Interesting Items – January 28, 2009

• Amazon Announcing Something (Read: Kindle 2) Next Monday

– Oooh… Kindle version 2… I will keep my eye out for taht one!

• Talking to a Wiimote in Ubuntu 8.10

– I haven’t talked about haptics and the Wii in a while, but here is a link for those using Ubuntu to get it talking with one another. 🙂

• The Pope on YouTube

– Wow… now the Pope is even using viral media to get the word out! Awesome

• More Signs of a Google Webdrive

– Another technology Google is working on that has a lot of potential… GDrive… of course there is already SkyDrive and a plethora of other tools for backing up your data online.

Interesting Items – January 27, 2009

• GrandCentral 2.0, Almost Ready to Be Released

– This certainly has the potential to impact all of us! It is an IP service that makes it easier to keep the same number, and use multiple devices.

Interesting Items – January 24, 2009

• LDS Church News – Authorized News Web site of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

– The Church News has a FREE site now!! AWESOME!! Check it out! I don’t see a RSS feed yet, but that would be great!

Interesting Items – January 23, 2009

• Txtr: A E-Book Reader Without a Pryr
• 9 Ways Twitter Can Help in the Real World
• Procrastinating Again? How to Kick the Habit: Scientific American
• 10 Online Learning Tools for Students | MakeUseOf.com
• Ebooks: The Calm Before The Storm
• Apple Answers Questions About Low-end iPhone and Mac Netbooks
• Pay Attention
• Read the January/February 2009 EDUCAUSE Review Online

Connecting 21st Century Students with 21st Century Technology – Videoconference…

This afternoon I had the opportunity to connect up with a whole bunch of schools for a video conference from all around North Carolina put on the by the North Carolina Connectivity Council.  It was really cool.  We could see all of them and they could see us. 🙂  There should be an archive of the video posted soon.  Here is the excerpt from the announcement.  

The challenge for North Carolina educators is to ensure that every public school student graduates from high school, globally competitive for work and postsecondary education and prepared for life in the 21st Century.  Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs, wikis and social networking sites, provide students the opportunity to communicate, create and collaborate in new and exciting ways.  However, some educators and parents are concerned that these “just in time”technologies create an unsafe environment for our children.

Technology specialists from four NC school districts will describe their school systems’ approach to using Web 2.0 in teaching and learning.  Panelists will present the best practices from their respective districts while discussing the challenges of implementing these new technologies. 

Ideas from around North Carolina that Teacher are currently using that IS working:

• Teacher Created Wiki’s
• Teacher Created Blogs for Professional Development
• District Blog to model, share resources, and collaborate. 

Things Students are doing that is working.

• Green County Schools have a 1 to 1 laptop program.  (Wow)
• Student created Wiki’s – Creating based on the information that is created in class.  Do it in the class while the teacher is speaking. 
• Kids created blogs and commenting on other blogs. 
• Book Study through Wiki

Tools that People ARE using

• PBWiki (safer than Media Wiki and WetPaint)
• WikiSpaces (Private domain that is password protected)
• Blogger.com or EduBlogs
• Google Docs – Collaboration across district
• Teacher Tube (Block YouTube) (Use Tools to download YouTube if Teacher’s Want)
• DimDim – Collaboration
• Skype – Global Connections
• Animoto – Video Creation
• Glogster.com – Poster Creation
• Moodle – Learning Management System
• PRIVATE Ning Social Networking Group in School
• TakingItGlobal.org  – Place to find some collaborators for all sorts of subjects

Challenges

• Time on Task… there are a ton of kids online and it is hard to monitor what they are doing.  
• Social Networking (Teachers are no longer allowed to be friends with students in some schools… good idea.)
• Keeping Acceptable Use Policy up to date
• Time… there are so MANY tools… not enough time to address them all. 
• Expanding the global learning network so that learning can be global.   Finding people to collaborate with people around the world via Skype and other technologies above. 

Trainings for Teachers

I found it interesting that in many cases the instructional technologist are working with a group of teachers to train and prepare them to use this web 2.0 technology.  It is sometimes done as a monthly meeting, a mandated technology hour requirement, training classes, an annual fall conference, or using the web 2.0 technologies themselves.

• Shift Happens – Did you Know 2.0 – Used as a starting point for Faculty discussion.

Interesting Items – January 22, 2009

• 2009 Horizon Report Profiles Six Key Emerging Technologies
• “The iPhone Could Be The Ultimate Study Machine” TechCrunch
• Adults and SNS: A New Pew Study
• PBS Teachers and Classroom 2.0 Webinar Series Kicks Off

Exploring the Construction Zone inside the Media Gap – Paul Jones – Founder of ibiblio.org

This afternoon a group we have here on campus, the Carolina Technology Consultants (CTC) sponsored a talk from Paul Jones here on campus.  He is a professor in the SILS department here on campus and really one of the most forward thinkers here on UNC’s campus in regard to technology.  

He titled his presentation “Exploring the Construction Zone inside the Media Gap.”  I put the important stuff here, but he did a Google presentation that can be seen here that I would highly recommend. 

Theory Background – Like any good professor, he laid out some of the history back to the early 80’s when we started thinking about media and social media and communication.  It is interesting that we have been thinking about this since then.  He also lays out three laws that guide our progression of media to social media today.  He then moves into social media. 

Clay Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody” – Categories for publishing in the Media Gap

 

1. Sharing culture of Flickr
2. Collaborative nature of Wikipedia
3. Collective action of internet groupings, like the use of a Facebook group to force HSBC to reverse it’s decision on withdrawing students’ interest-free overdrafts.

 

How American Nerds Fill the Gap

This was really one of my favorite parts of the presentation.  He obviously spoke to me as a nerd, but also used traits of nerds to lay out the emergence of social media.  We as nerds have these strange weaknesses that are “engineered away’ ===> into 5 SuperPowers!

