Do you know a totally wired teacher?

From the Classroom 2.0 Ning today:

FromWill Richardson (www.Weblogg-ed.com) today. Seems like a great way for Classroom 2.0 members to nominate each other!

----

This request comes from Jim Daly of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, though the award is being co-sponsored by Yahoo! Teachers:

The 2007 Mashup “Totally Wired Teacher Award” will honor a trailblazing teacher who has successfully pioneered the innovative and educational use of social media (blogs, wikis, social networking, photo/video sharing) in the classroom. The award-winner likely had to overcome challenges from parents and administrators in order to use the technology, but because they understand how students use social media outside of school, they persevered with their initiative and worked collaboratively with students, ultimately sharing their insight and knowledge with the larger teaching community.

If you have anyone in mind, send their names, titles, etc. and a paragraph or two as to why they are deserving to jdaly@edutopia.org. The sooner the better. Thanks!

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Developers Discuss Future of Innovation in Web Applications at Google Developer Day

Google announces open source technology for offline capabilities, new tools for mashup programming

SYDNEY, Australia (May 31, 2007) – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today is hosting more than 5,000 developers at 10 locations around the world at the first-ever Google Developer Day. In keynotes and breakout sessions in Sydney, Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Madrid, Paris, Hamburg, London, and Mountain View, California, Google engineers and product managers will be discussing the future of web applications with developers from around the world.

Google will be articulating its strategy for working with the developer community and reinforcing its commitment to driving open standards, providing building blocks for developers inside and outside Google to create web applications quickly, and leading strategic enhancements to the web development environment as a whole.

"One of the things we find most exciting about emerging web technologies is the ability to mash up many different pieces of technology to build new applications, create businesses, or even just satisfy that niche interest or convenience," said Jeff Huber, vice president of engineering, Google. "We want to work closely with developers so together we can define the next generation of products available to users on the web."

Google’s developer program is focused on enabling developers to incorporate Google’s infrastructure and services as building blocks in their own products. Using Google products, developers can:

• Integrate Google services.Google builds web services that enable developers to use products like Google Maps™ mapping service as building blocks in their own applications.
• Reach Google users.Google enables developers to embed their applications within products like iGoogle™ personalized homepage service, so they can reach millions of Google users.
• Build next generation web applications.Google looks for ways to improve the web browser as a platform, so that ultimately users’ most important applications can run in a web browser.

Underlying these themes is a firm commitment to open standards and a desire to work with the community to experiment frequently, gather feedback, and iterate quickly.

A step forward for the browser

At Developer Day events, Google will share details and demos of a new open source technology for creating offline web applications. (See related press release here.) The new browser extension, named Google Gears™, is being made available in its early stages to the developer community so that everyone can test its capabilities and limitations and help improve upon it. The long-term hope is that Google Gears can help the industry as a whole move toward a single standard for offline capabilities.

Easier mashups

Today Google will also release Google Mashup Editor™, an experimental online code editor for building mashups using a simple markup language. Aimed at developers familiar with HTML and JavaScript, the Google Mashup Editor offers a simpler way to deploy AJAX user interface components atop existing feeds and Google web services. By substituting extended XHTML tags for entire blocks of JavaScript code and hosting the mashups on Google servers, the Google Mashup Editor speeds mashup creation and fosters more powerful, more interesting web applications.

Google Mapplets™: An API for embedding third-party applications in Google Maps

Developer Day sessions will also feature a new product called the Google Mapplets API. Released on May 29 at the Where 2.0 conference, Google Mapplets enable users to customize Google Maps with mini-applications from Google and third-party developers. These applications might provide news, real estate listings, weather reports, or just about anything else a developer can dream up. Since the Google Mapplets API combines the Google Maps API and the Google Gadgets™ API, anyone familiar with those APIs can quickly build a Google Mapplet and reach millions of Google Maps users.

Google Web Toolkit™ framework reaches one million downloads, supports the Google Gears browser extension

Google will announce today that the Google Web Toolkit has surpassed one million downloads since its release in May 2006. It will also release the Google API Library for Google Web Toolkit with support for Google Gears, enabling developers to conveniently enhance their Google Web Toolkit applications with offline functionality.

Google Developer Day in your browser

For those unable to attend, the Google Developer Day website will provide live webcasts of the sessions from the Mountain View and London events. In addition, the website will offer blogs, schedules, presentations, Developer Day photos, and links to recorded videos from sessions around the world. All session videos will also be available on a Google Developer Day channel on YouTube. For more information, see: http://code.google.com/events/developerday.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Media Contacts:

Courtney Hohne
courtneyh@google.com
650-253-3260

Chris Ulbrich
culbrich@google.com
650-253-8324

Press Hotline
press@google.com
650-930-3555

###

Google, Google Maps, iGoogle, Google Gears, Google Mashup Editor, Google Web Toolkit, Google Mapplets and Google Gadgets are trademarks of Google Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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Google Launches Gears Open Source Project to Bring Offline Capabilities to Web Applications

At Google Developer Day, New Browser Extension Provided to Developer Community

SYDNEY, Australia (May 31, 2007) – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced at Google Developer Day 2007 that it is providing developers with Google Gears™, an open source technology for creating offline web applications. This new browser extension is being made available in its early stages so that everyone can test its capabilities and limitations and help improve upon it. The long-term hope is that Google Gears can help the industry as a whole move toward a single standard for offline capabilities that all developers can use.

Google Gears marks an important step in the evolution of web applications because it addresses a major user concern: availability of data and applications when there’s no Internet connection available, or when a connection is slow or unreliable. As application developers and users alike want to do more on the web—whether it’s email or CRM or photo editing—enhancements that make the browser environment itself more powerful are increasingly important.

"With Google Gears we’re tackling a key limitation of the browser in order to make it a stronger platform for deploying all types of applications and enabling a better user experience in the cloud," said Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Google. "We believe strongly in the power of the community to stretch this new technology to the limits of what’s possible and ultimately emerge with an open standard that benefits everyone."

Google is offering Google Gears as a free, fully open source technology in order to help every web application, not just Google applications. As a first example of what is possible, the Google Reader™ feed reader (reader.google.com) is available today with Gears-enabled offline capabilities.

Industry support

Google will be working closely with all members of the web community to converge upon a standard so developers have one consistent API for offline functionality.

"We’re very excited to be collaborating with Google to move the industry forward to a standard cross-platform, cross-browser local storage capability," said Kevin Lynch, senior vice president and chief software architect at Adobe. "The Gears API will also be available in Apollo, which enables web applications to run on the desktop, providing developers with consistent offline and local database solutions."

"This announcement is a significant step forward for web applications," said Brendan Eich, CTO at Mozilla Corporation. "We’re pleased to see Google working with open source and open standards bodies on offline web applications."

