Edu_Rss

Time to take out Pat Robertson, figuratively of course
Many Americans think of Pat Robertson as buffoon, a foil, a fading TVangelist who asked God to kill a Supreme Court justice he doesn't like. But to the rest of the world, he's an important American religious leader who meets with our president and who once ran for the office himself. So, when Robertson suggests that we murder the president of Venezuela, the democratically elected leader of another country — which happens to be the world's fifth largest oil producer — because the alternative is to start a war, the rest of the world is not going to laugh in... From Joho the Blog on August 23, 2005 at 8:48 p.m..

Enjoying Elizabeth David
Ages ago my mother gave me Is There a Nutmeg in the House?: Essays on Practical Cooking with more than 150 Recipes by Elizabeth David. I read some of it, and then put it down. The other day I picked it up again, and am enjoying it as much as I did the first time (I don't know why I ever put it down, fran From megnut on August 23, 2005 at 8:45 p.m..

Microsoft Word's Work Menu
I learned in Guy Hart-Davis' excellent Word Annoyances (O'Reilly) that Word has a "work menu" that lists the files you designate so you can easily load ones that you use frequently. To install it, go to Tools > Customize > Built-in Menus and drag "Work Menu" onto your tool bar. Nice! But I couldn't figure out how to remove an entry from the list. PCPlus has an answer, and, although it's ridiculously complex, it's the best one I could find. If you know of an easier way to delete an entry from the Work Menu, let me know. Anyway, PCPlus... From Joho the Blog on August 23, 2005 at 7:48 p.m..

Dynamic Speedometers
The Stanford HCI Group is working on car dashboards that discourage drivers from speedig. They've put some of their early brainstorming results online. From owrede_log on August 23, 2005 at 7:46 p.m..

Google Maps via Flash
Paul Neave shows how to integrate Google Maps with Flash. Amazing! This example shows the power of Web APIs combined with a cutting edge interactive tool like Flash (you even can rotate the maps via the compass wheel). Now he just needs to find a way to allow people to seamlessly replace the DHTML application provided by Google with his Flash client. Paul has also some other very nice experiments in his Flash lab. From owrede_log on August 23, 2005 at 7:46 p.m..

Music File Sharing to be Offered Legally
In an experiment worth watching, an ISP is bundling the cost of music file sharing with the cost of internet access. While there are good reasons to be wary of access providers also acting as content providers, this approach nonetheless seems infinitely better than the current mechanism that involves broken CDs and suing your customers. The content, moreover, becomes the leader that sells the service. If this works, expect a wide range of content, including news and learning, to be bundled with internet access. Is it back on to the gravy train for the media monopoly? Via digital-copyright. By From OLDaily on August 23, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..

Right Ways and Wrong Ways of Podcasting in Education
Short article with supporting podcast (or is it short podcast with supporting article?) on the right way and the wrong way to do podcasting in education. The keeper: (Don't) "require students to listen to the podcast while staying tied to a computer." Ack, I can't even imagine the horror. And Reynolds emphasizes: "I'm not a believer in 60-minute speeches..." Sure, I can see that, even though that is the format I've employed thus far (mostly because that's the audio material that I've had available). By Rob Reynold From OLDaily on August 23, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..

If You Don't Build It, They'll Build Their Own...
Brian Lamb - who manages wiki support at UBC - runs across a bunch of UBC students pondering their own wiki in a conversation at LiveJournal. He offers the official services, but is told, "using a UBC-hosted wiki requires us to comply with a certain set of standards and forces us to give UBC the final say in content... a wiki should be democratic, and any university-owned pages and servers aren't." Maybe so, maybe not, but the message is clear: students want the final say over their own web content. And, really, who wouldn't? By Brian Lamb, Abject Learning, August 23, 2005 [OLDaily on August 23, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..

