending this out as a screening tool for teachers interested in an authorized University opportunity, alarm bells start ringing in my head." With the rise of private institutions in general we will see more of this. From OLDaily on August 10, 2005 at 9:45 p.m..

Podcast Theory Gap
Interesting reflections on how students actually use podcasts, and what educators should do when their use is different from the intended use. Best line in the paper: "Fight audio with audio: Podcasts and Audio as a Way to Combat Intrusive Thoughts." This is the norm for me - I always have an audio track running, whether music or television or whatever. Sometimes I even have ed-tech podcasts running. Still. Your podcasts compete for mindspace with Seinfeld. Mine too. Sobering. By Susan Smith Nash, E-Learning Queen, August 9, 2005 [OLDaily on August 10, 2005 at 9:45 p.m..

Disruptive Technology Wiki
Albert Delgado announces that the wiki is now open. It's pretty empty right now, but you should feel free to register and add your content. By Various Authors, EdBlogger Praxis, August 10, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect] From OLDaily on August 10, 2005 at 9:45 p.m..

Collaboration Tools: What's Out There
Blog coverage (and some notes by Alan Levine) and MP3 audio from our collaboration tools session at the Seminars on Academic Computing conference here in Snowmass, Colorado. The audio quality is, um, variable. The discussion focussed mostly on wikis and tagging tools, but we digressed a lot. Also in SAC coverage, Alan Levine has OLDaily on August 10, 2005 at 9:45 p.m..

Wikipedia-Gründer: Zehn Dinge, die frei sein müssen
Die Wikipedia-Community hatte am Wochenende in Frankfurt getagt ("Wikimania 2005"). Auch wenn ich einen Besuch leider nicht geschafft habe, konnten sich die Teilnehmer kaum über mangelnde Aufmerksamkeit beklagen. In jeder Zeitung ein Artikel. FAZ.net führte gar die "Schwarmgesellschaft" (!) an,... From www.weiterbildungsblog.de on August 10, 2005 at 6:50 p.m..

Yarn, spandex, and dogs teach new tricks
Professors are turning to everyday objects to 'unpack' abstract concepts. From Christian Science Monitor | Learning on August 10, 2005 at 6:45 p.m..

Kids run away to circus camp
'Circus Smirkus' in northern Vermont teaches children how to be acrobats and clowns. From Christian Science Monitor | Learning on August 10, 2005 at 6:45 p.m..

Proceedings of Wikimania 2005
The Proceedings of Wikimania 2005 are published as a WikiBook. Shame that I wasn't able to attend the conference though it was rather near to home. Well, I will try to read through some related papers and Weblog posts regardless... [Seblogging News on August 10, 2005 at 4:50 p.m..

I scream for ice cream
Ever since I worked at Herrell's Ice Cream in Harvard Square during college, I've longed to make my own ice cream. At Herrell's I was an "ICM", or ice cream maker, and spent my shifts making malted vanilla, pumpkin, and chocolate pudding ice creams. So yummy! So today's New York Times article, Ice Dreams, Crystallizing, about making From megnut on August 10, 2005 at 4:45 p.m..

Technorati Blues
Sorry, we couldn't complete your search because we're experiencing a high volume of requests right now. Please try again in a minute or add this search to your watchlist to track conversation. 7 out of 10 times I get this message when I try to look at the Technorati links to Seblogging. Come on folks... this really is a terrible performance. [Seblogging News on August 10, 2005 at 3:51 p.m..

A good beach book about France
I recently read Almost French: Love And A New Life In Paris by Sarah Turnbull, a delightful memoir of a young Australian woman who falls in love with a Frenchman and moves to Paris. It has all t From megnut on August 10, 2005 at 3:45 p.m..

Blog Readers Spend More Time and Money Online
The blogosphere is big and its users spend more time and money online than the online population that doesn't read them. From ClickZ Stats on August 10, 2005 at 2:45 p.m..

Site Profile: Connexions Revisited
I updated the EduResource Portal (http://sage.eou.edu/SPT/) entry for the Connexions site earlier this week; when Connexions was first covered in the portal, three years ago, its contents were limited to the topic of "communications engineering"--now the course and module topics are much expanded and the web site is much better organized. Stephen Downes provides a helpful report on the current Connexions site in his Places to Go column of Innovate. ____JH EduResources--Higher Education Resources Online on August 10, 2005 at 12:47 p.m..