"Opera and Google share the common goal of making Web applications richer and more robust," said Håkon Wium Lie, CTO, Opera Software. "Developers have long desired the functionality and flexibility Google Gears can offer browsers. Because Opera has always prioritized giving our users what they want, we’re excited to work with Google to extend the reach and power of Web applications."

Another tool in the application development toolbox

Google Gears builds on the web’s existing programming model by introducing new JavaScript APIs for sophisticated data storage, application caching, and multi-threading features. With these APIs, developers can bring offline capabilities to even their most complex web applications. Google Gears works with all major browsers on all major platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux.

Google Gears is available now at gears.google.com.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Media Contacts:

Courtney Hohne
courtneyh@google.com
650-253-3260

Andrew Kovacs
akovacs@google.com
650-253-8899

Press Hotline
press@google.com
650-930-3555

###

Google, Google Gears, and Google Reader are trademarks of Google Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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Announcing: Microsoft Surface

If you have luddites who aren't comfortable with the computer in your school, hold on.

Computers are coming to your tables, walls, filing cabinets, doors, and oh my goodness, perhaps even that flat surface on the student desk.

At the everything D conference that I blogged about yesterday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will announce Microsoft Surface. The article says:

" [Surface is] the first in the company’s new category of surface-computing products that it has touted as “breaking down traditional barriers between people and technology.” Surface has a 30-inch display in a table-like format that can recognize physical objects. It allows, according to Microsoft, “hands-on, direct control of content such as photos, music and maps. … through natural gestures, touch and physical objects.”

Surface can also recognize objects embedded with identification tags similar to bar codes....Surface, as Microsoft sums it up, brings an “opportunity to create technology that would bridge the physical and virtual worlds.”

Devices will roll out the end of this year!

The applications here for education are incredible! How about a word wall that changes depending on the class that is in your room. Think about the manipulatives potentials -- use them but NO clean up -- just a little Windex and wipe off the fingerprints!

This is only the beginning. The revolution is here.

I've often told my students that they will look back and laugh about taking a "computer" class one day because they will become a commodity and a part of EVERYTHING. Man and machine continue to blur and bring with them a whole plethora of ethical and though provoking issues (I'm a little survivalist in nature.)

Make them share pencils!?

This doesn't mean that technology isn't important, it means that it is more important than ever. Limiting access to computers is almost like making kids share pencils -- we wouldn't dream of it.

It is not about being comfortable it is about doing the right thing. I'm sure those men who landed on the moon were not comfortable in their space suits either. This is not a place of comfort but a wonderful place where even a person in smalltown Georgia can contribute to the discussion!

OK, here is your question -- HOW CAN SUCH A SURFACE PROGRAM BE USED IN SCHOOLS? Leave a comment here!

tag: Microsoft, Microsoft Surface, education, teaching, Steve Ballmer, everythingd

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Google is planning to acquire Panoramio

More Information about the acquisition:

• Frequently asked questions
• Press inquiries

Frequently asked questions

Q. What is Panoramio?

A. Panoramio is a website that enables digital photographers to geolocate, store and organize their photographs–and to view those photographs in Google Earth and Google Maps.

Q. Why is Google planning to acquire Panoramio?

A. The acquisition of Panoramio will incorporate that website, its underlying technology, its content, developers, and user community into the Google Geo product mix. Panoramio will add interesting, useful content to Google products and will bolster Google’s engineering and technical resources.

Q. What are the terms of the acquisition? How much did Google pay?

A. The terms of the acquisition are confidential. The deal is pending.

Q. Will Google assume full operational control of Panoramio?

A. We are excited to have the Panoramio team join the Google team. The Panoramio site will remain operational as we work toward integrating this great user-generated content into Google’s mapping technologies.

Q. Why did Panoramio decide to sell to Google?

A. Panoramio was a great fit with Google’s technology, team and culture. Panoramio has been working with Google to incorporate Panoramio photos into Google Earth for some time. Although the integration is already in place and functioning, we believed a deeper relationship would add value to the Panoramio experience for our users.

Q. How will Panoramio be integrated into Google?

A. It’s too early to say exactly how Panoramio’s technology will be integrated into Google, but our team will work to improve the experience of end users. For now, Google Earth users will continue to see Panoramio as a default layer in Google Earth.

Q. Does the acquisition mean any change for Panoramio’s users?

A. There will be no immediate changes. While we will continue to improve the user experience, accounts, passwords, photos and features will remain the same for the time being.

Q. What if I don’t want to pass my photos and user information to Google?

A. Panoramio promised in its Terms of Use that users would be given a chance to opt-out of the transfer of their personal information if Panoramio were acquired. If you take no action, the rights to your data will transfer, unmodified, from Panoramio to Google upon close of the acquisition. Choosing to opt out will terminate your user agreement with Panoramio, trigger the removal of your photos from the Panoramio database, and prevent the transfer of data rights to Google. For more information about Google’s privacy practices, click here. If you’d like to opt out, click here.

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What does your network look like

Christy Tucker has a fascinating analysis of her delicious network, she says:

In this screenshot, Vicki Davis (brightideasguru) is at the top, Wes Fryer (wfryer) is in the lower left, and Will Richardson (willrich) is in the lower right. My network (christyinsdesign) is in the center with the colored lines. Looking at this image, I can see that Wes and Will have several people in common, but Vicki only has one network connection shared with Wes and none in common with Will. I was a little surprised by that; I would have expected a bit more overlap there.

Perhaps there is not as much overlap as we might think!

Just go to Delicious network explorer and type in your username. This is a great answer to the conspiracy theorists as it explores the network in a fascinating way. The graphic did not come out very well but it shows that David Jakes and ChristyInsDesign are very innerconnected -- Hey Jude has some connections with Christy and Danita Russell and I share a few common people with edtechtalk.

This is just a cool place to explore and visualize the networks!
























tag: connectivism, George Siemens, delicious, networks, blogging

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Bill Gates and Steve Jobs appearing TOGETHER on Wednesday, May 30th

I'm trying to find the live stream for this (if there is one) but Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are appearing live together tomorrow at the D: All Thing Digital Conference put on by the Wall Street journal.

For live updates check out the blog at http://allthingsd.com/

I did a little digging and if you're quick, you can share the questions YOU want to ask at http://kara.allthingsd.com/20070523/questions-for-bill-and-steves-excellent-adventure/.

Join in! I am posting my question as we speak. Let's innundate them with questions from educators!

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Come over to talk about Training Teachers at EdTechTalk with Pam Shoemaker

Pam Shoemaker is on edtechtalk.com tonight as we talk about training teachers.

Here is the tentative agenda, and as always we will expand this and discuss!

