edu_news - Vicki Davis on Diigo

19 Nov 09

Productivity on your wall: GTD wallpaper v3 | Anabubula.com *

For those who like the getting things done method and would like to have it in front of them, here is GTD Wallpaper.

anabubula.com/ity-your-wall-GTD-wallpaper-v3 - Preview

education learning gtd productivity invention edu_news

17 Nov 09

UK Team is focusing on online comment defamation

While this article starts out about a lawfirm in Birmingham UK that is going to "track down people who make anonymous comments about companies online" it becomes an amazingly poignant article on the very nature of the Internet today and the push pull between anonymous commenting and accountability of the commenter. Push pull between free speech and online identity and brand protection.

One person in this article claims that this sort of thing is the sign that the "wild west" of the INternet is coming to an end. Oh dear, I hope someone invents a new one if somehow anonymous commenters are now going to risk such!

Also love the article's discussion of the Streisand effect wherein Barbara protested the sharing of some photos of her eroding beachfront which caused a stir and more people looking at the photos than if she had left it alone.

This article is going to be a must read for Flat Classroom students and would be great for college-level discussions as well.

www.birminghampost.net/...ment-defamation-65233-25030203 - Preview

education digitalcitizenship edu_news govt_business web2.0 worldonline www_world prediction

a new team to track down people who make anonymous comments about companies online.
a new team to track down people who make anonymous comments about companies online.
16 more annotations...
- a new team to track down people who make anonymous comments about companies online.
- a rising problem with people making anonymous statements that defamed companies, and people sharing confidential information online.
- the new team would ensure there was “nowhere to hide in cyberspace”.
- the numbers of disgruntled employees looking to get their own back on employers or former employers was also on the rise.
- rogue employees
  - Uhm, how about rogue companies? - on 2009-11-17
  Add Sticky Note
- trying to get Internet Service Providers to give out details of customers who had made comments online
- shares in American firm United Airlines fell by 99 per cent in just 15 minutes after an outdated story that the firm had filed for bankruptcy was forced back onto the headlines.
- a story from six years earlier about United Airlines going bankrupt was voted up on a newspaper website. This was later picked up by Google News and eventually the Bloomberg news wire, which published it automatically as if it were a news story.
  - Could this be considered the new "insider trading" - hmmm. Surely there are issues if it is done maliciously but isn't there a line here? - on 2009-11-17
  Add Sticky Note
- could stifle free speech, and the ability of people to act as whistle-blowers to expose actions by their employers.
- an outlet for anonymous reporting.
  - Is it possible to have accountability AND anonymity? Must these be mutually exclusive? - on 2009-11-17
  Add Sticky Note
- This is known as the ‘Streisand effect’ online, after a case where singer Barbara Streisand tried to suppress photos of her California beachside home from a publicly-available archive of photos taken to document coastal erosion.
- Nightjack. This was the guy who was blogging on the front line about police work and he was forced to stop this story because he was unmasked by The Times
- If you allow a lot of anonymous debate by people who are not regulated, you can get it descending to the common denominator. If you allow people to register with an identity, even if it’s not their real one, you bring the level of debate up.”
- There was one case a couple of years ago that we just keep referring back to where a defamatory comment was made and it wasn’t taken down for a period of time. Because of that the host of the website was held to be liable.”
- the ‘Wild West’ era of the internet was in some ways coming to an end, with firms starting to crack down
- I think companies are still grappling with whether it’s better to take it on the chin and hope people don’t see the comments, or on the other hand cracking down on everything that’s particularly damaging that’s said online. Maybe this is set to change.”

Legal Experts on How Murdoch's Threats May Impact "Fair Use" Doctrine | BNET Media Blog | BNET

Excellent overview of Rupert Murdoch's taking on of Google and that they should not index his sites, even though he can easily opt out of indexing, that they are somehow demonetizing his work by searching since he wants to "reduce his audience to those who will pay" not "increase his audience." This is a fascinating read and case study for those following Fair Use.

