Group items tagged

"Author: Andy Carvin , EDC Center for Media & Community | December 7th, 2004 You may have noticed recently that lots of websites now contain little graphical buttons with the word XML on them. For example: XML button When you click on the button, all you see is a bunch of jumbled text and computer code. What's this all about? It's an RSS feed, and they're changing the way people access the Internet. RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a technical format that allows online publishers to share and distribute their content to other websites or individual Internet users. It's commonly used for distributing headlines on news websites. Bloggers use it to distribute summaries of their blog entries as well. RSS is written in the Internet coding language known as XML, which is why you see RSS buttons labeled that way. If a website publishes an RSS page, commonly known as an RSS "feed," this feed will contain summaries of all the recent articles posted on that site. For example, Yahoo News publishes news related to world headlines, national news, sports, etc. These you can all read by going to the Yahoo website. But they also publish RSS feeds for each of these subjects. Each RSS feed contains a summary of the most recent news stories posted. Similarly, the Digital Divide Network publishes RSS feeds for our news headlines, events listings and other content on our website. I even have my own RSS feed for articles that I publish on my personal blog, Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth. But why do RSS feeds look like a jumbled mess when I click on them with most Web browsers? It's because RSS feeds are meant to be read by machines rather than people. Software and websites can understand the data contained in RSS feeds and make it available to people on personalized websites, through software known as news aggregators, even through email. So when you aggregate RSS feeds, you're having a computer collect content from many different websites and organize them in a convenient pla

Linkato in http://iamarf.org/2013/04/20/racconti-ltis13/ , commento 42. RSS come empowerment.

"Toby Walsh - Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales - Australia How can we ensure that education is ready to prepare learners for the future? And how can we create new learning environments which enhance the benefit of education? Learn about the latest theories, new digital solutions, policies, strategies, research and insights, as our expert speakers shared their enthusiasm for tomorrow's new world of learning. More info: http://bit.ly/1NgVtia"

"March 20, 2013, 4:55 am By Steve Kolowich The State University of New York's Board of Trustees on Tuesday endorsed an ambitious vision for how SUNY might use prior-learning assessment, competency-based programs, and massive open online courses to help students finish their degrees in less time, for less money. The plan calls for "new and expanded online programs" that "include options for time-shortened degree completion." In particular, the board proposed a huge expansion the prior-learning assessment programs offered by SUNY's Empire State College. The system will also push its top faculty members to build MOOCs designed so that certain students who do well in the courses might be eligible for SUNY credit. Ultimately, the system wants to add 100,000 enrollments within three years, according to a news release."

"Lia Commissar - Wellcome Trust - UK How can we ensure that education is ready to prepare learners for the future? And how can we create new learning environments which enhance the benefit of education? Learn about the latest theories, new digital solutions, policies, strategies, research and insights, as our expert speakers shared their enthusiasm for tomorrow's new world of learning. More info: http://bit.ly/1NgVtia"

"Latest MOOC News 99 Pins 54 Followers"

Filmed Dec 2010 * Posted Jan 2011 * TEDWomen 2010 "New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly shares a portfolio of her wise and funny cartoons about modern life -- and talks about how humor can empower women to change the rules. New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly tackles global issues with humor, intelligence and sarcasm. Her latest project supports the United Nations initiative Cartooning For Peace."

From http://www.stanford.edu/~efs/693b/TED1.html : "1. length: 6:43 2. overall speed (WPM): 152 3. vocabulary profile: 3K-94.9%; 5K-98.4%; 10K-99.5%; OL-.5% 4. accent: US standard 5. comments: her cartoons illustrate the points she makes; references to growing up in the 1950s and 60s; glass ceiling 6. New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly shares a portfolio of her wise and funny cartoons about modern life -- and talks about how humor can empower women to change the rules."