Order of the Evening:
Welcome
=
Cheryl
WOW2 Moments --
Cheryl, Sharon, Vicki, Jen

Pam Shoemaker --
Pam's Blog: http://shoemap.edublogs.org
Intro
Web 2.0 Usergroup Initiative
8th Grade Moodle - SS Curriculum/Michigan tech proficiency/Michigan high school on-line learning requirement

how many teachers are beginning to use this? when did you start, all things you will probably cover. I am very interested, we are just beginning our moodle over the summer. Any advice, I would welcome it. The moodle will be for all users, not just early adopters.- from Cheryl
Walled Lake Laptop Program: http://walledlake.k12.mi.us/AAL
Staff Development

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Google Announces New Mapping Innovations at Where 2.0 Conference

Announcement
May 29, 2007

This morning at the Where 2.0 conference in San Jose, John Hanke, Director of Google Earth & Maps, announced new innovations for Google Maps that offer a whole new perspective on search: Street View andMapplets. Available on Google Maps at maps.google.com, Street View and Mapplets further Google’s commitment to provide users with the mostinnovative maps available online and developers with new tools for creating and sharing geographic content.

Street View is a new feature of Google Maps that enables users to view and navigate within 360 degree street level imagery of various cities inthe US. Street View provides users with a rich, immersive browsing experience directly in Google Maps, enabling greater understanding of a specific location or area. Street View imagery will initially be available for maps of the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami, and will soon expand to other metropolitan areas. By clicking on the "Street View" button in Google Maps, users can navigate street level, panoramic imagery. With Street View users can virtuallywalk the streets of a city, check out a restaurant before arriving, and even zoom in on bus stops and street signs to make travel plans.

Google also announced the launch of Mapplets, a powerful new tool for developers and consumers alike. Mapplets enables third party developers to create mini applications that can be displayed on Google Maps, much like Google Gadgets are displayed on iGoogle. These Mapplets contain a variety of information, from housing listings to crime data, and tools like distance measurement. Users can select from a wide range of Google and third party Mapplets to display on the Map, essentially creating their own "mashup of mashups" directly on the Google Maps site, while still enjoying the built-in functionality of Google Maps, such as local search and driving directions. A number of our partners, includingWeatherBug, Booking.com and Platial have already created Mapplets. This feature is available at maps.google.com/preview.

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Join in the FREE and Incredible future of education conference!!

George Siemens has planned another blockbuster FREE educational conference.
I highly suggest sending your teachers and administrators to http://www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies/conferences/foe/ to sign up and to participate. Not only will they learn but they will USE the technologies like Elluminate that are going to be must-haves for the school of the future.

I'm excited about presenting this Saturday morning at 8 am EST with my friend and "co-worker" Julie Lindsay -- "My Seatmate Lifes in China: The Imperative for Global Collaborative Projects." (See the schedule.)

I hope you'll join in and participate. Here is the information that George Siemens mailed out this morning -- you need to go over to his site to subscribe to receive updates.

We’re excited to begin our Future of Education conference on June 4. A brief introductory audio welcome is available here: http://www.elearnspace.org/media/FOE2007/intro.mp3

Over the duration of the next few weeks, I will provide daily emails and updates advance reading resources, and short audio files or presentations.

For now, as a conference participant, please do the following:

1. Go to Attendr and state where you will be joining the conference: http://attendr.com/foe
2. Create an account in Moodle (or if you attended our last conference, you will already have one setup): http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/moodle/course/view.php?id=12
(click "login" on the top right hand side...it will take you to the login page, or allow you to set up an account...the "create new account" button will be on the right hand side of the page)
3. Spiff up your profile in Moodle…feel free to add an image, contact info
4. Post an introductory comment (select “forums” on the left-hand side)
5. Start dialoguing on areas of personal interest…or offer suggestions on how we can improve the conference…

Conference Tag: FOE2007 (if you blog the conference or use social bookmarking tools)

The conference site for signing up for the event (if you received this email, you are already signed up...but feel free to pass along to colleagues): http://umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies/conferences/foe/

The conference schedule: http://umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies/conferences/foe/schedule.php

Access information to the live portion (in elluminate) will be forwarded toward the end of the week.

Please be aware as well that what you post on the Moodle Site or during the live presentation will be public. We will be using the conference itself for researching effective online conferences, as well as the nature of online dialogue and discourse.

Please let me know if you have any questions…

George Siemens

The map of participants is indeed impressive. (Click on the world map in the bottom left corner to see all of those who are participating!) WOW!

tag: FOE2007, George Siemens, horizon, hz07, Julie Lindsay

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Horizon Project Peer Review: Best Practices

Simulpost with TechLearning

The Horizon project has been fascinating, not only because of the project itself but also because of the intentional involvement of students as young as ten in the peer review process.

Thank you to our 5 peer reviewer classrooms from 5 countries!
Sharon Peters did a GREAT job with high school review and having it mid-project really gave the students excellent feedback and fuel to move ahead!

Chrissy Hellyer (Teaching Saggitarian - 7th grade - New Zealand), Kim Coifino (8th grade - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Read Kim's student reviews.) and Lisa Durff with her 7th grade USA class are also involved in the process, and Brandt Schneider's Web Design Class (Read Brandt's assignment and reviews.)

Several peer reviewers have tackled middle school. Graham Wegner from Australia - (who does such great job over at his Teaching Generation Z blog) has been working to formulate his thoughts on the best practices of peer review of this sort of project with middle schoolers.

Graham's Methodology for Horizon Project Peer Review

His blog post yesterday is GREAT! I particularly like his summary:

So, after reviewing four videos on Friday afternoon, I formulated an easy format for gathering the feedback. A common format for getting kids thinking about concepts is P,M,I (plus, minus, interesting). By using that today as the starting point, one student was chosen as the feedback agent for the particular video to be viewed. We watched, and the feedback agent wrote down a point or two for each P,M or I, then recorded the class’s general feedback into their PMI sheet. If every child does that over the space of this week, then each child can type up a paragraph or so of peer review comment that can be pasted into the wiki comments for the video creators. The process seemed to work fine today but it won’t happen in a day because of the need to find time for the video viewing without carving out huge chunks from the rest of the school curriculum. But writing reviews is an important English skill, so doing so for a real and purposeful venture like the Horizon Project is an ideal situation and as I keep telling the students, a real privilege as well.

What this means, even more than the students having a rich environment, that now, Sharon, Chrissy, Kim, Lisa, Graham can now "meet" to discuss the peer review process. What works and what doesn't and the most effective method to conduct such peer review. It was a bit cumbersome and we had to work out the details, but my, just looking at the PMI sheet that Graham has developed will be so very useful!!

To add more excitement, Elluminate has extended the Horizon project's time in the virtual room and we can have some "meetings" over the summer to discuss and plan the methods we will use for the project we will conduct in October/ November. So, when we conclude with the awards next week, we will begin the assessment of our ourselves.

The self-assessment and peer assessment from you is perhaps the most difficult for me because we are still learning and have done our very best but if we are going to improve not just as individual teachers, but improve as an educational community, we need to ask hard questions about how to make such a project replicable in other classrooms.

