Edu_Rss

Learning a language from riding the subway
The best way to learn a new language quickly and for free: ride the subway!! I discovered this trick when I was in Berlin in October, 2001. It was my second trip to Germany but my first in nearly ten years. I didn't speak any German, nor did I have any idea even how to pronounce much. But I took the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn, and as we arrived at every station I listened to the announcement and looked at the corresponding name of the station. It's amazing how much you can learn by riding the public transport in one week. Not only did I learn the words for "exit", "left", and "right" b From megnut on November 16, 2005 at 10:45 p.m..

Katrina's silver lining: school reform
Many of New Orleans' public schools were in disarray before Katrina hit, and are now seeing resurgence. From Christian Science Monitor | Learning on November 16, 2005 at 6:45 p.m..

Shoppers Shift to Online
Online shopping makes gains on bricks-and-mortar, with a large portion of shoppers buying during work hours. From ClickZ Stats on November 16, 2005 at 5:45 p.m..

Distance Learning " Social Software
It's funny. Terry Anderson describes distance learning as social software's killer app, while I describe social software as distance learning's killer app. Difference in perspective, I guess. Anyhow, this article begins with a short outline of Anderson's social presence theory (good reading if it's new to you) and an overview of social software. The bulk of the article then describes applications of social software in learning, wrapping up with Me2U, an application developed at Athabasca University. [ From OLDaily on November 16, 2005 at 4:45 p.m..

The Magic Umu? Open and Distance Learning in Three Pacific , Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia
The three nations are Samoa, Papua New Guinea and Kiribati. But it is the lesson learned that should be remembered: "The ability of ODL to contribute to better results depends on a deepunderstanding that:1. context is everything;2. diagnosing the problem is the essential starting point;3. education and training specialists need to focus their practice on capacitydevelopment;and4. donors can be part of the problem as well as part of the solution." [ From OLDaily on November 16, 2005 at 4:45 p.m..

Tools of the Trade: Learning Technologies for Distance Learners , Open and Distance Learning Association
"No society has ever had to deal with tools as massively powerful as those that are emerging now," writes Williams. "The convergence of new learning technologies promises to realign our Nation From OLDaily on November 16, 2005 at 4:45 p.m..

Connexions 'Rhaptos' Software Released , EdTechPost
This is good news and something people have been waiting for. "The folks at Connexions have released the software that powers that site as open source code, so presumably you can now run your own instance if you wanted." [ From OLDaily on November 16, 2005 at 4:45 p.m..

Project Inkwell Drafts Specs for School Tech , ESchool News
I really don't like the way this item is written, sounding more like press copy than a news article. But the topic it covers is significfant: Project Inkwell will define 'one-to-one' technology specifications for schools. What that means wasn't really defined (instead, we got quotes like: "There is just something wrong with taking a business-built device and putting it in the hands of a seventh-grader"). Still, there's enough here to get the gist. [ From OLDaily on November 16, 2005 at 4:45 p.m..

Radio Diaries
People who are podcasting - or who are thinking about podcasting - will find this link highlighted by Albert Delgado to be of use. The advice looks solid, and even if you don't do everything, keeping the points in mind will help your recordings. I especially like this: "Show, don't tellGood tour guides do more than just talk, they show. There are tricks for 'showing' things on the radio. You can actually point to objects, for example: 'over there on the sidewalk is a big blue dog.' Even though the listener can't see the dog, a space is created in our imagina From OLDaily on November 16, 2005 at 4:45 p.m..

OSS Watch Releases Guide to the GPL
Stuart Yeates reports, "OSS Watch have just released their latest IPR document, an overview and guide to the GPL. This is their sixth licence-specific document and sits beside their documents on ownership and licensing issues , software patents and dual licensing." I really like what OSS Watch is up to and I saw a presentation today where they described their process. Interesting. [ From OLDaily on November 16, 2005 at 4:45 p.m..

UNESCO Virtual Conference--Session Two Summary
Summary of the second session of the UNESCO conference on open education. David Wiley: "When educational materials can be electronically copied and transferred around the world at almost no cost, we have a greater ethical obligation than ever before to increase the reach of opportunity." [ From OLDaily on November 16, 2005 at 4:45 p.m..

Introduction to Social Network Methods
I haven't read this but it looks great. "This on-line textbook introduces many of the basics of formal approaches to the analysis of social networks. The text relies heavily on the work of Freeman, Borgatti, and Everett (the authors of the UCINET software package)." Via From OLDaily on November 16, 2005 at 4:45 p.m..

ECAR Study of Students and Information Technology 2005 , Educause
The EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR)has come out with its 2005 study on students and information technology. From OLDaily on November 16, 2005 at 4:45 p.m..