Podcasting applied to TV
It wasn't even a question of time when this was going to happen: Subscription TV (see http://participatoryculture.org/). DTV uses the Bittorrent technology to distribute the files. Very clever. So this leaves one question: How to find content? There is this built in channel guide that seems to be similar to the podcast support in iTunes 4.9. But I don't see centralized channel guides to be the long term solutions. There wil From owrede_log on August 10, 2005 at 11:47 a.m..

Extreme Democracy
This concept proposed by Jon Lebkowsky and Mitch Ratcliffe asks what is the future of democracy in the information age: "Extreme democracy" is a political philosophy of the information era that puts people in charge of the entire political process. It suggests a deliberative process that places total confidence in the people, opening the policy-making process to many centers of power through deeply networked coalitions that can be organized around From owrede_log on August 10, 2005 at 11:46 a.m..

Yummy grilled salmon
I've been grilling salmon a lot lately (wild salmon only, not farmed, because farmed has lots of chemicals and is bad for you and you shouldn't be eating it) and we always end up with a little bit left over. So I've been making salmon cakes for dinner with the remains, and boy if it isn't as good (ok, nearly) the next day. I've tried to re-create my recipe here for you megnut on August 10, 2005 at 11:45 a.m..

Oliver Stone (continued)
James Wolcott spanks me for saying Oliver Stone is the worst major director around. Easy for him to say: He didn't sit through Alexander. James doesn't allow comments on his site, so I've replied by appending to my original post. [Tags: JamesWolcott OliverStone]... From Joho the Blog on August 10, 2005 at 10:48 a.m..

Niche businesses
Mark Dionne has found a niche business that rivals TrackCap.com, a business that sells those little TrackPoint nubbins for Thinkpads (aka The Most Over-Packed Item in History). A family member's cellphone got run through the washing machine, so Mark googled "cell phone washing machine" and got this Google ad: Soggy Cell Phone? Dropped your phone in the toilet? Took a spin in the washing machine? FastCellPhoneRepair.com For $40 they'll service your cellphone. (Mark notes that he fixed the phone himself, so we don't know how good these folks are.)... From Joho the Blog on August 10, 2005 at 10:48 a.m..

Another autism report
Reader Josh sent a link to the Immunization Safety Review Committee's 2004 Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism whose description reads in part: This eighth and final report of the Immunization Safety Review Committee examines the hypothesis that vaccines, specifically the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines, are causally associated with autism. The committee reviewed the extant published and unpublished epidemiolo From megnut on August 10, 2005 at 10:45 a.m..

Course Design Essentials
"By organizing your course by objectives you will provide focus, consistency, and clear evaluation criteria." John Carpenter provides an introduction to curriculum essentials.... From Adult/Continuing Education on August 10, 2005 at 9:49 a.m..

Google News Search Feeds!
(via Tim Wilson) I guess Yahoo News was putting them to shame on this, but whatever the reason, Google has finally stepped up to the plate and is now offering search results via RSS feeds. If you haven't gotten the RSS bug yet, this is even more reason to. (Check out my Quick Start Guide to RSS for Educatorsif you haven't already done so...I'll b From weblogged News on August 10, 2005 at 9:45 a.m..

Disjointed political debate: mass media lurks
Reference from Jan Schmidt to a paper on the German election campaigns that take place on the internet especially in weblogs. He concludes with a statement that there is still a gap between the discussions in the blogosphere and its reception via traditional mass media. He keeps wondering what (agenda-setting) could drive professional media to not only observe and ridicule that part of the world but to interact with it. thomas n. burg | randgänge on August 10, 2005 at 7:46 a.m..

Doing a Vertical Search - Susan Kuchinskas, Internet News
The major search engines don't have the market locked down by any means, if you can believe the buzz at Search Engine Strategies, a conference taking place this week in San Jose. Blogs and RSS feeds (define) are growing as sources of information, and fee From Techno-News Blog on August 10, 2005 at 6:48 a.m..

