Edu_Rss

Keyser Soze and Organizational Learning
I watched The Usual Suspects again last week. I just love this movie. This time around I couldn't help linking the way Keyser Soze, Kevin Spacey's character, conjured up the story in the interrogation room with the way experts make sense of novel situations. In the movie, Keyser Soze, one of the two survivors of a waterfront massacre, is grilled by an officer. The interrogation takes place in a police officer's room which has the usual information snippets, newspaper clips and mug shots stuck all o From elearningpost on December 5, 2004 at 10:46 p.m..

The List...
THE list Originally uploaded by lydiamaria. My oldest daughter's list of what still needs to get done before she can come home from college for winter break...... From Education/Technology - Tim Lauer on December 5, 2004 at 9:50 p.m..

My Bad
For taking the Lord's name in vain. While stringing up the lights intended to celebrate His son's birth, when said lights fell from the roof for the fourth time. From Brain Frieze on December 5, 2004 at 8:56 p.m..

The Edublog Award
The Teaching and Developing Online blog has been nominated for three awards at the edublog awards. (by me) The three categories that it has been nominted in are: Best Resource Sharing Blog Best Designed and most Beautiful Blog and the... From Teaching and Developing Online. on December 5, 2004 at 8:55 p.m..

'Blog' word of year - Webster's Dictionary
Oh this is so cool ....'Blog' No. 1 word of the year :"A four-letter term that came to symbolize the difference between old and new media during this year's presidential campaign tops U.S. dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster's list of the 10 words of the year.Merriam-Webster Inc. said on Tuesday that blog, defined as "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks," was one of the m From Seblogging News on December 5, 2004 at 8:50 p.m..

Groove Goes Mobile: PopG Does It Again
PopG, the company that makes Groove Virtual Office accessible to Macs and Linux PCs announces today another breakthrough solution by providing mobile users on Palm devices direct access to Groove hotsync capability and key features.... From Kolabora.com on December 5, 2004 at 7:54 p.m..

Time to Vote
The nominations are closed and the polls are open for the 2004 Edublog awards. I’m flattered to say that e-Literate has been nominated for Best Newcomer and Best Designed and Most Beautiful Blog. Go vote! From e-Literate on December 5, 2004 at 6:58 p.m..

Webfeed Grab Bag, Dec. 5
Here are a few items related to webfeeds that caught my attention over the past month. TOP OF THIS LIST: "Bad Syndication," CMS Webmaster, Oct. 11. Excellent advice on which kinds of content do and don't work well in a webfeed, and why. (Read the rest of this list...) From Contentious Weblog on December 5, 2004 at 6:55 p.m..

European Broadband Use Growing at Expense of TV
The online universe in Europe jumped 12 percent in 2004, passing the 100 million mark with some 54 million users -- up from 34 million -- on broadband, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Jupiter Research says much of that growth is at the expense of TV with 40 percent of the broadband-enabled respondents to one of their surveys saying they're skipping some TV in favor of the computer.Related -- High-Speed Use Changing UK Habits (pdf) From unmediated on December 5, 2004 at 5:55 p.m..

Podcasting Goes Mainstream
: Still no viable business model for podcasting although lots of folks are trying. Meanwhile, podcasting is getting lots of ink and bytes. Newsweek calls it "Tivo for Your iPod" in the headline for a Web-only article; Ben Hammersley writes that some see it as "the beginning of a revolution in homegrown media."(reg. req.) It doesn't hurt that leader of the pack Adam Curry is both photogenic and quotable. Beyond the press coverage, podcasting should also get a boost from the step-up in sales for MP3 players and From unmediated on December 5, 2004 at 5:55 p.m..

Java Yahoo instant messenger libraries
jYMSG is released under the GNU General Public License. It is a SourceForge.net project that has gained a significant following due to the ease of use of its API. However, it is not endorsed or supported by Yahoo! Inc. It abstracts the more complex underlying interaction with Yahoo's publicly released API. From unmediated on December 5, 2004 at 5:55 p.m..