Open Learning and the Metauniversity
My talk at the Open Source for Education in Europe, organized by the SIGOSSEE and JOIN projects, in conjunction with the Open University of the Netherlands. Here are the From OLDaily on November 16, 2005 at 4:45 p.m..

Palfrey on being filtered in Tunisia
John Palfrey of the Berkman is in Tunisia for the WSIS meeting and writes about the need for the Open Net Initiative. Ethan also writes about the general infophobia of the conference itself. The Berkman Center has in fact just posted the latest in its reports on what sites particular countries are blocking. This report's subject: Tunisia. Andy Carvin is rounding up blog reports from the conference. [Tags: wsis JohnPalfrey EthanZuckerman AndyCarvin regulation UN berkman]]... From Joho the Blog on November 16, 2005 at 2:47 p.m..

Doc and hope
Doc's posted a great (and longish) piece on saving our Internet. He cogently lays out the threats from the carriers. His solution is important and right but, I'm afraid, not enough. Changing how we speak — reframing the issues — takes longer than we have. Plus, this particular framing is entangled with deep and deeply-motivated cognitive-economic systems being driven by the most powerful frame-makers in our culture: The media and government. So, yes, reframe! Never ever ever utter the phrase "intellectual property" again, for example. But I fear that we need much more tha From Joho the Blog on November 16, 2005 at 2:47 p.m..

More Ed Bloggers
Lately, there's been a small but growing group of classroom educators who have been simply inspiring in the things they're blogging about, and I think there are a couple others to add to the list. In no particular order, Clarence Fisher, Darren Kuropatwa, Bud Hunt, Konrad Glogowski and Dean Shareski have been teaching me a lo From weblogged News on November 16, 2005 at 2:46 p.m..

eLearning Summit session 1
I’m participating in the eLearning Summit at the FedEx Institute this week. My institution (the University of Memphis) houses one of the nation’s four Advanced Distributed Learning Labs. Ours is the ADL Workforce co-lab. At this week-long summit, a number of SCORM and authoring tools experts will be speaking. These are my live notes below. I’ll [...] From Martindale Matrix on November 16, 2005 at 12:48 p.m..

elearning summit session 2
My running notes… *Brandt Dargue, project engineer, Boeing. “Integrating SCORM compliant content with standards-based simulations”. *Perry McDowell demonstrates Delta3D open source gaming and simulation engine. Brent Smith, CTO, Engineering & Computer Simulations, Inc. Sounds like a great idea—an open source system for bringing in content from Studio 3D Max, etc. and creating a simulation. *Bruce Roberts, division scientist, [...] From Martindale Matrix on November 16, 2005 at 12:48 p.m..

elearning summit session 3
My running notes… Dexter Fletcher, Institute for Defense Analysis, opening remarks. Eric Roberts, moderator. Tom Murray, University of Massachusetts, talks about advanced authoring tools. He has an edited book on authoring tools. $183. wow. Kurt Van Lehn, University of Pittsburg. Andes physics tutor. From Martindale Matrix on November 16, 2005 at 12:48 p.m..

Help Needed with Wireless Printing
I rarely do this, but I'm hoping I can tap this network for some ideas on coming up with a solution to a problem we can't seem to solve here at my school. We have two wireless laptop carts that teachers sign out for student use. For a variety of reasons, we don't want to give students access to the full list of printer options on campus, but for some reason, we can't seem to find a way to allow them to print to a wirelessly networked printer resting on the cart that would be moving between access points and changing channels. There is no access point on the cart. Thanks From weblogged News on November 16, 2005 at 12:46 p.m..

A lot of good (but invisible) intranet folk
I'm really enjoying the KMWorld & Intranets conference, most of all the discussions with other content management and intranet people. What these recent conferences have really highlighted to me is that there is actually a fair bit of intranet expertise... From Column Two on November 16, 2005 at 12:45 p.m..

Palfrey on being filtered in Tunisia
John Palfrey of the Berkman is in Tunisia for the WSIS meeting and writes about the need for the Open Net Initiative. Ethan also writes about the general infophobia of the conference itself. The Berkman Center has in fact just posted the latest in its reports on what sites particular countries are blocking. This report's subject: Tunisia. Andy Carvin is rounding up blog reports from the conference. [Tags: wsis JohnPalfrey EthanZuckerman AndyCarvin regulation UN]... From Joho the Blog on November 16, 2005 at 10:48 a.m..

Support EFF's Fight For Bloggers' Rights
If you're a blogger, you should thank EFF for the many ways in which it's fighting for your rights.  Lucky for you, you can do so by participating in a special membership campaign that's kicking off today. Here's the announcement: "Here at EFF, we're fighting hard for bloggers' rights. We've created the Legal Guide for Bloggers, we're litigating the reporter From A Copyfighter's Musings on November 16, 2005 at 10:48 a.m..