industry.bnet.com/...s-may-impact-fair-use-doctrine - Preview

education law edu_news

Media industry titan Rupert Murdoch’s explicit threats this week to block Google from searching his content sites, and to sue the BBC for its use of content he says is “stolen” from his sites got me to wondering whether the head of News Corp. has, in fact, any basis in the law for launching these calculated attacks at this time and in this manner.
Murdoch perhaps does have at least a narrow legal perch to stand on.
10 more annotations...
- four factors in determining whether the reproduction of any copyrighted work qualifies as Fair Use
- is for nonprofit educational purposes;
- the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
- he says he is re-tuning his business model around monetizing his content.
- he is not trying to grow his audience any longer, he says.
- he’s trying to shrink his audience back to the people who will pay for his content
- Therefore Google’s caching of his content would make it free even as he’s trying to charge for it
  - So basically, Google is taking something he wants to charge for and making it free. But my question is, if he wants to charge for it, shouldn't it be bedhind some sort of firewall or is it Google's job to see which sites it is allowed to index? Aren't there certain protocols that make the Net what it is? Certain standards? Isn't one of those the open indexing or crawling of unprotected sites? I'm not sure but hoping someone will respond. - on 2009-11-17
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- Google allows Murdoch, or any publisher, to “opt out” of allowing its pages to be indexed?
- know how to use the Robots Exclusion Protocol
- he wants a closer relationship with Google.

12 Nov 09

Elluminate Whitepaper Request

Steve Hargadon's new whitepaper on social networking in Education (which does include some comments from Julie Lindsay and me.) Full disclosure: Elluminate provides Kim Caise, our Flat Classroom administrator, to us for 20 hours a week and we appreciate it very much. Go to this page to download the whitepaper.

www.elluminate.com/...request-form.jsp - Preview

education flatclassroom social networking edu_news edu_trends

06 Nov 09

Innovative Learning - Free Newsletter Fall 2009

This phenomenal special interest group of ISTE has a great quarterly newsletter which is really the best of innovative learning in all of education. On pages 15-17 there are three pages of an article from two of my students and I about teaching in a virtual world including my "quick tricks for teaching in a virtual world." Print this, share it, and learn - so many great things in this newsletter!

issuu.com/...fall_newsletter-_2009 - Preview

education opensim reactiongrid ipod iphone iste learning edu_news edu_trends

03 Nov 09

Crowdsourcing or Loudsourcing? | ISTE Connects - Educational Technology

Blogged my thoughts on crowdsourcing the ISTE keynote this year.

www.isteconnects.org/...crowdsourcing-or-loudsourcing - Preview

education iste crowdsourcing edu_news

Findings - Ethnographic Study Looks at Gossip in the Workplace - NYTimes.com

Office gossip (this study on an elementary school and their gossip against a principal) hurts EVERYONE including your school and in this case, test scores declined. Remember that when you gossip, you also hurt yourself and if you didn't already know this, take a read here about office gossip and how to intervene and stop it.

www.nytimes.com/...03tier.html - Preview

education learning gossip psychology edu_news

once someone made a negative comment about a person who wasn’t there, the conversation would get meaner unless someone immediately defended the target.
gossip in the workplace also tended to be overwhelmingly negative, but the insults were more subtle and the conversations less predictable, says Tim Hallett, a sociologist at Indiana University.
10 more annotations...
- Office gossip can be a form of reputational warfare
- Dr. Hallett found that the teachers became so comfortable with him and his camera that they would freely insult their bosses during one-on-one interviews. But at the teachers’ formal group meetings, where they knew that another teacher might report their insults to the principal, they were more discreet.
- they sometimes offered obliquely sarcastic comments to test the water
- praise the predecessor
- The teachers’ gossip never got as blatantly mean as the teenage girls’
- The principal felt that her authority was being undermined by gossip and retaliated against teachers she suspected (correctly) of criticizing her.
- in this case it was also a form of warfare that brought everyone down
- it is more realistic to try managing it.
- That simple question, a dare made in a pleasant voice
- “Don’t we have some work to do here?”

27 Oct 09

How I create and publish podcasts » Moving at the Speed of Creativity

If you want to know how one of the pro's makes and publishes podcasts, here is Wesley Fryer's how to - a must read for anyone working in this area of technology.

www.speedofcreativity.org/...-i-create-and-publish-podcasts - Preview

education podcast web2.0 worldonline edu_news professionaldevelopment web2 bestpractices

26 Oct 09

Myebook - Movie Making for Kids

This ebook has over 10,000 views and it is about movie making for kids with just simple pictures.

www.myebook.com/index.php - Preview

education learning technology edu_news professionaldevelopment

E-Learning Journeys: Across My Desk (weekly)

My friend Julie Lindsay (now in China) is such a great friend and inspiration to me. I haven't said in some time how much I appreciate what she is doing and how much she shares. She writes a great blog that I wish more people would read.