Contrarian finding: Computers are a drag on learning
Researchers found that performance in math and reading suffered among students who have more than one computer at home. From Christian Science Monitor | Learning on December 5, 2004 at 5:45 p.m..

Cell phones say hello to satellite radio
Expect to see satellite radio and cell phone services converging within five years, XM Satellite Radio chief executive officer Hugh Panero says, reports News.com"Panero said he believed portable a satellite radio player would eventually be combined with a digital music player Digital agenda"Clearly, convergence will occur at some point. It will happen even without our effort because people are beginning to build MP3 capability into a lot of consumer electronic From unmediated on December 5, 2004 at 4:48 p.m..

openqtj: OpenQTJ Project Page
The current release of QuickTime for Java can be challenging for beginners. We hope to provide help for both beginners and experienced QTJ developers to make a very powerful API more accessible and easier to use. From unmediated on December 5, 2004 at 4:48 p.m..

Video History Project
The Experimental Television Center s Video History Project is an on-going research initiative which documents video art and community television, as it evolved in rural and urban New York State, and across the US. From unmediated on December 5, 2004 at 4:48 p.m..

Radio Recorder - Record Internet Radio stations under MacOSX as MP3 files
RadioRecorder lets you take a selection of your favourite internet radio stations along with you. RadioRecorder is released under a GPL. From unmediated on December 5, 2004 at 4:48 p.m..

[no title]
The feedmesh group at Yahoo is working on a distributed system for weblog pinging. It wasn't started in a very nice way, but now they seem to have turned the corner. If you're interested in pinging systems like weblogs.com, check it out. At some point we're going to need a distribut From unmediated on December 5, 2004 at 4:48 p.m..

Liquid Lenses For Camera Phones
In this article, the Register writes that "camera phones will soon have lenses made from nothing more substantial that a couple of drops of oil and water, but will still be capable of auto focusing, and even zooming in on subjects." The lenses, developed by the French company Varioptic, contain drops of oil and water, acting respectively as conductor and insulator, and sandwiched between two windows. These liquid lenses could replace glass or plastic ones because of se From unmediated on December 5, 2004 at 4:48 p.m..

Delicious Library
This application simply rocks: Delicious Library You can hold a book with a barcode in front of your iSight camera and it automatically gets added to a virtual book shelf (with thumbnail, price tag and summary). You can then create and export sub-collections. I would have bought this application for $40 instantly - if only the export function would be more than a tab delimited ASCII file and the "my info" information would be more powerful. From owrede_log on December 5, 2004 at 3:47 p.m..

Experience as a Distance Learning Teacher Makes You a Better Classroom Teacher
According to a faculty satisfaction study [DOC] conducted by SLN, a whopping 85% of their faculty reported that their experience as online teachers “will have a positive effect on their classroom instruction.” Here is their explanation for their findings: From e-Literate on December 5, 2004 at 2:58 p.m..

CED Magazine Wall Charts
CED Magazine's most recent Wall Chart (warning, they're PDFs) covers North American VOD deployments showing VOD markets and what vendors are in them. Also, take a look at the Fiber Topology Comparison from October (same link as above). Pretty wild infographics. From unmediated on December 5, 2004 at 2:55 p.m..

Is Open Source in Your CMS Future?
(12/5/04) Syllabus. As course management systems have matured, they have encompassed wider functionality, and been integrated with numerous other campus systems. As with most large and complex systems, the unbundling of service and software components can produce greater opportunities for efficiencies and customization. [from http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/onlinelearning/archive/2004_12_05_archive.html#110224627818937623] From Edutools News: Course Management Systems on December 5, 2004 at 1:50 p.m..

Interview with Caterina Fake from Flickr
Engadget Interview with Caterina Fake from Flickr: "Flickr is quickly becoming one of the most popular &ampldquo;moblog&amprdquo; and photo sharing site, is it the interface? The APIs? Caterina talks about this and more! Do you plan to support video in the future? We would like to support short-form video &ampmdash; like the kind of video you can take with your digital camera. This is something I have been wondering about. Am glad to see they plan to offer this. With many of the digital cameras, short form video can be used very effectively to create short pieces for posting. I... From Education/Technology - Tim Lauer on December 5, 2004 at 1:50 p.m..

