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While not an emerging tehnology per se, social networks can serve as indicators of how, why and who is using and CREATING web content. I think the creation part of this exchange is key in that it ishere that the disruptive element of the technology comes into play. In my studies of Podcasts for the wiki assignment I found that many first time podcasters subscribers experimented with recording their own Podcast before becoming regular consumers. How does this relate to the facebook vs. myspace arguement, you ask? SImple, myspace is a more customizable portal/page that allows users to express and communicate their own, often marginalized socio-cultural identity. Facebook on the other hand asks users to define their online persona via 'freinds', shared photos, profile text fields, etc. For many recent immigrant and children, the formation and identification of an imagined community is an attractive thing. Somalian wallpaper, Manga flash videos embedded, Dominican Republic Flag .gifs waving all over..and MUSIC.

Here's a brief article with statistics on online social networking divide. What does your online social networking preference reveal about your social class?

Will online social networking create or perpetuate a "caste system" within online communities?

"The national health care debate right now is all about giving more people affordable access to doctors and hospitals. Yet the vast majority of health care decisions - 80 percent or more, experts say - are really made by individuals, instead of medical professionals..."

Good list of free and pay online language learning resources. See the awards list.

Found this in doing research for my HT500 presentation. Some foreign language teachers are installing the Sims in foreign languages and having kids play the game to develop their vocabulary. Teachers can use community-created game modding tools to edit text in the game, adding extra words and vocab lists. Because this is a game about everyday life, kids learn everyday vocabularies. Cool idea! I wonder if this would work with any other video games.

wikis as classroom and professional development tools

Here's a little media literacy for our emerging technologies.

Light-hearted tech article on some 2.0 tools for the elderly. Reminds us "While imagining your elderly uncle using high-tech devices to keep in touch might at first seem far-fetched, it's only a matter of time before it is second nature."

Google has US Education in its crosshairs.... Google is name-dropping all sorts of work in the education space in its forum to help redefine American education : Harlem Children's Zone, NCLB, A Nation at Risk, Sesame Street................. Here's a snippet: "And according to McKinsey's Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools report, if the U.S. had in recent years closed the gap between its educational achievement levels and those of higher-performing nations, our GDP in 2008 could have been $1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion higher. That's 9 to 16 percent of GDP!"

Schools in Denmark are piloting a program which allows students to use computers with internet access on national writing exams.

An article on how current developments in giant search engines are revolutionizing the way we search the web?

The digital ethnographer Michael Wesch on the dark side of social media, what we learned from Iran, and why the future of the web depends on human interests-not market interests.

Is foreign-language software and technology impacting how Japanese learn their own language and negatively impacting their national culture?

Google opens the book on privacy (somewhat).

Google is going after Microsoft with their new open source operating system designed originally for netbook users - so no software has to be installed.  It is all browser based and stores docs on Google servers - great for computer crashes - security???

These glasses remind me of Parisa's thread about foreign language translating.

on bogus tweets. many celebrities hire twitter ghostwriters to tweet for them. "public figures can't afford to be boring on Twitter."

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and four nonprofit education organizations are investing to accelerate the development online learning tools. According to Mr. Gates, "Innovation is our only hope", and "And the nly new game in town is Technology."

The link within the article to the hybrid education 2.0 article really speaks to the new "badge" movement online. What they say makes sense in support for these. Will be interesting to see how this evolves.

A survey of 25 ed tech directors conducted by Piper Jaffray that is making the rounds in the tech blogosphere. Seems to fall in line with what we're learning and today's trends: all surveyed IT directors are interested in the iPad, not Android, they like the flexibility tablets would offer over computers, it's going to take some time for schools to achieve one tablet per child. Cost is an obvious concern, but so is device management.