'Thoughts read' via brain scans - BBC
The researchers monitored activity in the brain. Scientists say they have been able to monitor people's thoughts via scans of their brains. Teams at University College London and University of California in LA could tell what images people were looking a From Techno-News Blog on August 10, 2005 at 6:48 a.m..

A radio station and podcaster all in one - Michael Singer, CNET Blog
Thinking about podcasting but are nervous about investing in thousands of dollars of hardware? Russell Johnson, a 30 year veteran of commercial, public and Internet broadcasting and international media projects has come up with his all-in-one box dubbed t From Techno-News Blog on August 10, 2005 at 6:48 a.m..

Microsoft Settles Spam-King Suit
'Online marketer' Scott Richter denies charges he sent billions of unsolicited e-mails to consumers touting products and schemes. But he agrees to pay the software company $7 million -- and plans to change his ways. From Wired News on August 10, 2005 at 6:45 a.m..

Discovery Detours, Lands Safely
After orbiting Earth an extra day to avoid a storm in Florida, the space shuttle lands without a hitch in California. From Wired News on August 10, 2005 at 6:45 a.m..

Kutztown 13 Face Felony Charges
Exasperated educators call in the cops after Pennsylvania high school students sidestep filtering software and use school-issued laptops to get their hands on iChat and other banned downloads. Does the punishment fit the crime? From Wired News on August 10, 2005 at 6:45 a.m..

Can Apple Make the Switch?
The computer maker's move to Intel chips may force Mac fans to replace applications designed for IBM chips, or opt for performance-clogging emulation. Enter 'binary translation.' By Lucas Graves from Wired magazine. From Wired News on August 10, 2005 at 6:45 a.m..

Nike Makes Barefoot Breakthrough
Researchers at the shoe company's elite laboratory marshal all the forces of modern biomechanics to develop a running shoe inspired by ... nothing at all. Mark McClusky walks a mile in the radical Nike Free. From Wired News on August 10, 2005 at 6:45 a.m..

Thar's Uranium in Them Thar Hills
Surging demand for nuclear fuel leads to a huge jump in uranium mining claims in America's West. Could there be a uranium rush? By Jeff Rice. From Wired News on August 10, 2005 at 6:45 a.m..

At Clean Plants, It's Waste Not
A new emphasis on reducing garbage results in factories that produce less trash than you do at home each week. And it's good for business, too. By Dan Orzech. From Wired News on August 10, 2005 at 6:45 a.m..

Berners-Lee on the read/write web
In diesem Interview versucht der Fragesteller der BBC hartnäckig, in Tim Berners-Lee Schuldgefühle dafür zu wecken, dass nicht alle Nutzer des Webs die Welt zu einem besseren Platz machen wollen. Wie auch immer: Der Interviewte bleibt standhaft und beschreibt, warum... From www.weiterbildungsblog.de on August 10, 2005 at 3:45 a.m..

City Schoolchildren Facing Two Rounds of Testing
Public school students in grades three, five and seven will be required to sit through two rounds of standardized testing this school year under a schedule the city's Department of Education released Tuesday. From New York Times: Education on August 10, 2005 at 1:45 a.m..

Kansas Board Advances a Draft Critical of Evolution
The State Board of Education has approved the latest draft of science standards that include greater criticism of evolution. From New York Times: Education on August 10, 2005 at 1:45 a.m..

Catching up
I've been quite stressed out for the last few weeks. First, I got together with LogicalSteps, a new media design company, and organized a seminar on Infographics here in Singapore. We flew down Alberto Cairo of the elmundo.es fame. The seminar was a big success, so much so that we are already planning on organizing an Infographics Festival mid next year. In the meanwhile I am preparing a detailed blog entry to cover Cairo's talk. Second, my iBook crashed on me again. This is the second ti From elearningpost on August 9, 2005 at 11:46 p.m..

Our Walled Gardens
We're all very smart people. Some of us write operating systems, others perform beautiful ballads, some design genius web apps and others are the Shakespeares of the blogging world. Across huge distances, we co-ordinate and socialize with others just like us, and hone our craft with people we know will appreciate what we are. We've built brilliant and immersive walled gardens, and in them we'll wither away in comfortable obscurity. From kuro5hin.org on August 9, 2005 at 11:45 p.m..