Pine for OS X
My colleague Josh Larios has put together a version of the UW's Pine email client for OS X. While Pine isn't the prettiest email client in the world, being bascially a character-baased unix terminal application, it is very full-functioned, including features that I haven't seen in any other email client I use - like being able to search all the messages in a folder for any participaing in the mail (including To:, From:, Cc:). Pine also allows you to keep your address books and configuration info in From Oren Sreebny's Weblog on December 5, 2004 at 1:00 p.m..

Blog as a way-back machine
Every time it's a very strange feeling: finding a two years back post and realising that my today's ideas have roots in the past. Themes from that particular post: learning from process, apprenticeship, visualising traces... And, before I forget it again - Harri-Augstein and Thomas (1991) quoted by Sebastian Fiedler: To the extent that a person becomes aware of his or her processes of construction and take From Mathemagenic on December 5, 2004 at 12:51 p.m..

D'Souza on authenticity
ToTheSource has sent out a brief essay by Dinesh D'Souza that gives some insight into the conservative majority's point of view. I find myself agreeing with much of it, but then feel dismay and disappointment as D'Souza swerves, betraying a contempt for those with whom he disagrees. (I can't find the essay online — what's up with that, ToTheSource?) He quickly traces the historical/philosophical roots of the notion that morality is grounded in following one's inner voice. In his narrative, our inner voice gets increasingly removed from the larger, outer voic From Joho the Blog on December 5, 2004 at 11:48 a.m..

Holiday present for an aspiring cook
Over the next few weeks, I may or may not continue to recommend things I love for your holiday gift consideration. But today I offer Tom Colicchio's Think Like a Chef. Mr. Colicchio is chef/owner of both (the amazing and yummy!) Gramercy Tavern and Craft, in New York City. This cookbook is less about recipes -- though it certainly has them -- and more about cooking technique and philosophy, enabling the reader to actually learn by doing rather than simply follow a list and instructions. I've found it very useful and informative and it's quickly become one of my favorites on my c From megnut on December 5, 2004 at 11:45 a.m..

Book giving ideas
Not from me this time, though if I read more new books I would recommend some too you. This one comes from the New York Times: 100 Notable Books of the Year. This year the [New York Times] Book Review has selected 100 Notable Books from those reviewed since the Holiday Books issue of Dec. 7, 2003. Sadly I've only read one on the entire list, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan, the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America, which was great. Sadly, 2004 has been my most pathetic year for reading. I used to read the number of books I've read this year From megnut on December 5, 2004 at 11:45 a.m..

Ovid Technologies and MuseGlobal, Inc. have announced a partnership to offer academic and medical in ...
Ovid Technologies and MuseGlobal, Inc. have announced a partnership to offer academic and medical institutions as well as corporations an alternative, cost-effective federated search solution. This ASP (application service provider) packaged solution will be scalable to incorporate any range of content sources including commercially available databases, local information and internet resources. The federated search system will feature administrative t From Peter Scott's Library Blog on December 5, 2004 at 10:48 a.m..

Readers needing to use the British Library's collections can apply for a Reader Pass on proof of the ...
Readers needing to use the British Library's collections can apply for a Reader Pass on proof of their signature and their home address directly from the Library's main site in St Pancras in London or from Boston Spa in Yorkshire. There is no charge to become a British Library reader and use the reading rooms and collections From Peter Scott's Library Blog on December 5, 2004 at 10:48 a.m..

The manuscript of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's unpublished first novel, The Narrative of John Smith, goe ...
The manuscript of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's unpublished first novel, The Narrative of John Smith, goes on display for the first time, along with letters, photographs, diaries and other previously unseen material, at the British Library from 2 December until 31 January 2005 From Peter Scott's Library Blog on December 5, 2004 at 10:48 a.m..

