Group items tagged

Article about using games in the classroom to teach.

Very nice article about using Games in the Classroom from Todd Bryant. (Hat tip to Jo McLeay's plurk about this one.)

Adobe is trying to get its Flash player installed on more mobile devices.

Adobe will stop charging licencing fees for mobile versions of Flash and plans to publish information about the inner workings of the code. Wikinomics concept: The move is the latest in a series that are aiming to open up Flash and get MORE devleopers working with it.

Business people and management should read this article about the transformation of business by using workplace communities.

"Workplace communities are designed to solve workplace-related challenges" -- they focus on tasks. I would find it interesting to see a business REALLY use technology to change things.

Having the business in a business network (OK a NING) and let people tag their posts with the business related PROBLEMS they are having and blog, video, or photograph it-- the tag cloud would tell the business IMMEDIATELY what the problems are in the company.

The problem with this model is that there are few corporate executives who REALLY want to know the problems within their organizations. They don't want to be problem solvers, just opportunity creators.

However, when managers open their eyes (and I'm a former General Manager myself) and see that two things give business opportunity: problem solving and innovation. And they are directly related. True innovation solves problems.

Read this article and think about how you may solve problems using the networks you may now create. If you don't want everyone to know, keep it private and only allow people in your company in.

Important article about why businesses need to change.

Yahoo is opening up its applications for others to modify. This concept was emphasised in Wikinomics.

We don't think of social as a destination but as a dimension

A humanoid robot will conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra next month

How twitter was used to backchannel a conference.

Excellent overview from Jeremiah about the use of twiter to backchannel at a conference. Backchanneling is something I think that is very important, but there is very definitely a best practice.

Here were my comments to Jeremiah:

"I am a classroom teacher and LOVE the backchannel (they are great for test reviews -- like group notes and more) and won't do a conference presentation without one, that being said, I wouldn't use twitter for it.

Like you said, many people don't use twitter or get it.

I like to create a "backchannel room" so that it is archived and recruit ahead of time at least two people:

1) A backchannel "moderator" - they answer questions and I call on them several times to ask for their summary of what is going on in the backchannel (this is when I'm the main presenter)

2) A google jockey -- they drop the links I'm talking about in the backchannel chat.

I also like to ask the people in the backchannel to share best practice and what they are doing. I've had people comment that the one hour with a backchannel and me presenting was more meaningful than a whole day at a conference. (More compliments to the backchannel, I'm sure.)

I've seen backchannels handled very poorly and it was TERRIBLE. It was chaos. And actually downright rude to the speaker. (More like backstabbing than backchanneling.)

I've also seen it used well and it was incredible!

The archiving of the backchannel gave me rich links as a presenter and participant AND also feedback on the session which I referred to later as the presenter.

The backchannel is great -- I just like to use a backchannel ROOM especially for the session (inviting "friends" from around the world who are also watching on ustream) -- and then creating an archived copy of it.

I think backchannels are very important and you've hit on the core of what is happening in the evolution of professional development and conferences. "

The film will have three acts, each three to five minutes long, with the theme loosely based on the concept of humanity.

Mr. Lee is to direct a short film comprising of videos created using their mobile phones.

An "assignment" for each act will be announced online and people will then have four weeks to produce their submission.

Spike Lee has linked up with Nokia to direct a movie made with cell phone footage from everyday people in what he calls the democratization of film.

The Internet is the platform - a tool for harnessing collective intelligence. Data has become the "Intel Inside" and software is above being written for just a single device, meaning desktops, laptops and mobile devices.

Some good trends identified, some sites listed where they are working for 'a higher purpose'; the value grows based on the number of participants. Could have some ideas for a mulit-media artifact.

Juggling spreadsheets, music, and reports between PCs may get a lot easier with a new Microsoft service called Live Mesh.

The service allows you to create a Web-based Live Desktop complete with Windows-like folders that can be shared with others and can be synched to multiple PCs. Can be extended to cell phones.

These are the 100 best Web 2.0 applications, chosen by Webware readers and Internet users across the globe.

40 hours of compressed video stuck in an elevator became instant YouTube hit.

A compressed video made of footage from a surveillance camera showing a man who got trapped in an elevator for over 40 hours back in 1999 emerged online and became an instant hit.

NBC News and MSNBC.com will provide political news and other content to social networking site MySpace.

The age group that makes use of the likes of MySpace are also getting more involved in teh political process

Rock 'n' roll bad boys Motley Crue will become the first group to release a new single through Rock Band, the developer of the wildly popular game.

First rock band to release a single through the gaming industry. Video games may be a new source of revenue for the music industry. Rock Band allows gamers to play along to songs with controllers shaped like a guitar, drum set or microphone

Intel Mashmaker is a tool that you download and "mashup" sites together. It is supposed to allow average everyday people to be able to mashup google sites, flickr, almost anything with what programmers call an api.

An excellent project for 4th - 6th grade sudents from Jennifer Wagner called the Prince Caspian project which will allow teachers to collaborate with other teachers around the world about the book and the upcoming movie "Prince caspian."

This project will allow students in grades 4-6 to collaborate to talk about Prince Caspian.

Confiscating and looking at information on cell phones by school officials is still not clear. This is a very interesting case study for those working with digital citizenship issues at their school.

A court case about illegal search and siezure of a cell phone in Michigan, USA.