How can we make it manageable? Besides the time zone issues, how can we remove obstacles. Can we run side by side projects with other teachers (perhaps two sets of students on two wikis -- several classes each?) What courses besides ICT / Computer Science should do such projects?

So many questions. But right now, I'm just exhausted! It is hard to consider such deep questions without putting my head down on my desk! OK, back to grading!

Great job peer reviewers!
tag: hz07, soundingboard, education, teaching, horizon project, Graham Wegner, Chrissy Hellyer, Kim Coifino, Lisa Durff, Graham Wegner, Elluminate

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Google Leaps Over Language Barriers

Announcement
May 23, 2007

Google Translate adds new feature to convert search results into 12 different languages

Here at Google, part of our mission is to make the world’s information universally accessible to our users, regardless of differences such as language. Today we are releasing a tool from Google Translate that takes us one step closer to this goal. We are happy to announce the arrival of a new cross-language search feature that allows users across the world to find and view search results on foreign language web pages in their own native language. Now, more content on the web is accessible to more users, regardless of what languages they speak. This means, for example, that if an Arabic speaker is searching for restaurants in New York, he/she can now conduct a search in Arabic, and Google will translate the results (most of which are from English language websites) and provide the most relevant search results in their native language.

This new feature is available in the following languages: English, Arabic, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Traditional), and Chinese (Simplified).

The Power of Machine Translation

Google uses machine translation, or automated language translation, to enable users to search and view foreign language web content. A user simply needs to visit translate.google.com/translates, enter a query in their language, select the language they want to find results in, and issue a search. Behind the scenes, Google translates the query, performs a search, and translates the results so that users can click on the results of interest to view. And while machine translation is not perfect, it can be a very useful tool for users who want to access and obtain a gist of content written in a language that they do not know or know well.

Watch the demonstration

This new Google Translate feature was previewed last Wednesday at Google’s Mountain View, CA campus during Searchology, a media event focused completely on search. You can watch Udi Manber, VP of Engineering, unveil the cross-language search tool at the following link: www.google.com/press/podium.html.

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A good laugh: 9th grade student summary video with the accent gone wild

I needed a laugh today and here it is. The summary video from a 9th grader. He changed from a French accent to an asian accent in midstream. I laughed so hard. After being up till around 1:45 am last night finishing up grades, I needed it!

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Substrate paper? Predictions from students! Wow!

What is going to happen in the future?

This is what the students say on the Horizon project:

From looking at the new ways to buy, read, and sell books are changing it is possible that in the future there will be no more books they will be on the computer or be shown on the wall with projectors or some kind of laser projector. They are coming out with flexible paper it is called a substrate based color electronic paper. The paper might take the place of regular paper and will also help with the global warming epidemic.

These growing technological tools are going to lead to the fact that the demand for specific jobs such as programmers, webmasters, and the likes of "pro-bloggers" are going to be increased dramatically. And blogging has already started to affect the labor market that job opportunities for those who are experienced in blogging are exploding. (Indeed.com - job search engine, "blogging" search) In addition, with the rising and spreading trend of 'Digital Libraries' and internet databases the main medium of the publication business will most likely shift from paper-back books to 'internet-back' blogs or other new forms of publication.

But there are issues and criticisms rising concerning this rather rampant growth of the internet-based medium of publication. The criticisms that articulate the fact that piracy is under the circumlocution of innovation. That corporations are ignoring the basic rights of intellectual property upon people for new money-making innovations.

This was so well written, I admit it, I googled the text to make sure it was real. It is!

Then, over on Social Networking:

Schools need to teach students how to be "social" and how to be effective collaborators because of the social world they are growing up in. Social Networks will not only change students' social outlook on things, but will help them see different ways to look at education. Using Networking sites in the corporate world gives businesses a running start to new ideas, expand their knowledge, and collaborate with others in the same working field, but that aren't even in the same country.

And over at virtual worlds, they predict:

"Eventually virtual worlds will permeate into every aspect of education. They (virtual worlds and education) will be one - inseparable, impossible to distinguish or differerientate. People will be able to attend a school solely in virtual worlds. Classes, from kindergarten to college, will be able to go inside a whale's stomach or visit ancient Rome, even design entire cities. The possibilities are endless and available. We need only to take advantage of them."

I'm going to tell you that the Virtual Worlds in Education wiki is a must read. It is well researched and I can hardly believe it is written by high school students!

And the vision of the future of mobile phones-- I think they are very accurate.



And I enjoyed Joanna's video about Virtual Worlds. She is from Shanghai and has a great voice for this. Great overview!



Goodnight! It is after 1:30 am. But I had to share these!

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"These Games are Why Kids Wake Up in the Morning"

As I am grading the Horizon project, I just had to share this quote written from the heart of a teenager. He was discussing Massively Multiplayer Gaming as it relates to governments and says:

"The Governments need to realize that while these games seem like just games to all the politicians, to kids and teenagers and some adults these games are why they wake up in the morning. Identity theft, kids thinking that the games are real, and sexual harassment are the three biggest threats when logging on to any one of these virtual online games. our governments need to find a way to regulate these games because the truth of the matter is that these games are the future and we need a safe future. This is the truth and if we sit back and do nothing about it our future will be dark indeed..."

While this wiki isn't perhaps one of our highest scoring ones, there are nuggets like this throughout that give us a glimpse into the passion of students and their desire to have safety in all areas where they live.

I think as adults we must:

1) Accept the world has changed

Stop trying to fight it, blame it, hate it, and ignore it. We are in the midst of a fundamental cultural change.

2) Model reasoned, educated action

We must be models of reason -- people who don't jump to conclusions blindly but show students that we can learn new things, and make intelligent decisions about how to civilize and utilize new tools as they come along.

tag: education, hz07, MMPEG, educational gaming, multiplayer gaming, horizon project

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Brian Crosby on WOW2 tonight - learn how he brought a student with leukemia into his classroom via Skype

The amazing Brian Crosby is on WOW2 tonight over at Edtechtalk.com at 9 pm EST. What a great thing to do while grading -- just catch the stream and listen (click on one of the channels.) If you wish to go into the chat, you can click the chat button on the left and ask questions and chat with us!

Brian writes the Learning is Messy blog but we became entranced with his classroom when we saw his work to bring a child who has leukemia back into the classroom via Skype. (See my blog post about it.)

Brian is also using wikis with fourth graders to explore animals and had a recent Visit from Krista McCauliff's mother. Brian works in a district with many low income students and is showing that yes, Web 2 works anywhere to meet very real needs. He is a very good teacher with an upbeat inspirational message.

I hope you'll join us to meet this amazing educator tonight! There are so many of you amazing teachers out there, it is so great that we have a place over at edtechtalk.com to highlight the work of real teachers and just chat.