Hardware woes
My Thinkpad is scheduled to go back to the shop on Thursday. A 5-hour chkdsk session seems to have cleared up some of the disk issues. The remaining problems are: 1. USB ports don't work. They don't even work on boot up, so it is not a Windows driver issue. 2. The IBM rescue partition doesn't load. 3. Performance is worse than sluggish because a process called System (not System Idle) takes up 99% of my CPU. (The System process apparently is a catchall for kernel threads.) Sigh. PS: Unless you will personally warrantee the Mac you want me to... From Joho the Blog on November 16, 2005 at 9:47 a.m..

New Games Swamp Store Shelves
It's an embarrassment of retail riches! Plus: Game humor site calls for blue skies, bananas and more happy crap. From the Wired News blog Game|Life. From Wired News on November 16, 2005 at 8:45 a.m..

Sony Numbers Add Up to Trouble
How widespread is the damage from Sony's XCP rootkit software? New statistical evidence says 568,200 networks, including military and government targets, likely contain at least one infected machine. By Quinn Norton. From Wired News on November 16, 2005 at 8:45 a.m..

A Podcast Star Is Born
Richard Bluestein, aka Madge Weinstein, has traded his tech support career for a turn as a foul-mouthed lesbian in Adam Curry's PodShow circus. Steve Friess reports from Ontario, California. From Wired News on November 16, 2005 at 8:45 a.m..

Hacking the Hybrid Vehicle
Would consumers welcome modifications that increase their hybrid car's fuel efficiency to 100 miles per gallon? Some experts say most people wouldn't want to deal with plugging them in every day. By John Gartner. From Wired News on November 16, 2005 at 8:45 a.m..

Guitar Hero Rocks Out
Pick up the custom guitar controller and live out your rock-star fantasies -- no matter whether you prefer Ozzy, Queen or Clapton. Game review by Chris Kohler. From Wired News on November 16, 2005 at 8:45 a.m..

The Sex Machines Next Door
A new photo book takes a look at the shockingly normal people who build sex machines like The Thumpstir and The Gangbang in their suburban garages. By Xeni Jardin. From Wired News on November 16, 2005 at 8:45 a.m..

Women Warm the Podcast Bench
The podcast industry skews heavily toward male performers and listeners, data shows. Pundits blame insularity, the geek factor and internet creeps. By Steve Friess. Plus: A Podcast Star Is Born. From Wired News on November 16, 2005 at 8:45 a.m..

Net Dust Storm Blows Into Tunis
As delegates arrive in this desert port to debate the future of the internet, an isolated U.S. prepares to fend off global calls to end its grip over key functions that keep the network humming. Kevin Poulsen reports from Tunis, Tunisia. From Wired News on November 16, 2005 at 8:45 a.m..

Thai massage and the worrier
Nearly everyone I've ever spoken to who's been to Thailand says, "Oh! When you go, you've got to get a Thai massage, they're AMAZING and like only five dollars!!!" So while we were in Hong Kong, as my feet swelled and hurt from so much walking and my backache strengthened from lugging my camera around all day, I told myself to be patient, to wait for Thai massage in Bangkok. All would be put right. Today we finally found a spot and asked for foot massage and Thai massage - nearly two hours of massage for 300 baht each, or ~US$7. You'd think I would have enjoyed it. From megnut on November 16, 2005 at 6:45 a.m..

On Education: Test Prep Help for Students Who Can't Afford Kaplan
A nonprofit program aims to give 600 poor teenagers a year the kind of edge that wealthy students routinely enjoy. From New York Times: Education on November 16, 2005 at 2:45 a.m..

Nassau Prosecutor Calls Roslyn Plea Bargain Too Lenient
The former auditor, Andrew Miller, pleaded guilty on to a felony charge of tampering with public records. From New York Times: Education on November 16, 2005 at 2:45 a.m..

Gifted Classes Will Soon Use Uniform Test, Klein Decides
Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein's decision came despite weeks of angry resistance from parents on the Upper West Side. From New York Times: Education on November 16, 2005 at 2:45 a.m..

Cisco declares Wi-Fi mesh war - Peter Judge, Techworld
The temperature in mesh networking will increase next week, as Cisco jumps into the market. On Monday Cisco will launch an outdoor Wi-Fi mesh product designed to sit on lamposts and create outdoor Wi-Fi hotzones. Tropos, the company that is already involv From Techno-News Blog on November 15, 2005 at 11:49 p.m..

Podcast trend on rise - Scott Sims, Morris News Service
Have you ever wanted to host your own talk show? It's not as far-fetched an idea as it might have been just a few years ago. With a computer and some software, a new phenomenon called podcasting is making it easy for anyone to post audio and video program From Techno-News Blog on November 15, 2005 at 11:49 p.m..