A good source of ideas for mashups and conversation about the future of education.

From Tech President:: "Opening the Transition: Overnight, a new site went up detailing a push by Stanford professor Larry Lessig to petition the Obama-Biden transition to abide by not only the letter of open government principles, but the spirit."

From the Techapresident post: "Does the Internet Matter?": That's the title of a new report out from Temple University's Institute for Business and Information Technology. Making use of some techPresident data, Temple's Sunil Wattal, David Schuff, and Munir Mandviwalla considered how social media in particular shaped the '08 presidential primaries. Their conclusion? While YouTube and MySpace may help lesser-known candidates find footing, only blogs seem to correlate with boosts in Gallup poll numbers. ( You might notice that the report requires a password, but we've got one for you: "templeowls.")

Bookmarks of the Center for Teaching Learning and Technology at Washington State University.

Stanford professor, Linda Darling-Hammond, will chair Obama's transition team studying education policy. This sounds unremarkable, but just like Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein are lightning rods, so is Darling-Hammond. The main reason is that Darling-Hammond has been consistently skeptical of the nameless movement's efforts to shake up public schools. She has criticized Teach For America, the alternative certification program for teachers; criticized high-stakes testing, and criticized No Child Left Behind for narrowing the curriculum.

Gates Foundation will steer its education giving in a new direction But how much impact will the billions have?

The Handheld Learning Conference is the international signature event for learning using mobile or ubiquitous technologies.

This is a good tool for connecting.

Identifying and voting for priorities.

"Front Seat is a civic software company and incubator. Our software connects people to the places we live, the resources we consume, and our communities".

It's All Happening at the Zoo School: Innovative Education with Practical Applications At Minneapolis's School of Environmental Studies, learning is about becoming an expert and solving real problems.

"I invite you to join and promote an exciting collaboration called BigDialog.Org: Ask President-Elect Obama an online question. This effort is co-sponsored by the Foundation, the MIT eCitizen Architecture Program under the leadership of MIT Professor William Mitchell, powered by Founding Partners communityCOUNTS (forum) and CIVICS.com (open frameworks) and supported by cyberspace luminaries like Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford, Professor Ethan Katsh of UMass and Professor Michael Froomkin of University of Miami Law School. Our growing community of partners also includes techPresident, change.org, pajamasmedia, voterwatch, blip.tv and many more."

Information from the Personal Democracty forum on next steps for networked governance.

Tens of thousands of layoffs in the Midwest have left a huge pool of job-seekers. In Ohio, wind turbine makers say they have jobs available that offer good pay and benefits. But they say they are having trouble finding skilled workers for that renewable energy industry

While much of the tech industry and blogosphere is pondering who President-elect Barack Obama might appoint as the nation's first Chief Technology Officer--Eric Schmidt? Jeff Bezos? Larry Lessig?--a bunch of heavy-hitting public interest groups in Washington and a couple of civic-minded techies out in Seattle have each launched promising interventions in the discussion.

Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Walk Score measures how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle-not how pretty the area is for walking.

"The 2008 election will be the first where the Internet will play a central role, not only in terms of how the campaigns use technology, but also in how voter-generated content affects its course. TechPresident.com plans to track all these changes in real-time, covering everything from campaign websites, online advertising and email lists to the postings on YouTube and who's got the fastest growing group of friends on MySpace."

School of Environmental Studies: Taking Class Outdoors At this Minnesota school focused on problem solving, the academic program and the architecture were designed to promote interdisciplinary project-based learning. More to this story.

SLJ offers an engaging, law-themed curriculum, with the goal of providing a high-quality, 9-12 education to under-resourced students. SLJ's focus on the study of law builds upon the success and experiences of The Bronx School for Law, Government, and Justice (BLGJ). BLGJ opened in 1997 in the South Bronx and has maintained 95% graduation rates in the first three graduating classes, with 90% of those graduates going on to college. Over its seven years, BLGJ has developed an array of law-themed courses that range from constitutional law to forensic science, and has established a successful internship model through which seniors spend three afternoons a week in courthouses, law firms, and non-profit organizations. SLJ was developed in conjunction with members of the BLGJ community including teachers, students, parents, and the principal.

The Ash Institute has a youtube page with videos on networked governance. This is a video of a talk on " Innovations in Participation: Citizen Engagement in Deliberative Democracy"