Come on over!
tag: Brian Crosby, Skype, education, teaching, wiki, Web2, edtechtalk

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New Feature on Google Trends Shows List of Current Top-Rising Searches

Announcement
May 22, 2007

On Monday night, Google launched Hot Trends, a new feature on the Google Trends report. Hot Trends enables users to see a list of the current top 100 fastest-rising Google search queries in the U.S. Users can also select specific dates to see what the top-rising searches were at a given point in time.

For years, Google has produced a manually compiled list of popular searches called the Google Zeitgeist. Hot Trends takes this list to a new level, providing an up-to-date snapshot of what’s on our collective mind – from current events to daily crossword puzzle clues to the latest celebrity gossip. For each Hot Trends result, the associated Google News, blog searches and Google web search results appear, giving users greater context for each result. For example, the #2 Hot Trends result on Tuesday, May 15th was a cryptic phrase: "I who have nothing." The associated news articles and blog results showed that this is in fact the title of a song that was performed on American Idol that night. And the associated web search results reveal this was originally a song made popular by Shirley Bassey. Mystery solved.

In addition to Hot Trends, there are a few other new changes to Google Trends to make it more informative and user-friendly. Now, in addition to viewing the top countries and cities that searched for a term, users can view the top "sub regions" (e.g. states within the U.S.) across more than 70 countries. Users can now compare the leading presidential candidates around the country, for instance, or find out what region in France is crazy about cognac. Hot Trends is Google’s newest tool for users who want to keep their finger on the pulse of what the world is searching for.

To try out Hot Trends and the new features in Google Trends, go to www.google.com/trends.

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Encouragement for Teachers

This is just a quick thought to all of you teachers out there who are so busy that you cannot breathe!

It is tough with all of the things that we have on us and so many people misunderstand the teaching profession,

"Oh, I'd love to have my summers off... you teachers don't have to work in the 'real world.'"

To which I respond,

"I've worked in the 'real' world, and I love the classroom, although my hours are MUCH longer, and I make so much less, the work is very rewarding. I feel like teaching is the most noble calling on earth and nothing is more real to me than my precious, wonderful students."

I truly feel that way. Teaching is a noble profession without which the civilized world would have no hope. What we do in our classroom is very important and each of us play a part in the grand scheme of society. Taking time to blog, share, discuss, and be a part of this new educational revolution is also very important.

So, my advice today as I'm a bit bleary eyed from working on my graduation presentation last night until after midnight is this...

Keep on going. Keep up a good attitude. Remember that May will soon be over and you'll be getting nervous about that new class of students in the fall (as all good teachers do.) Enjoy it while it is here... a moment to sit back and say, "You know what, I did a good job this year."

Keep the faith teachers, you make the world go round. Take time to encourage other teachers who may be having a tough time right now.

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Real-Time Newsmakers Capture Weekly Google Zeitgeist

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Are kids too much of an open book on Facebook

Thank you to Christopher Sessums for sharing this video about Facebook. I'm going to share it with my students. (I also found it on youtube but the link above is another site.)



Again, educate students about their privacy. What they don't know may come back to haunt them.

Their privacy is a very valuable thing! It should be treated with care.

tag: Facebook, Christopher Sessums

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An easy way to attend the conference: Listen live at EdTechTalk

Just a note! I have grading to do today but want to listen in on the Webheads Conference, so I went over to http://www.edtechtalk.com/listen and am listening to the current sessions.

Jeff Lebow and Dave Cormier are doing an incredible service to the educational community and are going into the sessions and "snagging" the stream out. This way you can listen and grade or work.

The only disadvantage is you don't see the slides nor can you chat, but that is an advantage when you need to grade!

I'm listening to Professional Development using Wikis.

EdTechTalk does an incredible FREE service for the educational community. I find myself over there more and more each week.

So, even though I don't show up in the session, I am listening! (We get out of school on Friday and I have to grade everything!)

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If you're online you should be at the Free Online Conference: Webhead Convergence

All educators who are online and have a moment, should take advantage of the incredible resource put on by the "WebHeads" -- this group of people has worked very hard to bring us an incredible K-20 conference for educators.

The CURRENT event can be seen at the bottom of http://www.webheadsinaction.org/.

You'll see more training that you can get at a real conference and you don't even have to get dressed. It runs through tomorrow!

I spent some time learning from George Siemens this morning and particularly liked this graphic.

He made a couple of important points that I put in my notes:

We have:

• Content
• Conversations
• Connections

He says that often the connections we make are of more significant future value than the content or conversations themselves that are currently transpiring.

The School in Liverpool that Eliminated Laptops Because the Results didn't show

He also talked about what a poor job that many of us who see and are realizing the value of technology are doing. He cited a school in Liverpool that eliminated laptops after finding no improvement in academic achievement. Well, that got me going, so I'm going to quote my thoughts on technology in the classroom right here:

Me: Well, let's eliminate paper -- if a study was done on toilet paper it would show no academic value but if we studied a history book it might have more.

Me: The paper can be used for multiple purposes -- likewise laptop's value is in the use.

Me: Laptops won’t make a kid smarter any more than if Einstein rubbed a kid’s head.

It is about How We use laptops!

It is about HOW we use laptops not the FACT that we have laptops. Too many parents brag "Oh, we have a laptop school" and guess what, those shiny new laptops have their microprocessors gathering dust as they sit in some storage bin at the end of the hall. HAVING is not the operative term here USING is.

In fact, we don't have a laptop campus and perhaps get more use out of our workstations than many schools who do have laptops. Laptops can take you further but they can also be a distraction if they have no purpose.

What would you do if Einstein was in your room?

The simplistic thought of HAVING laptops making kids smarter, that somehow touching the keys imparts an extra 10 points to their IQ is preposterous. It is about effectively USING the laptops. After all, if we had Einstein in our classrooms, would we just want the kids to sit there and look at him and have him rub their little noggins or would we let them ASK questions (Google his brain), talk to him, take notes, video him, record him? We would have everything possible to allow the interactions.

What if a researcher studied the wrong kind of paper?

I could envision this report.

"We have studied the efficacy of paper in schools. It is often thrown on the floor and usually flushed down the toilets. It is wrapped around trees. But it's most common use by students is that they put disgusting, smelly, slimy bodily excretions of all kind on them. This practice has to stop! We cannot allow such waste. We have studied and found that this paper causes no improvement in academic performance and therefore we show no correlation between paper and academic performance."

I could see well meaning educators basing everything upon this one report and removing all paper. When it is obvious that this study was done on toilet paper! Can we not see that one cannot study the efficacy of "laptops" any more than the efficacy of "paper" -- it is the pedagogy, folks not the item. Do we study pencils, pens, paper, libraries, classrooms? No, we study

We have to take into account the context and pedagogical use of the laptops!

The Right Thing means the Right Way

If we are going to do the right thing, we need to advocate doing it in the right way. Laptops in a school with no plan to use the laptops correctly is a recipe for failure, it is not progress but rather the illusion of progress.

However, any tool used correctly makes a good teacher better.