It takes a train to laugh
Back from Detroit and leaving for Boston, where I'll help some friends put on a show. While I'm away, check out Eric Meyer's Simple Standards-based Slide Show System, which lets you turn a single page into an unlimited number of virtual "slides," complete with Back and Next buttons and a self-generating navigational drop-down menu. (I'm using it to format the speech I'll give in Boston, and I never use stuff that is hard to understand or work with.) From Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report on December 5, 2004 at 10:48 a.m..

more thoughts on similarities between software packages
Electronic portfolios, weblogs, social bookmarking tools, learning object repositories, and many of the other technologies we play with today--they're all the same. They are all, essentially, content management systems. They're databases. We store our thoughts, our pictures, our documents, our conversations. When we put something in them, we "tag" them with some information that we hope will help us retrieve them at some point in the future. The most exciting applications, however, attempt to use the social network of participants to create windows into the collection. Keywords, r From Stand Up Eight on December 5, 2004 at 10:02 a.m..

Firefox and Thunderbird to go
Charlie Lowe reports of thumb drive versions of the popular browser (Firefox) and mail client (Thunderbird). From Open Artifact on December 5, 2004 at 9:59 a.m..

Do good to others
We are here on Earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know. W. H. Auden From Open Artifact on December 5, 2004 at 9:59 a.m..

Barriers to Entry
I did some blogvangelism yesterday at the Educational Media Association of NJ conference for about 40 or so library specialists. The cool thing was that I co-presented with the librarian from my school, and we gave them a pretty comprehensive overview of how blogs are being used in schools and libraries. We had a lot of people asking questions and running ideas by us, and it was obvious, as it usually is, that this was a technology they could see using with their teachers and students. Except for a lack of tech support, From weblogged News on December 5, 2004 at 9:47 a.m..

Wikinews And The Growing Wikimedia Empire
After almost two months of deliberation and voting, the Wikimedia Foundation has now officially launched the Wikinews project in English and German editions. More languages will follow soon. Wikinews aims to be to news media what Wikipedia is to encyclopedias: a free, comprehensive and, eventually, reliable source of information, collaboratively created by volunteers around the planet. Wikinews explicitly allows original reporting, making it somewhat similar to Indymedia, while adhering to a strict Neutral Point of View policy. Read on to find out what the Wikimedia community has accomplis From kuro5hin.org on December 5, 2004 at 9:45 a.m..

Participatory Journalism Spreading
I'm sorry to say that I've kind of dropped the ball on our local journalism project. In all honesty, I've just got too many things going on to give it the time it needs, and I was hoping that someone would kind of pick up the idea and run with it. I think Jeff has been way too busy too. The good news is that local community journalism seems to be gaining in momentum. Cyberjournalist.net asks "A Local Media Revolution?" and goes on to link to a number of sites where the latest media model is to collect news and views from resident From weblogged News on December 5, 2004 at 8:47 a.m..

Why it makes sense to do both expert review and usability testing
Kathleen Straub has written an article comparing expert reviews with usability testing. To quote: It is true that Expert Review (ER) can be executed more quickly than Usability Testing (UT). But, that has nothing to do with how comprehensive the... From Column Two on December 5, 2004 at 8:47 a.m..

Analysts: Expect More Ad Server Attacks - Tim Gray, Internet News
Security analysts said recent attacks on several high-profile European Web sites, through compromised ad servers, is a sign of more trouble to come as hackers take aim at launching viruses in unique ways. "Instead of only defacing the Web site, they From Techno-News Blog on December 5, 2004 at 7:50 a.m..

Web sites click on campus - Claire Bourne, USA TODAY
Gone are the days when "new faces" booklets were the sole directories to greet college students on campus in the fall. Today, a new breed of directory Web sites is proliferating on campuses, and students across the country " nearly 1 million of them From Techno-News Blog on December 5, 2004 at 7:50 a.m..