Filmed Apr 2011 * Posted May 2011 * Gel Conference "At the onstage introduction of Twirlr, a new social-sharing platform, someone forgets to silence their cell phone. And then ... this happens. (Song by Scott Brown and Anthony King; edit by Nathan Russell.) Improv Everywhere is a New York City-based prank collective that causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places." YouTube URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soAk3F0wX9s

From http://www.stanford.edu/~efs/693b/TED1.html : "1. length: 3:20 2. overall speed (WPM): unknown--no transcript (*)--but not too fast 3. vocabulary profile: mostly frequent words--no transcript available 4. accent: US standard 5. comments: no captions for the first 34 seconds (**). References to various social sharing applications (Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo, Myspace, FourSquare...) 6. At the onstage introduction of Twirlr, a new social-sharing platform, someone forgets to silence their cell phone. And then ... this happens" (*) Actually there IS a transcript generated by the subtitles captions: - below the player in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soAk3F0wX9s - downloadable from http://www.amara.org/en/videos/gUDo8ztfKMOW/en/40866/ (Download > TXT) 362 words in 3:20 = 108.6 WPM (CA) (**) Actually captions now start at 0:03 (CA)

training news and unpdated list of major organizations offering free Moocs, courses and webinars for educators

"We now require captcha on many social features, such as following people, joining groups, etc. For a very nominal fee, you can upgrade yourself to "Social Membership," which would grant you full social features without capcha, plus a lot of other goodies. We expect to stop the vast majority of the spammers with this simple measure. We'd like to elaborate more about Social Membership and its pricing and our thoughts behind the decisions. As long-time Diigo users know, Diigo is a personal knowledge management tool on the one hand, and a knowledge-sharing community on the other hand. While it is perfectly fine to use Diigo solely as the former, we do believe that the value of the knowledge-sharing community could be substantial, as the number of active users increases, and as the spam is minimized. As a result, we have decided to set the social membership annual fee at $5/year on Oct 1, 2014, and will increase the price gradually thereafter according to a pre-determined formula, as the number of active social members increases. To reward existing users, an attractive promotion price of $2/year will be available until Oct. 1, 2014. For future years, you will continue to pay the low annual price you paid in the first year, as long as your credit card stay valid for automatic renewal. We have also taken this opportunity to re-adjust our pricing plan to better align users needs with our business model. Existing basic and premium users will be automatically upgraded to Standard in the new pricing plan."

Attenzione a quel "new pricing plan" https://www.diigo.com/premium che limita drasticamente il numero dei gruppi per le formule meno care, ma non è chiaro cosa succederà ai gruppi creati con formula gratuita.

"TWITTER -- February 17, 2011 at 9:30 AM EDT NPR's Andy Carvin on Tracking and Tweeting Revolutions By: Hari Sreenivasan We caught up with NPR's Senior Strategist Andy Carvin between his 400+ tweets a day for a chat about his Twitter stream. It has become a must-follow wire service of sorts for people interested in the latest developments in Tunisia, Egypt and a growing number of countries across the Middle East, Persian Gulf and North Africa. We discussed how he began mapping out whom to trust in the "Twittersphere," and how he works to verify and share facts with NPR as the stories develop. His tweets are populated with the words "source" and "verified?" More often than not, as he re-tweets trends and waves of information across the streams he tracks as his sources verify or discount facts on the ground. Carvin uses a combination of old media (wire services, broadcast networks) and follows a series of bloggers and Twitter accounts. He verifies with sources he trusts before saying a piece of information is "confirmed." Andy has spoken about his open news-gathering processes during a live-chat with Poynter, a Q&A with the Atlantic, the Knight Digital Media Center and it has been blogged about at the New York Times."

URL dei link del testo Conto twitter di Andy Carvin: http://twitter.com/acarvin Poynter: http://bit.ly/fND2aM Atlantic: http://bit.ly/h4O3Gr Knight Digital Media Center: http://bit.ly/fAjoBi New York Times: http://nyti.ms/edNSIi Conto twitter di Hari Sreenivasan: http://twitter.com/hari

Political gatherings have been banned in two Pakistani provinces and many activists arrested to prevent them joining a planned protest march. Opposition supporters and lawyers had organised what they are calling a "long march" against the government due to start later this week. Activists, lawyers and ordinary citizens have reacted to the latest developments with a mixture of defiance and fear.