Add your voice for effective education using technology.

tag: George Siemens, connectivism, laptop, 1:1, education, learning
wiaoc2007

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Summary videos from 9th grade efolios

I've been grading the efolio portion of the 9th grade portfolios. These are done on our wiki. Here are a couple of highlight videos that I particularly liked.






Note: the video he talked about in this was never uploaded. We probably upload about 60% of our videos, some of them, while great for classroom use and discussion may not be appropriate for being available on the Internet.

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Meet your Mobile Phone 2020

From Julie's Blog today, I found these videos from the horizon project:

Atif from the ISD school in Bangladesh has done a great job with his mobile phone video. Wow!



Or how about Ginger from the Shanghai School in China.



I am going to enjoy watching all of the videos this summer. I am learning so much and am excited about the quality of these videos and what I am learning from them.

David Warlick may not know this, but an e-mail that I received during February/March from him directly impacted this project. He said:

"Off and on, over the past many months, the thought has emerged that there has to be a way of utilizing this read/write web to affect the changes we are looking for in education leadership. But I've drawn a blank. I'm not young enough. But it occurred to me this morning that we get the students to do it for us."

David, thank you for your continuing leadership. You could not have known that Julie and I were in the midst of planning horizon and that your thoughts about encouraging students to envision the future would impact this. We now have more than 50 videos from students envisioning the future and it is not one that I nor perhaps even the best minds in education would envision.

These projects are transforming the discussions taking place at our schools. Students are getting involved in their future! It is empowering and exciting.

I think it is important to involve students in the process of envisioning the future. The most exciting thing is to see how much work and effort was put into these videos with many students finding friends to act and filming at many different locations! They give me chills! WOW!

I encourage you to visit their youtube videos and comment and view them. And to embed them on your blog, click on the video to go to the youtube site and copy the embed code and paste it into your blog. Publish and voila -- you have youtube in your blog!

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Terry Freedman's interview about Horizon

We sat down with Terry via Google Docs recently and answered his questions about horizon. Thank you, Terry, for your kind words and for your promotion of global collaborative projects.

Had a great youth summit session today in elluminate (even though I was home sick) we elluminated anyway! It was wonderful and full of the ups and downs of all learning. (This was their second time in elluminate.) I will share the link here when elluminate sends it to me!

Hear the student presentations from today in class:

https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2007-05-16.1039.M.ADFF8C3E3AAFB018014C360A1494EB.vcr

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Google Begins Move to Universal Search

Google Introduces New Search Features and Unveils New Homepage Design

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (May 16, 2007) – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced its critical first steps toward a universal search model that will offer users a more integrated and comprehensive way to search for and view information online. The company also introduced an updated homepage design and several new navigation features that make it faster and easier for users to find the information they are looking for.

"Our focus has always been making our users’ search experience as simple and straightforward as possible," said Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google. "The ultimate goal of universal search is to break down the silos of information that exist on the web and provide the very best answer every time a user enters a query. While we still have a long way to go, today’s announcements are a big step in that direction."

Google’s vision for universal search is to ultimately search across all its content sources, compare and rank all the information in real time, and deliver a single, integrated set of search results that offers users precisely what they are looking for. Beginning today, the company will incorporate information from a variety of previously separate sources – including videos, images, news, maps, books, and websites – into a single set of results. At first, universal search results may be subtle. Over time users will recognize additional types of content integrated into their search results as the company advances toward delivering a truly comprehensive search experience.

For example, a user searching for information on the Star Wars character Darth Vader is likely interested in all the information related to the character and the actor – not just web pages that mention the movie. Google will now deliver a single set of blended search results that include a humorous parody of the movie, images of the Darth Vader character, news reports on the latest Lucas film, as well as websites focused on the actor James Earl Jones – all ranked in order of relevance to the query. Users no longer have to visit several different Google search properties to find such a wide array of information on the topic.

The Power of Google Technology

Google is also in the process of deploying a new technical infrastructure that will enable the search engine to handle the computationally intensive tasks required to produce universal search results. The company is also releasing the first stage of an upgraded ranking mechanism that automatically and objectively compares different types of information. As always, Google™ search results are ranked automatically by algorithms to deliver the best results to users anywhere in the world.

"Google has continued to concentrate on improving the quality of search," said Udi Manber, vice president of engineering at Google. "The level and speed of search innovation at Google has increased. Most of this innovation addresses basic ranking algorithms and is often not obvious to users. Users just see more accurate results, more often, in more languages, which is our primary goal."

New Navigation Features

New dynamically generated navigation links have been added above the search results to suggest additional information that is relevant to a user’s query. For example, a search for "python" will now generate links to Google Blog Search™, Google Book Search™, Google Groups™, and Google Code™, to let the user know there is additional information on his or her query in each of those areas. As a result, users can find a wider array of information on their topic, including data types they might not have initially considered.

Google’s homepage and a number of applications have also been updated with a new navigation bar to provide easier access to popular Google products. Now, instead of having links above the Google.com homepage search box, users will see a navigation bar on the top left side of the page with various Google search properties and popular products including Gmail™, Google Calendar™, Google Docs & Spreadsheets™, and Picasa Web Albums™.

Experience the Experiments

Google also announced today a new experimental version of its popular search service called Google Experimental™, available on Google Labs™. This new test site provides users an opportunity to try out some of the latest search experiments and innovations and provide Google with feedback. One of the first experiments to be featured on the site enables users to view their search results on a map or timeline. For instance, when someone searches for "Albert Einstein" on Google Experimental, they can choose to view the search results on a map that shows locations mentioned within web pages about Albert Einstein or on a timeline that illustrates the history of Albert Einstein’s life. More information on Google Experimental search is available at Google Labs at labs.google.com.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Media Contacts:

Press Hotline
press@google.com
650-930-3555

Sonya Borälv
sonya@google.com
650-253-1821

Katie Watson
kwatson@google.com
650-253-0097

###

Google, Google Blog Search, Google Book Search, Google Groups, Google Code, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Picasa Web Albums, Google Experimental and Google Labs are trademarks of Google Inc. Other trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.

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Stephen Downes on edtechtalk NOW!

If you're online right now, Stephen Downes is joining us over at edtechtalk.com right now! Some exciting discussions planned with Sharon Peters moderating!

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Virtual Worlds Videos from the Horizon

This is the video from the Virtual Worlds project manager, Collin, and co-stars his partners in this project:



I also love Andrew S's vision of the future with virtual worlds which he animated in Flash/ Movie Maker.



What a fascinating project! I've learned so much from all of the students and look forward to sharing many videos with you from all classrooms. I share these first just because I watched them being made!

This next is where you go if you want to understand the gaming world and virtual worlds and how they tend to become a part of your life. This student was actually the overlord of a "clan" in Halo for a period of time that was the top in the world. The video of Halo was of him playing the game and was shot by a member of his clan! Fascinating! This was the key to unlocking his interest in this project!




tag: hz07, virtual_worlds

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Today's youth summit in Elluminate

The road into a new horizon is full of bumps as shown by today's youth summit. I thought my students did well for their first time in elluminate. After their obligatory 5 minutes of playing with the whiteboard, we settled down to business with the students improving as they went.