123elearning.blogspot.com/...across-my-desk-weekly_25.html - Preview

education learning edu_news edublogger

IdeaPaint - Let Your Students Make Their Mark

This from Angela Maiers - two videos that share the concept of Ideapaint.

This video shows you how to do it. I need to show you pictures of my wall - I wanted to "wiki" the walls of my room and used brightly colored duct tape to designate areas where the students could share information. Perhaps with ideapaint I could do something similar. I love this idea. I think that perhaps next year (or maybe even over Break) I'll use ideapaint to make my whole room writeable - oh so cool!)

www.angelamaiers.com/...-students-make-their-mark.html - Preview

edu_news edu_trends edu_newapp all_teachers

White House opens website programming to public

The whitehouse.gov will look the same to most people except that what is behind it is part of the open source movement with the whitehouse code - now powered by Drupal -- is open source.

For educators, if you've found administrators objecting to the open source movement, maybe you should consider using the white house as an example.

www.physorg.com/news175702799.html - Preview

opensource education edu_news govt_business outsourcing web2.0 worldonline www_world

The online-savvy administration on Saturday switched to open-source code for http://www.whitehouse.gov - meaning the programming language is written in public view, available for public use and able for people to edit.

Net Neutrality FAQ: What's in it for You - PC World

Net neutrality is an important issue being addressed by the US government right now to prevent companies from sort of creating their own version of the Internet. These rules are supposed to keep things "open." I'm also sending these to my digiteen students (you can follow digiteen at http://www.twitter.com/digiteen) and Flat Classroom students (http://www.twitter.com/flatclassroom) for work on their project.

www.pcworld.com/...y_faq_whats_in_it_for_you.html - Preview

education netneutrality edu_news edu_trends worldonline www_world prediction govt_business digital_access digital_communications freedom integrity

22 Oct 09

Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: Will the Nook Eat the Kindle's Lunch?

Barnes and Noble's response to the Kindle: The Nook.

It uses the Android operating system (Google's mobile OS) and can install 3rd party Android Apps. It also has an MP3 player but does not have built in text to speech (so no UDL here) -

If you use the free wifi at Barnes and Noble you can read any ebook for free - otherwise it is something that you need to buy.

www.technologyreview.com/...24281 - Preview

education ebook library librarian wireless_connectivity web2.0 www_world edu_news edu_trends

Things That Keep Us Up at Night - 10/1/2009 - School Library Journal

Must read article that is tearing through the blogs of librarians and media specialists like wildfire this October. If you work with libaries and media centers this is a must read and must pass along if only to spark conversation (and oh, it has.)

www.schoollibraryjournal.com/...CA6699357.html - Preview

education mediacenter librarian administrator edu_news

A Week For Computer Science Education | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM

Conversations about Computer Science education week are beginning to float around. I think we can do many easy things including webinars and sessions with leaders that students can interact with live and even just a hashtag for people to follow on twitter who care about the topic would be useful.

cacm.acm.org/...fulltext - Preview

education learning computer computerscience_teacher computerscience edu_news

19 Oct 09

The Tiny Differences in the Littlest Brains ~ Stephen's Web ~ by Stephen Downes

New book reviewed by Stephen Downes about gender differences in brains.

www.downes.ca/...page.cgi - Preview

education reading research edu_news

16 Oct 09

ISTE | ISTE 2010 Keynote Project

International Society of Technology Educators is asking for your thoughts on their keynote for ISTE 2010. Go there and share!

www.iste.org/...ISTE_2010_Keynote_Project.htm - Preview

education learning teaching iste edu_news

12 Oct 09

The Battle of the Brain

Video we watched on Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. Excellent video on the flaws of IQ.

www.youtube.com/watch - Preview

education iq edu_news

06 Oct 09

YouTube - Curt Bonk's Flat Classrooms Keynote: The World is Open

Flat Classroom Project keynote for this quarter from Dr. Curtis Bonk where he discusses the trends that are opening up education. It is interesting to watch to see if you know what he is talking about (and who) and some people you know will be in these videos.