Next Textbooks are…
Dave Warlick, 2¢ Worth, June 28, 2011.

Dave Warlick weighs in with a nice list comparing new and old generation textbooks. True, everybody is jumping on the 'new textbook' bandwagon these days, but this list draws out the education-specific differences between the two, and does so in a way that not only considers the technological changes, but also the social changes around textbook production.

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Sophia
Various Authors, Website, June 28, 2011.

From the about page: "Sophia is a social teaching and learning platform that taps the teacher in all of us and enhances the learning process by providing access to a wealth of knowledge, help, instruction, standards-aligned content, and expertise available to learners everywhere." But as Mark Barnes says in the comments to this video, "In it's current form, it is nothing more than a supplemental tool -- by no means the future of education. Since research indicates that adding objectives in a way students can understand them is crucial to learning, I like this feature, along with graphics and videos (although some videos are simple and may bore students)."

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Google’s Facebook Competitor, The Google+ Social Network, Finally Arrives
Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land, June 28, 2011.

Danny Sullivan has very little good to say about Google+, Google's new social networking platform, starting with the name. "Google+? Google+! I can’t even question or exclaim about the bad name without it looking bad in writing. Pronounced 'Google Plus,' the product is officially written as Google+" making placing any punctuation after the name fairly awkward. Seriously, I’m cursing whoever made the final decision to go with Google+ as a name." But the main problem is that it's Google. Do we really want Google to be out social networking platform as well as our search engine. As John Gruber says, "Like Microsoft in its heyday, Google seems not just willing but downright eager to take on any competitor with a successful platform." Ben Werdmuller, by contrast, sees good things in Google+, saying "I think Google+ is going to be strongest in the area where Facebook is weakest: small to medium businesses."

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You Need a Social Identity and Space to Join
Dennis Calahan, Learnstreaming, June 28, 2011.

The headline could be (and should be) rewritten: "In order to join, you need a social identity, and you need a space." Or as this post puts it, "When joining online, you need an identity that can join. Your actual physical presence is not online. You’re probably sitting (standing, lying down) somewhere and transmitting your thoughts though a device (computer, phone, tablet) into this digital world."

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