July 11, 2011
Using Linked Data and jQuery Mobile to produce a podcast explorer web app
Liam Green-Hughes,
GreenHughes.com, July 11, 2011.
This is really cool. Basically the idea is that an application extracts data from the Open University's Linked Data store and formats it with the JQuery mobile web library to create a web app that allows you to select and listen to podcasts. It does require a specific library, but as the author says the site could easily be adapted to use other stores, maybe even more than one store. And maybe one day (in my ideal open web world) any website at all (using RSS). "Thanks to the use of jQuery Mobile it would even be possible to take the site and embed it in a thin app on the phone to make it look a bit like a native app."
CS101 - Introduction to Computing Principles
Francisco Cai and Nick Parlante ,
Stanford University, July 11, 2011.
This is pretty interesting. It's a Stanford Computer Science 101 class being taught in Javascript... in Javascript. Take a look at this page, for example. You can see the instruction and the Javascript examples both in the same page. This is nifty use of Javascript to teach Javascript.
Future Work Skills 2020
Institute for the Future,
The University of Phoenix Research Institute, July 11, 2011.
The 10 Skills are:
1. Sense Making
2. Social Intelligence
3. Novel and Adaptive Thinking
4. Cross-Cultural Competency
5. Computational Thinking
6. New-Media Literacy
7. Transdisciplinarity
8. Design Mindset
9. Cognitive Loadset
10. Virtual Collaboration
New technologies in a restricted environments
Gerald Henzinger,
Vimeo, July 11, 2011.
I played this presentation and some of the music and sounds from the enlumen.net blog on Ed Radio today. Gerald Henzinger, who works in Beira, Mozambique, presents on how new technologies are being sued in restricted learning environments such as are found in that country. Here are the slides. Conditions are difficult - power is often off and at one point there was no internet for three weeks - but growth of the program is exponential. The students are mostly adults, most men, and mostly employed (and therefore cannot study full-time). Though many had access to a computer, 99 percent of them had mobile phones and could use SMS.
Network Theories of Power - Manuel Castells
Manuel Castells ,
YouTube, July 11, 2011.
Excellent talk looking at network power and finding many of the same critical points I do (and expressing them far more articulately).
- one form of power is gatekeeping - keeping people out of the network exerts power over people
- the power of the standards or protocols of communication, determining rules of inclusion once in the network
- network power, which is composed of coercive power (the power to intimidate) and persuasive power (the power to construct meaning)
This leads to a theory of 'network-making power', which has two forms: first, the ability to create the network in such a way as to favour certain outcomes or persons (eg., the WTO - free trade for commerce, but not for labour); and second, the ability to connect with other networks selectively, by either programming or by switching (eg., the creation of 'identity federations).
The Google Plus Ecosystem
Stephen Downes,
Half an Hour, July 11, 2011.
This is my take on the information flow in Google+, showing pretty clearly where the points of contention are, at the Sparks input, and the (non-existent) output. Harold Jarche blogs some additional diagrams. As does Judy O'Connell.
Output from Google Plus is still broken; the only way to create an RSS feed of your stream is this hack.
Here are some Getting Started With Google Plus videos, by Chris Brogan.
Gina Minks adds, Google+ really is all about you:
- You decide how to arrange your social networks in circles
- You are responsible for scanning and filtering the firehose of information
- You can talk to anyone, and anyone can talk to you
This item shows how you can hide the list of people you're following. I never followed on Twitter because I didn't want to show preferences. Now that I've found this, I can keep my list to myself on Google+ as well.
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