CTLT and Friends

In this endlessly fascinating book, New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea that has profound implications: large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant-better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future.

Visualizations : Network Diagram of ORO dept authjors demo

eCOMMUNITY & iDENTITY MIT ecitizen architectural projects at ecitizen.mit.edu

"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.

"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."

"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".

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.

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."

The following paper gives an overview of the approach taken by the SocialLearn project at Open University UK. It provides a description and rationale for a hub-and-spoke model similar to the one we have been discussing. Social:Learn - Widening Participation and Sustainability of Higher Education Walton, A, Weller, M. and Conole, G. (2008). Proc. EDEN 2008: Annual Conference of the European Distance and E-Learning Network. 11-14 June 2008, Lisbon, Portugal [PDF]

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

When President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January, he'll have expanded majorities of Democrats in both houses of Congress - and the support of a big grass-roots movement. Millions of people helped him beat Sen. John McCain, and Obama must be as innovative in harnessing their power postelection as he was during the campaign.

This is from BBC news this morning on the education technology trade show, BETT, in London.

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

Identifying and voting for priorities.

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.

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

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.

Focusing on ePortfolios in a Web 2.0 context. Open source is a construct--unbundling the code from the services. So that teachers no longer own the content--the content is open and free. Can education itself open up?