Here is the recording (bumps and all!)

https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2007-05-15.1116.M.ADFF8C3E3AAFB018014C360A1494EB.vcr

For the upcoming schedule (in EST unless you've logged into airset), this is the calendar.

http://horizonproject.wikispaces.com/Student+Summit

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Google to Offer Live Webcast of Searchology Press Conference Tomorrow

Announcement
May 15, 2007

WHO: Google Inc.

WHAT: Live webcast of Google’s upcoming invitation-only Searchology™ press conference to be held at its Mountain View, Calif. headquarters.

WHEN: Wednesday, May 16th, 9:30am – 12:30pm PDT

WHERE: google.client.shareholder.com/visitors/event/build2/mediapresentation.cfm?MediaID=25550&Player;=1

WHY: Google to highlight the latest news on search innovations. Featured speakers will include Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products & User Experience; Udi Manber, VP of Engineering; and Craig Silverstein, Technology Director.

Contacts:

press@google.com
+1.650.930.3555

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program, which is the largest and fastest growing in the industry, provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

###

Google and Searchology are trademarks of Google Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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Google to Present at Upcoming Investor Events

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – May 15, 2007 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced today that it will present at the following investor events:

JMP Securities Research Conference
Gokul Rajaram, Product Management Director
Monday, May 21, 2007
2:30 p.m. ET / 11:30 a.m. PT

Goldman Sachs Eighth Annual Internet Conference
Alan Eustace, Senior Vice President, Engineering & Research
Jeff Huber, Vice President, Engineering
Thursday, May 24, 2007
11:45 a.m. ET / 8:45 a.m. PT

To access the live audio webcasts of the presentations, please visit investor.google.com/webcast.html.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Contact:

Maria Shim
Investor Relations
650-253-7663
marias@google.com

###

Google is a registered trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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Social Networking: The must see video from horizon!

The youth summit kicks off in about 30 minutes. We're excited!

Just a quick preview. I've been looking at videos and will be sharing many of them with you here. Here is one from the project manager of social networking. (Yes, it stars me as "Mean Cat teacher.") All of the teams have worked very hard and I will make sure that I share with you from all of them!

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The Essay that Rocked my world: The Personal side of LD

a simulpost with TechLearning

Yesterday at the Rotary Club I sat there with tears in my eyes listening to my sixth grader win an essay contest. Only I and a few others knew that only three years earlier he could barely compose a legible paragraph.

It was third grade and my son suddenly went from a high achieving, well behaved child to one who was struggling emotionally and mentally with the tasks at hand. I knew something was wrong. Children don't just change behavior like that. I have a sister with a learning challenge (we don't call them disabilities in our family) and knew that he was coming up against something that he could not overcome.

The public school said his test scores were too high for them to test so we eliminated our family vacation between his third and fourth grade year and went to the incredible icon of testing in our area, the Atlanta Speech School.

While I won't go into all of the details, I'll generalize that a non-verbal processing issue was overflowing into his handwriting which made it illegible when he had to work on challenging tasks (with too much processing going on.) Additionally, grammar and spelling were diagnosed areas of issue and unless it was a grammar assignment he was not to be counted off for punctuation and spelling. (A battle which is a hard one to fight.)

We were told that it was imperative that he learn to type and use a computer for spelling and grammar as soon as possible.

We had him ready and responsible and purchased him a laptop halfway through his fifth grade year. In my role at the school, we worked to raise the money and put in wireless to cover our school. Now, he is able to type all written assignments and spell check.

The bright, intelligent child who shines in so many areas, can now write beautifully. I am so very proud of him because I know that I did not write the following essay, HE DID!

So, today, I will share with you today the power of what happens when you accommodate and use technology to help children. And to challenge you to realize that gifted children have LD too. We all have learning differences. These learning differences must be understood and accommodated!

And if you are a parent, do whatever it takes to find out how your child learns. Sacrifice, give up family vacations and never, ever give up!

This was the winning essay from our Middle School for the Rotary Club Character Counts Essay contest from my sixth grade son:

Why Character Counts

Honesty, perseverance, and responsibility are character traits that the community, the business world, and the whole world need more. There are many definitions for honesty. Not lying, cheating, nor stealing are examples of honesty. Being fair and upright are also part of being honest. If all the people in the world were honest, there would be no fighting, no wars, no crimes, and no lying. Give other people credit, don't take more than your fair share, and don't lie are only some of the many things honesty can teach us.

Perseverance, not giving up when times are hard, is another part of having good character. Never, ever stop until the job is done. It is like when my grandma tells me the story of the frog and the butter churn. He fell in and had to keep kicking until there was enough butter to stand on so he could jump out. He almost quit and drowned, but no, he kept on kicking, and he lived. If the world had perseverance, there would be no divorce, no suicide, and no quitters.

Responsibility is accepting the blame for our own actions...not blaming others for our own faults. We are all human, and we all have flaws, but we need to still take responsibility for our mistakes.

When I think of these three traits, I think of my Poppa who is a farmer. Poppa is honest, and when he tells people something, they believe him because he has never lied to them before. He perseveres as a farmer when it doesn't rain or when there is too much rain. He never quits, and people around the world know he's a great farmer. Poppa has to be responsible to make sure he properly disposes of waste on the farm like the dead chickens so that the environment stays safe. I use him as my living example of good character and someone who is honest, perseveres, and is responsible.

tag: learning disabilities, LD, teaching, education, character, Rotary, Atlanta Speech School

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Speak out about Edubloggercon for NECC

Steve Hargadon has posted the schedule for Edubloggerconn on the wiki.

It is scheduled for Saturday, June 23rd from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm but you can drop in and out. Check who is attending and add your name. We'll talk more later!

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Plans announced to create the Encyclopedia of Life

source: San Jose Mercury News

The Encyclopedia of Life (www.eol.org) will take approximately 10 years to create according to its founders, who will announce the effort in Washington DC today. Who are they? Some of the world's leading scientific institutions and universities in the world.

They plan to catalog and share information on all of the species of animals and will allow information on SIGHTINGS from "amateurs."

Projected to take 300 million pages, "The MacArthur and Sloan foundations have given a total $12.5 million to pay for the first 2 1/2 years of the massive effort, but it will be free and accessible to everyone."

From the great article over at the San Jose Mercury News,

""It could be a very big leap in the way we do science," said Cristian Samper, acting secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, one of seven museums, universities and labs to launch the encyclopedia. "This is a project that is so big, not even the Smithsonian could do it by itself. It is a global effort."

Other institutions helping head the undertaking include Harvard University, Chicago's Field Museum, the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, the Biodiversity Heritage Library Consortium, the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Atlas of Living Australia."

