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Icon I have talked in the past about how we as a society are developing a new multimedia language (and in the process, reshaping what 'language of thought' theories could possibly mean). We are seeing more and more evidence of this, beginning with this lead story. It's a great set of thought-experiments on how authors could respond to specific audience needs with more useful and informative multimedia responses. Do they work? Yes - as Poynter points out, the most popular features on the New York Times web site were interactives and multimedia, not stories. And the upstart (and excellent) news site Quartz has just launched Atlas, a site for charts and graphics. We won't recognize that we think of as 'learning content' in just a few years, as we move beyond texts and courses and toward engaging and interactive multimedia.

Once upon a time ... ... there was a fairy tale, a story of castles, forests, princesses, giants and dragons. If you go down to the woods today you can customize and share your very own fairy tale with bestselling storyteller Kevin Brooks guiding you along a dark path. Choose the names of the characters, choose their adversaries, shape their adventure and then share the customized story. This fairy tale is specially for you.

Campaign financing is a bit different in Canada and individual politicians don't really get direct support from funders (at least I think they don't). Still, we have to applaud the concept. And even more, take note, this incredibly useful application was created by a self-taught 16-year old. Original story on The Bulletin. "You can download the Greenhouse plugin for free here." Story and longer interview in Vice (probably the original source for the story).

Let the virtual/actual cohort begin!

drats. i'm already intimidated.

Icon stories -- see Romeo and Juliet

Interesting. Compelling. Important. Known and Reclaim your Domain get together. Here's Ben Werdmuller: "I think Known is very clearly both a PLE and an eportfolio: Known profiles allow you to post to a space that represents you, using a variety of media, from any device Known's syndication feature lets you post to your own profile, while syndicating to external sites and applications - like your campus's Learning Management System. Educators agree. The Reclaim Your Domain project is a particular evolution of eportfolio thinking. where members of a campus's community own the domains that represent them (just like indieweb!)." And here's Jim Groom, on pushing the Known syndication hub beyond RSS. He writes, "I've already referred to Known as an open, distributed Tumblr, and that's pretty apt. The minimalism and focus on publishing content quickly and easily makes it very compelling."

nge de Waard links to this collection of xAPI case studies - these are "short (average 15 min) videos covering xAPI in a variety of settings.... real stories on how people in EdTech are using Experience API in their context. The videos were taped during the Orlando happening, and they include wonderful experts." See also the Connections Forum.

stories about grandfather

More on the 4 icon story for English teachers

stories from social media

http://bit.ly/1zwdJwO On the Media story

This is a terrific article on NASA's use of virtual reality to train astronauts. A lot of the focus of VR is on skills training, but the article makes it clear that one of it's key roles is to give the astronauts a feeling of familiarity with the environment and to help them develop the right intuitions for working in a weightless environment. "There's a great advantage in just feeling as though the environment isn't entirely new. 'It means everything. It's not hard to realize that just beyond that thin little visor is instantaneous death. It's oblivion,' Wheelock said." E-learning (including VR) can prepare us far better than traditional instruction for such situations (indeed, the idea of teaching it in a classroom is laughable). So - to answer the traditional objection to e-learning - I wouldn't want to employ an astronaut (or a pilot, or a brain surgeon) who didn't use e-learning.--oldaily