Blogs, Forums and the Nature of Discussion
(Just click on 'Login as a Guest' to read.) The people at Moodle are going through the same sort of reasoning I have regarding blogs, comments and forum posts. Martin Dougiamas writes, "We need to think very deeply about forums, blogs and the other types of posts Moodle allows to come up with a unified idea that is so simple that anyone can understand it straight away (these are the hardest ideas to think of)... the best we could come up with was to remove the comments from blogs and extend the blog trackback system to keep track of links between blogs and between blogs and forums et From OLDaily on August 23, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..

Contexts, Boundaries, Asymmetry
Scott Wilson clarifies his recent remarks. "In the special case of a teacher-initiated conversation (the topic of my post), there is a need to create an initial agreement based on the topic and the participants; unlike the kind of conversation we're having, a course usually starts with the students having no knowledge of who else is taking it... So, consider 'agreeing the context' in my earlier post as talking about initial scene-setting by the teacher." By Scott Wilson, Scott's Workblog, August 23, 2005 [OLDaily on August 23, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..

Gwybodaeth - rich definitions of knowledge
A knowledge of Welsh isn't necessary in order to understand this post - but it would probably help. In short, the idea is that the Welsh use several different words for 'knowledge', and that this classification serves to inform the current discussion. By Graham Attwell, The Wales-Wide Web, August 23, 2005 [Refer][Research][OLDaily on August 23, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..

Response to article 'EdNA Groups or the Open Network':
EdNA Services Assistant Manager Mark Tranthim-Fryer has posted a response to an article covered recently here in OLDaily regarding the question of whether EdNA groups should be open. He writes, consultation with all sectors of the Australian education and training community has strongly endorsed the provision of both open and closed online community spaces" and that "group owners make the decision about the appropriateness of whether their Group is public or private." He also notes that "usage in the last six months has grown steadily to over 350 Groups and 3000 members." By Mark Tranthim-Fry From OLDaily on August 23, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..

GoogleOS? YahooOS? MozillaOS? WebOS?
OK, this post is mostly speculation, but it's informed speculation, and even though it's a little out there, it is beyond neither comprehension nor reason. The idea, in a nutshell, is that the applications we normally store on our computer - things like MS Words, email, PowerPoint, and the like - will in the future be hosted on the web. This will mean that we're not bound to Microsoft, that our applictaions will work the same (and be the same) no matter what computer we're using. But as the author notes, "the reality of it will probably be a lot messier and take a lo From OLDaily on August 23, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..

Who Wants to Own Content?
This article starts from the premise that the content-hoarders have lost and that "the army of all of us, the ones who weren't in charge, the ones without the arms -- won." What does that mean? "The value is no longer in owning content or distribution. The value is in relationships. The value is in trust." I think this is true but also that it's a lot more complicated than it seems at first glance. 'Conversation' is the sort of thing humans do easily, like recognizing friends and knowing when to put on a jacket. But in the world of software and algorithms, these easy things From OLDaily on August 23, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..

The Donald U
I could be rich. But then I'd be like Donald Trump, fawning, pleading, selling, cajoling. And I think nothing is worth that. By Jay Cross, Internet Time, August 23, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect] From OLDaily on August 23, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..

Talking with Stephen Downes about online learning and Web 2.0
I join the Ed Tech Posse for a conversation. Here's the MP3. By Rob Wall, The EdTech Posse, August 23, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect] Here From OLDaily on August 23, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..

Online Communities: Design, Theory, and Practice
Dieser Artikel bildet zwar "nur" die Einleitung zum Themenheft des aktuellen Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, aber er gibt einen lesenswerten Überblick über die Auseinandersetzung mit Online-Communities, die verschiedenen Perspektiven und Fragestellungen. Am wichtigsten erscheint mir der Hinweis darauf, dass es... From www.weiterbildungsblog.de on August 23, 2005 at 5:51 p.m..

Building a company
I never thought that doing that resembles an adventure game with too many lawyers involved. From thomas n. burg | randgänge on August 23, 2005 at 5:46 p.m..

