CTLT and Friends

The n-Category Café\nA group blog on math, physics and philosophy This is one of the blogs Lissi used to discuss his "Simple Theory of Everyting"

Hey there! WSUPullman is using Twitter. Twitter is a free service that lets you keep in touch with people through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Join today to start receiving WSUPullman's updates.

Facebook has created this group to publish, and solicit comments regarding, its proposed Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (the "Statement").

Where will higher education be the day after the current global economic crisis passes? If you think things will simply go back to the way they were once the economy recovers in a year or two, think again.

A cool technique for portfolio-on-the-web

see my comments in http://www.nilspeterson.com/2009/02/25/web-20-and-textbooks/

"A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that a third of students surveyed said that they expected B's just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading. "

Hammered by relentless technological change, many companies take a reactive stance: They focus solely on keeping up, protecting their existing markets, and improving their performance. But a few companies take a proactive stance by executing shaping strategies: They use technology changes to create new business ecosystems that benefit themselves and other participants. Take Google's AdSense: It has reinvented the advertising business by enabling advertisers, content providers, and potential customers to connect with one another quickly, easily, and cheaply. To succeed, a shaping strategy needs a critical mass of participants, say Hagel, Brown, and Davison. Shapers can attract them by: * Convincingly articulating opportunities available to participants * Defining standards and practices that make participation easy and affordable * Demonstrating they have the conviction and resources for success and won't compete against participants Well-executed shaping strategies mobilize masses of players to learn from and share risk with one another - creating a profitable future for all.

In 2004, the LIFE Center and the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington established the LIFE Diversity Panel. The Panel's goal was to summarize important principles that educational practitioners, policy makers, and researchers can use to build upon the learning that occurs in the homes and community cultures of students from diverse groups. We are pleased to announce the culmination of this two year consensus process. On May 11th, 2007, the centers released the consensus report produced by the LIFE Diversity Panel called Learning In and Out of School in Diverse Environments: Life-Long, Life-Wide, and Life-Deep. A major assumption of this report is that if educators make use of the informal learning that occurs in the homes and communities of students, the achievement gap between marginalized students and mainstream students can be reduced.

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. For his next project, he's building a web for open, linked data that could do for numbers what the Web did for words, pictures, video: unlock our data and reframe the way we use it together.

What emerged from this work was a picture of learning that drew our attention to a series of intermediate thinking processes that characterize flexible thinking, processes that digital media are especially good at making visible. This includes such things as how students work through difficulty, consider alternative pathways to solve problems, speculate about ideas, and argue with one another about meaning. These kinds of thinking processes turn out to be much more than just cognitive. Motivation, confidence, fear, one's sense of identity, experience, as well as formal knowledge all come to bear on them.

Scientists have therefore proved resourceful in using the web to further their research. They have, however, tended to lag when it comes to employing the latest web-based social-networking tools to open up scientific discourse and encourage more effective collaboration...... No one yet knows how to measure the impact of a blog post or the sharing of a good idea with another researcher in some collaborative web-based workspace. Dr Nielsen reckons that if similar measurements could be established for the impact of open commentary and open collaboration on the web, such commentary and collaboration would flourish, and science as a whole would benefit.

A computer science professor at an Australian University is doing something revolutionary with YouTube - he's offering students who can't attend his classes college credit for watching his videos. Richard Buckland, a senior lecturer at the University of NSW in Sydney, Australia, was frustrated that high school students with a passion for computing and capable of studying at the college level were not able to make the commute to the university fit into their school day. Buckland then decided to turn YouTube into a remote classroom where the students could attend lectures virtually and then complete coursework just as his other students do.

This demo -- from Pattie Maes' lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry -- was the buzz of TED. It's a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine "Minority Report" and then some.

Maintained Relationships on Facebook

"In the face of an economic crisis of unprecedented and in many ways still not fully understood dimensions, there is a natural inclination to retrench, to stop considering what the next new thing might be, to slow down on innovation and experimentation. This is a mistake. This is the moment when we must confront the core assumptions of our educational enterprises, and to ask hard questions about why we do what we do, and how we can change in order to survive and perhaps even thrive. This symposium, which is part of the Future of Everything project hosted by Academic Commons (http://academiccommons.org/futureofeverything/), brings us together to consider the possible futures of a host of interconnected topics: the book, the library, our system of scholarly communication, classroom technology, software distribution, the lecture, the seminar, existing and future business models,and ultimately, the college and the university. You'll have a chance to hear from leading practitioners who are creating the next generation tools, resources, spaces, and policies, and to engage in on-line dialogue before, during, and after the event. The work of the symposium will be used to inform the publication of an on-line reader that we hope will be broadly useful for all engaged in re-imagining future services, facilities, and policies on campus. Date: May 19, 2009 Place: Norwood, MA"

As others have pointed out, articles that complain about Twitter typically focus on the content of individual tweets rather than focusing on those tweets in a specific context. It would be similar to denigrating conversation by pulling out individual pieces of dialogue rather than seeing how conversation involves a variety of practices: connecting with others, sharing ideas, linking to blog posts, participating in mini-memes, or whatever.

from Michael Feldstein advice on LMS migration and selection which does not just apply to small schools

Google decided to close many services that were either redundant, not very successful or unrelated to Google's core business.

"What's Your Big Idea for Change in America? President-Elect Obama says he wants to hear ideas from all Americans, so we're taking him up on his offer. Here's your chance to pose innovative solutions to the major problems we face and to get them heard." Submit your ideas for how to change America, and vote for your favorites. The top idea for each cause will be presented to the Obama administration on Inauguration Day, and that's just the beginning. (Much more to come)