Of course, as an idealist, I wish these scientists would sign up to contribute to wikipedia, the mechanism is already in place. And who is going to define "amateur?"

My Mixed Emotions

I applaud that scientists are now seeing that the online creation of content is a valid form of scholarship. I am saddened that another behemoth is going to be created when perhaps we could take the wikipedia entries already in place and edit them.

However, perhaps this is just the answer to those skeptics out there who dismiss wikipedia as a valid source of information, they won't be able to dispute this one and perhaps will be forced to unblock this resource although it will be edited by man!

I just found out about it. What do you think?

tag: hz07, user_content, Encylopedia of Life, scholarship

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2 Million Online Vids for Mickey Mouse

Disney announces that they have sold 2 million online videos through iTunes, 23.7 million shows, and 92 million ad-supported show episodes. The article at ZDNET discusses how Disney has been revamping their online activities to include more social networking capabilities and a move towards more video on demand services delivered through the Internet.

Are classrooms moving online?
We continue to move towards Internet delivery of all electronic media, but I have to ask myself how well we are moving in that direction in our classrooms.

What does it take to work at Google?
Last night in the WOW2 webcast with Christin Frodella, director of Google Educators network, we talked about what it takes to work at a place like Google. She stated that the "ability to ask questions" and the "ability to be self motivated without someone looking over your shoulder" and "curiosity" and "passion for your profession" as vital for working at Google.

She didn't state knowledge, but of course it was implied that you were very good at what you do.
I think that proficiency is assumed, students must have a certain level of proficiency. But past that, they need to be thinkers, problem solvers, and communicators in a burgeoning techno-personal world.

Time to move online
The fact is that as our world moves online, our classrooms must move online too. Meanwhile, when I think back on the chat last night in WOW2, it seems that many IT departments are moving their school offline as fast as their fingers can type in a filter.

What is being blocked now? Gmail, all chat services, Skype, youtube, twitter, were just a few of the things mentioned last night.

The Bandwidth Dilemma

Bandwidth is certainly an issue. However, we've got to get creative. For example, couldn't a teacher enter the websites that they will be going to the next day and let the server download those graphics or items overnight for the next day? Could e-mails download in the night instead of on demand (since we all demand things at the same time.)

Can we preorder videos, etc. and let some sort of iTunes like synchronization happen in the night? Or could we just invest in faster connections much like we invest in buildings. No one says, "Are we going to put a bathroom in that building?" neither should we scrimp on Internet connectivity. It is vital.

Mickey Mouse's rush into online delivery makes all of the discussions about filtering and blocking and restrictions look well... very Mickey Mouse.

Remember, I always advocate some form of filtering, however, there is a big difference between wise filtering and carte blanche filtering of everything. If you filter it all, why even connect to the Internet, just go back to CD's!

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New Version of Google Analytics Now Available Worldwide: More Features, Even Easier to Use, and Best of All, Still Free

Mountain View, Calif. – May 8, 2007 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced a new version of its powerful web analytics solution, Google Analytics™. The new version of Google Analytics was unveiled today at the EMetrics Summit taking place in San Francisco. Google Analytics, a free enterprise-class solution, enables executives, marketers and website owners to understand how their users interact with their website and help increase online business. Google has completely redesigned the product and enhanced the feature set through new email reporting, customizable dashboards, improved map displays, and plain language descriptions to make important information more accessible.

"At Geffen Records, we use Google Analytics to determine what website content is most valuable to music fans so we can craft the most effective marketing strategies," said Aaron Foreman, Head of Digital Media, Geffen Records.

"As an early adopter of the new version of Google Analytics, we are impressed with the richness of the data and its ease of use that provides us with the most important information immediately," said Lee Hammond, Director of Digital Technology, Geffen Records.

In the new version of Google Analytics, data is concentrated into combinations of reports, allowing users to make informed decisions about site management and Google AdWords™ campaigns. Google Analytics tracks the effectiveness of online marketing initiatives such as display campaigns or cost-per-click programs and creates e-mail reports that can be scheduled and distributed to colleagues.

"At Google, we’re focused on building powerful tools to help advertisers measure the effectiveness of their marketing dollars and optimize their business," said Paul Muret, Engineering Director, Google. "The new version of Google Analytics will give advertisers and site owners greater insight into their customers’ needs, thereby increasing advertiser ROI while also improving the e-commerce experience of consumers."

With this new version, users can experience greater visibility of important data, clarity of appearance and more intuitive navigation paths. Utilizing more features and improved metrics, Google Analytics summarizes data and statistics in plain language so that website owners can make more informed decisions. The tool incorporates score cards and summaries that distill information into key performance indicator summaries.

Other Unique Google Analytics Features:

• Email reports and improved clarity of graphs allow users to explore and discover new insights
• Customizable dashboards ensure the right data gets to the right people at the right time
• Plain language descriptions of the data allow users to take action to improve their website

The Google Analytics service is integrated with Google AdWords. Starting today, new users who sign up will get immediate access to the new version. Also starting today, the new version of Google Analytics will be rolled out automatically to existing users over the coming weeks. Current users will still be able to access the previous version as well as the new version for a minimum of 30 days in order to ensure a smooth transition. All historical data will be available in the new version.

For more information or to get started with Google Analytics, follow the sign-up instructions at www.google.com/analytics/. To learn more about Google Analytics, please visit the Google Analytics blog at: analytics.blogspot.com. Also, check out the instructional video for tips on using the new version at: www.google.com/analytics/video.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Media Contact:

Diana Adair
650.253.1347
dianaa@google.com

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Google, Google Analytics, and Google AdWords are trademarks of Google Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other company and product names may be trademarks of respective companies with which they are associated.

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Karl Fish's SHIFT HAPPENS presentation wins "Best Presentation in the World"

Interesting thing here -- I've congratulated the wrong person -- the creator as seen in the comments is Jbrenamen. It looks like he did a remix.

I think some interesting conversations will happen about this one!

Congratulations to Karl Fisch who is adding to his growing list of awards with his SlideShare presentation Shift Happens. (Hat tip for this info to Jose Luis Cabello via twitter.)

Slideshare has named this presentation "World's Best Presentation!" Congratulations, Karl John?! Here is the presentation, see for yourself!



Remember, the great thing about slideshare is that you can go over there and comment on any individual slide!

And Karl John wins an Alienware laptop! Supercool!

Connecting us all!

And isn't this an amazing world that let's a person from Centennial, Colorado ? can contribute in such an amazing way. (Or in Camilla, Georgia or all of these other remote places -- I often wonder if much of the innovation happening is because now we can tap into the resources and intellect of many of us who are in rural locations and have been "excluded by location.")

Karl's Horizon Keynote

Great thing about Karl is that he's super nice. He recently delivered the keynote address for the horizon project.

tag: Karl Fisch, slideshare, presentation, trends, change

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