Once a Booming Market, Educational Software for the PC Takes a Nose Dive
Die Grafik sagt eigentlich alles. Die Erklärung des Autoren: "What happened was an explosion of new, often free technologies competing to entertain and teach children. Young children have long been a primary audience for computer learning games. But with... From www.weiterbildungsblog.de on August 23, 2005 at 4:48 p.m..

Works Citing
I love when I can almost literally feel my brain cells reorienting to some new idea that springs from the Read/Write Web, and today it happened with Collin Brooke's post about Works Citing. I mean it's not a new concept; one of the basic principles of source testing these days is to see who is using the source and how. That's what trackback and Technorati are all about. And even Amazon has been getting into that act by gi From weblogged News on August 23, 2005 at 3:45 p.m..

Why This is Going to Take Longer Than Id Hoped
Davids post from a couple of days ago got me back into that think of what this could look like mode and started me speculating just what it was going to take to make it happen. There are days when I get into the flow of these technologies and think the sheer amazingness of what they can do should be enough to at least want to sip the Kool-Aid. And when David laid out the ways that he could see teachers changing their routines with RSS and blogs and the like, I was mostly nodding m From weblogged News on August 23, 2005 at 1:45 p.m..

Consumers Shopping Online For Cell Phone Plans
Though consumers ranked plan aggregator sites highly for customer experience, most have never heard of the aggregator sites. From ClickZ Stats on August 23, 2005 at 11:45 a.m..

20th Century Communications Tools
Over at AssortedStuff, Tim Stahmer has a great post about the current state of most school, and school district web sites and the thinking, or lack of, behind them...... It’s actually a very appropriate title since many school, and central office, sites are updated as often as most museums." From Education/Technology - Tim Lauer on August 23, 2005 at 10:48 a.m..

Japan project aims to create 3D TV by 2020 - Reuters
Imagine watching a football game on a TV that not only shows the players in three dimensions but also lets you experience the smells of the stadium and maybe even pat a goal scorer on the back. Japan plans to make this futuristic television a commercial r From Techno-News Blog on August 23, 2005 at 8:49 a.m..

How Mobile Phones Conquered Japan - Xeni Jardin, Wired
Blue-haired Harajuku high schoolers thumb-text distant pals on stickered keitai. Cell phones become cookie brokers, beaming snack requests to vending machines that zap back digital payment demands. Teen girls book illicit "compensation dates" with salarym From Techno-News Blog on August 23, 2005 at 8:49 a.m..

Colleges Test VoIP Cellphones - Jim Wagner, Internet News
Three universities are testing a new service from VeriSign that puts wireless phones on IP networks. Texas A&M, Northwestern University and the University of Michigan started trials of VeriSign's Wireless IP Connect Service earlier this week. The offerin From Techno-News Blog on August 23, 2005 at 8:49 a.m..

The Hard Work of Failure Analysis
From Harvard Working Knowledge newsletter: "In addition to the technical aspects of systematic analysis, discussing failures has important social and organizational benefits. First, discussion provides an opportunity for others who may not have been directly involved in the failure to learn from it. Second, others may bring new perspectives and insights that deepen the analysis and help to counteract self-serving biases that may color the perceptions of tho From elearningpost on August 23, 2005 at 8:46 a.m..

Information scent: helping people find the content they want
More on information scents, this time by Iain Barker of Step Two Designs. Barker solution is to offer more context to confusing labels (I call it the the Yahoo! style): "Identify the pages where users require more information to aid their decision.Typically this is the homepage and section pages. Devote part of the content area on each of these pages to giving more context to the navigation options the user has." From elearningpost on August 23, 2005 at 8:46 a.m..

I'm back online
After a two-week struggle to get my iBook running again I'm ready to resume my routine. But I still have lingering doubts on my hard disk - how come it fails so often? Is it because of some intrusion in the hard disk compartment or is it just my bad luck? I guess time will tell. From elearningpost on August 23, 2005 at 7:46 a.m..