 

1. Attention Deficit Disorder ===> Multi-Tasking
2. Asperger inablity to get visual emotional cues ===> Text-based interactions replace human Face2Face.  Visual cues become emoticons ;->
3. Hyper-literality; jargon of the tasks and games ===> OMG!  Mainstreaming of our jargon into slang.
4. Friendless geeks ===> Redefining Friendship (Dunbar’s number)
5. Idiocentric Humor ===> The power of Internet memes; our shared mindspace.

 

Future of the Nerd

Someone asked about the future of the Nerd.  This is really a great question.  “Nerds” have become mainstream.  Everyone is now using social media.  Everyone has 4000 friends on Facebook.  So what do you think?  What is the future of the Nerd?  What is our future?

Bibliography

Paul put together an AWESOME bibliography for anyone interested in social media.  This is fantastic.  He said it as okay to share so I thought I might post it here for y’all.  Thanks Paul!!

 

• Neuman, W. Russell. The Future of the Mass Audience. 1991 – Cambridge University Press New York.
• Moore, Gordon E. (1965). “Cramming more components onto integrated circuits” [PDF] Electronics April 19, 1965. See also Wikipedia
• Metcalfe, Robert. See Wikipedia 
• Gilder, George.  Metcalfe’s Law and Legacy. Forbes ASAP, September 13, 1993.
• Reed, David P. That Sneaky Exponential—Beyond Metcalfe’s Law to the Power of Community Building. Context. Spring 1999. See also Wikipedia
• Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody:  The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Penguin Press (February 28, 2008). See also Shirky.com
• Nugent, Benjamin. American Nerd: The Story of My People. (Scribners, 2008). 
• Turner, Fred. From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. (University of California Press, 2006).  
• Kelty, Christopher. Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software. (Duke Press, 2008). Or online 
• Bumgarner, Brett. You have been poked: Exploring the uses and gratifications of Facebook among emerging adults. First Monday (Volume 12 Number 11 – 5 November 2007).
• Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends:” Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), article 1. 
• Small, Gary and Gigi Vorgan. iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind. Collins Living (October 14, 2008)
•  Hamilton, Jon. Think You’re Multitasking? Think Again. Morning Edition, NPR. October 2, 2008.  
•  Granovetter, Mark S. Strength of Weak Ties. The American Journal of Sociology. 1973. The University of Chicago Press. 
• Tomita, Tetsuro. “The new electronic media and their place in the information market of the future” in Newspapers and Democracy: international essays on a changing medium. Anthony Smith, ed. MIT Press. 1980.
• Rushkoff, Douglas. Playing the Future: What We Can  Learn From Digital Kids. HarperCollins 1996.
• Boyd, danah and Mimi Ito. “Kids’ Informal Learning with Digital Media: An Ethnographic Investigation of Innovative Knowledge Cultures” November, 2008.

How to Back Up your Data – Mozy.com

Let me start this post off with a little story.  I started working in IT about 5 years ago.  One of the downfalls of working with technology is that sometimes you think you can fix anything.  Well… I knew I should be backing up my data and made some paltry CD backups, but never really took it seriously.  I told myself “I am a techie and can fix anything.”

Well… let me just tell you that there are some things I can’t fix.  And hard drives DO FAIL!

Since my unfortunate hard drive failure and the resulting loss of pictures and data I have researched dozens of back-up options.  I now have a complex techie solution I use for my pictures, videos and documents that involves a script and automated backups to my own personal off site server where it duplicated the data once more on a Raid network device.  But that is obviously not for everyone.  🙂

That being said I have long looked for a good solution that I could recommend to others.  I finally found it.  It is the Mozy.com folks.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have signed up for an affiliate program that gives me a little bit on money when people do sign up so if you are going to sign up, please consider going there from any of the links on my blog.  I figure this can help pay for the domain name and space I use to maintain this blog out of my own pocket. 🙂

Versions

• A FREE version with up to 2GB of data (enough to back up important documents!)
• A super cheap version for $4.95/mo with UNLIMITED DATA (pictures, videos, etc!)
• Even an Educational and Business Version with local institutional administration capabilities.

Check out this comparison page for more information.

They even have a Mac version!  How awesome is that?  I have it installed and running now and it is GREAT!

How it Works:

You install it once, leave it and you can sleep at night knowing you have a backup.  The first time takes a while, but it uses slow network time.  I could still surf and even watch streaming video while it did the initial backup.

Restoring Data – There are three easy ways to restore data with the Free version.

• Use the client version to restore it right on machine.
• Web version to restore
• DVD sent to your home ($)

Overall, I am VERY pleased with this and highly recommend it to everyone!  Even if you only use it for the free version to back up the important documents… give it a try!

Collaborate and Learn AND EARN MONEY doing it! StudyBlue.com

I ran across a great website called StudyBlue.com.  I have long been a fan of these types of websites and there are more than a few of them, but what makes this one really stick out in my mind is the ability for students to earn money.  I was one of those students that took copious notes and often shared my labors, notecards, and flashcards with other students in the class to help them out.  This not only helps make this easier, but it actually pays people for it too!  AWESOME!  What student can’t use a little extra food money?

Interesting Items – January 16, 2009

• New ELI 7 Things… Brief Explores Alternate Reality Games
• Watch The Obama Inauguration From Your iPhone With Ustream
• Productivity, Accountability and University Spending
• Hear how Illinois State University uses Google Search
• Attend Virtual Seminar on New FERPA Regulations for Colleges and Universities
• EDUCAUSE Releases White Paper from IT Greening and Sustainability Summit
• Tune In January 27: Widgets and Sharable Learning Content