Wikipedia Creators Move Into News - Joanna Glasner, Wired
After doing much in recent years to revolutionize the way an encyclopedia can be built and maintained, the team behind Wikipedia is attempting to apply its collaborative information-gathering model to journalism. Through a new effort, Wikinews, member From Techno-News Blog on December 5, 2004 at 7:49 a.m..

Technology provides overseas learning - Ashley Harper, WALB-TV
Janice Daugharty is sitting in a classroom at Valdosta State University, sharing creative writing ideas with students in Bourneamouth, United Kingdom. "It's wonderful to come into this 21st century classroom, have all this equipment set up where I can From Online Learning Update on December 5, 2004 at 7:49 a.m..

Resources Needed to Make Evaluation Work - Jack J. Phillips, Patricia Pulliam Phillips, and Toni Krucky Hodges, Learning Circuits
This excerpt from the new ASTD Press book, Make Training Evaluation Work, outlines the technology (both hardware and software) and time requirements needed to implement evaluation, as well as the budgetary requirements to make it successful. From Online Learning Update on December 5, 2004 at 7:49 a.m..

Is Open Source in Your CMS Future? - Syllabus
As course management systems have matured, they have encompassed wider functionality, and been integrated with numerous other campus systems. As with most large and complex systems, the unbundling of service and software components can produce greate From Online Learning Update on December 5, 2004 at 7:49 a.m..

Heisenberg usability principle
Tom Chi has written an article on the "observer effect" within usability testing, where the testing environment influences the way participants behave. To quote: I don't know of studies that have been run to quantify this effect, but from testing... From Column Two on December 5, 2004 at 7:47 a.m..

Translating categories, translating terms
Peter van Dijck has written a number of blog entries on international information architecture in general, and translating taxonomies in specific. To quote: In the UK, they are in the process of revising the two BS Standards on mono- and... From Column Two on December 5, 2004 at 7:47 a.m..

Using search log analysis to predict the future
Lou Rosenfeld has written a blog entry on using search logs to predict future interest. To quote: If a company name shows up with great frequency in the search logs but hasn't been covered recently in FT articles, it may... From Column Two on December 5, 2004 at 6:45 a.m..

Levels of online courses; Where is yours?
Putting on the cyber glasses I start to sort the courses into levels Online courses can be divided into four different levels. These four different levels are not determined by the LMS used, they are determined by the developers approach.... From Teaching and Developing Online. on December 5, 2004 at 4:54 a.m..

Student Files Left at Curbside Were Meant for the Shredder
Hundreds of pages of confidential special education records were left on a curbside outside a Department of Education office last month when they should have been shredded. From New York Times: Education on December 5, 2004 at 4:45 a.m..

On the Bus, Going Round and Round
For special education parents, who often have every minute of their child's day planned out, the bus trip to school is the day's weak link. From New York Times: Education on December 5, 2004 at 4:45 a.m..

Study Faults Abstinence Courses
Some federally financed sex education programs that teach an abstinence-only approach have factual errors and are ineffective, a Congressional report says. From New York Times: Education on December 5, 2004 at 4:45 a.m..

College Board Asks Group Not to Post Test Analysis
The College Board, which owns the SAT college entrance exam, is demanding that a group critical of standardized tests remove from its Web site data that breaks down scores by race, income and sex. From New York Times: Education on December 5, 2004 at 4:45 a.m..

God, American History and a Fifth-Grade Class
A teacher has turned the Declaration of Independence into a powerful tool for the Christian right in its battle against secularist teaching of history. From New York Times: Education on December 5, 2004 at 4:45 a.m..

Choosing a College Major: For Love or for the Money?
Many students and career counselors say the pressure to choose the "right" major is more intense than ever because of factors like rising tuition costs and the uncertain economy. From New York Times: Education on December 5, 2004 at 4:45 a.m..

Securing Physical Access and Environmental Services for Datacenters
An excellent paper discussing ISO17799 and best practices for securing datacenters. All too often this topic is overlooked, and this paper is an excellent reference! From Infosec Writers Latest Security Papers on December 5, 2004 at 1:46 a.m..