Mapping An Information Architecture's Scent
From HOT Labs, Carleton University: "In this research I use the concept of scent as a framework in which to evaluate an information architecture's usefulness -how well it guides users to the target information. Evaluating an IA's usefulness required an approach for operationalizing scent, mapping multiple scent trails and measuring usefulness." From elearningpost on August 23, 2005 at 7:46 a.m..

Stem Cells We Can All Love
The successful fusion of adult skin cells and embryonic stem cells may pave the way for useful stem cells that don't require the destruction of human embryos. From Wired News on August 23, 2005 at 6:45 a.m..

Barring None, Geek Camp Rocks
An impromptu gathering draws a big crowd -- and some big names -- as disenfranchised geeks convene an alternative to O'Reilly's exclusive Foo weekend. Ryan Singel reports from Palo Alto, California. From Wired News on August 23, 2005 at 6:45 a.m..

Vamp Shooter Doesn't Totally Suck
Darkwatch isn't the best first-person shooter out there, but its bloodsucking main character and occult theme make for an original experience. Game review by Chris Kohler. From Wired News on August 23, 2005 at 6:45 a.m..

Reading Green Tea Leaves in Tokyo
Nick Currie, aka Momus, is a Scottish musician and writer living in Berlin. His first column for Wired News discusses Japanese vending machines, green tea and the nature of capitalism. From Wired News on August 23, 2005 at 6:45 a.m..

Drier Laundry Through Chemistry
A new recipe for laundry detergent using old ingredients can help rid clothes of more moisture during the spin cycle, and save some major cash. By Daithí Ó hAnluain. From Wired News on August 23, 2005 at 6:45 a.m..

Windows Got Ya Down? Try a Remix
File-sharing networks are teeming with remixed versions of Windows that claim to be better and more secure than Microsoft's own offerings. By Joel Johnson. From Wired News on August 23, 2005 at 6:45 a.m..

Rediseño de Bitacoras.net
El primer portal de weblogs en español Bitacoras.net, impulsado desde México por Eduardo Arcos, renueva su diseño y concentra su funcionalidad en un listado de blogs actualizados dejando de lado el directorio. Lo anuncia el propio Eduardo en Hipertextual y... From eCuaderno v.2.0 on August 23, 2005 at 4:47 a.m..

New Jersey Bans Smoking in All College Dormitories
Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey said smoking in dormitories was the second leading cause of fire injuries on campuses. From New York Times: Education on August 23, 2005 at 3:45 a.m..

Backer of Charter Schools Finds They Trail in Financing
Charter schools operate with thousands of dollars less per student than traditional public schools, according to a new study. From New York Times: Education on August 23, 2005 at 3:45 a.m..

Connecticut Sues the U.S. Over School Testing
Connecticut said the federal government's testing requirement will not help children but will cost the state millions. From New York Times: Education on August 23, 2005 at 3:45 a.m..

Link love: lists, clouds and action points
I was thinking of commenting on the unfolding discussion on link love since BlogHer, but couldn't find time to write it up properly (which for me required going through the fast-growing number of posts). Don't think I'll do it properly now, but given our work was Mathemagenic on August 23, 2005 at 1:47 a.m..

Back to School Reading
Prepare for back to school with recommended reading on critical issues including overcoming fears; shortening the degree process; getting financial aid; balancing school, work and family; adult learning; study skills and more. Books for Adult Students Books on Financial Aid... From Adult/Continuing Education on August 23, 2005 at 1:46 a.m..

Geotagging Flickr with Google Maps and Greasemonkey
EXCELLATRONIC COMMUNICATIONS: Geotagging Flickr with Google Maps and Greasemonkey Part 2: I have written about Greasemonkey, the Firefox browser extension that allows for the incorporation of user end scripts that modify or reformat web content. These scripts get installed on the user machine and can do everything from showing the availability of a book being browsed at Amazon at your local library, to striping out posts from specific authors at sites such as BoingBoing. From Education/Technology - Tim Lauer on August 23, 2005 at 1:45 a.m..