"Coverage for Long march preparation activities and Long March. Featured videos Latest sms (See All) SMS "longmarch your message" to 80022 guest267 Dec 04, 09, 12:17 PM Lahore lahore Bushra aitzaz(wife of aitzaz) also arrested... guest267 Dec 04, 09, 12:17 PM Lahore lahore Almost all male civil society members from ccp have been arrested. guest342 Dec 04, 09, 12:17 PM Rangers and army are now high alert, ISI ready to arrest Zardari, if he resigns. guest4 Dec 04, 09, 12:17 PM Lahore Lahore Another sp refuses to work here at gpo guest4 Dec 04, 09, 12:17 PM Lahore Lahore thousands of people pouring out on the streets to join nawaz caravan currently in ichra . Police seems to be demoralized and backing up from gpo guest300 Dec 04, 09, 12:17 PM BREAKING NEWS *Mobile SMS service suspended in Islamabad. News42 "

"At my place of employment Diigo is blocked through our server under the social network category. I have administrator rights and can override the block for a set time period, eg 30 minutes. Diigo opens and I am able to surf from my bookmarks satisfactorily. However, there is no way I can add new bookmarks to my Diigo account, using a "Post To Diigo" bookmark in Internet Explorer, or the "Add+" button at the top of "My Items" in "my library" view. Somewhere, somehow our server is preventing this to happen. Needless to say I am disappointed. The work around is to email my new urls to my home address and then ad them to Diigo once I return home."

Whether you're new to technology, just getting started with a social network, or looking for some useful tips then these courses are for you. They're part of a new idea that I've been working on with a few friends. We're calling it Modern Lessons and it's essentially a 'Khan Academy for real-world skills' where a small handful of people build free online courses designed to help you learn some important things.

Posted on July 11, 2013 by JimS By Harry Keller "...I don't really see the rush, the extreme hurry exhibited by districts to buy expensive iPads, and forgo other expenditures to do so, when this development in computing devices is still playing itself out. The next great device could be announced tomorrow and could put iPads on the shelf until Apple manages to come out with a newer model. Manufacturers are scrambling to entice consumers to their particular device, while almost entirely ignoring the problems that schools face. When a school chooses widespread adoption of a consumer or business product, it's taking a risk. Often, it's bowing to parental pressures at the same time. While we should applaud schools for overcoming traditional education inertia, we should also realize that some of these new things are just fads or early examples of an incompletely developed new technology. The fact that so many districts are going in so many directions indicates strongly that we don't know where these trends will end. Until we do, I think that wholesale adoption of iPads by high schools is a mistake. My specialty is science. I have yet to see a great science app for high school on an iPad. Mostly, they're just games, animations, and other ordinary stuff. My disclaimer here is that I run a company that puts out an online science application that I consider to be great and am currently porting to the Chromebook, iPad, and Android tablets. Vendors have to cover all bases eventually. I'd rather not have to spend all of this money on fads, but major customers are demanding it. The result will be higher prices."

Capisco, ma sai com'è: se utilizzi una piattaforma unica e costruita per essere ben integrata, ti troverai sempre senza (seri) problemi, al di lla di quale sia il sistema che adotti. Per quanto riguarda le tue esperienze pregresse non so proprio che dirti: per questioni legate alla clientela (ovvio che un consulente non può che adattarsi!) opero da sempre su sistemi senza la i davanti e non mi riconosco nella tua storia tormentata... Che ciò possa dipendere dal fatto che mentre da una parte ci mette le mani chiunque (magari malamente) dall'altra il tutto risulta piuttosto "blindato"? La mia è solo un'ipotesi sia chiaro! Ma appunto: pur seguendo una certa logica, non posso lamentare i problemi che hai avuto tu. Per "certa logica" intendo dire che non mi sono mai fiondato ad aggiornare un sistema operativo con l'ultima versione appena uscita (anzi: per la verità attendo sempre almeno il service pack 1 quando non il 2: attualmente lavoro ancora con Windows XP!!!), ne ammetto facilmente e con leggerezza l'installazione di utilities, add-onn, plugin ed amenità varie. Io però noto che, usando questo ambiente e software prevalentemente opensource, non ho mai riscontrato problemi a scambiare informazioni con altri, nemmeno con gli utenti con le "i" davanti da quali pur arriva in genere robaccia carica di fronzoli quantomeno inutili quando non fuorvianti. In ogni caso lungi da me criticare chi opta per apple: libero di farlo se si tratta di una scelta! Per la scuola invece sarei sinceramente molto più propenso ad utilizzare ambienti più aperti, meno costosi e meno "blinda utenti"!

Ma, sarà ma io non ho problemi nemmeno a interfacciarmi con utenti che usano altre piattaforme. E la mia esperienza negativa con Windows (o con Winzzoz come lo chiamano a volte in Toscana) è condivisa da tutti i miei colleghi che si trovano a usare i computer dei nostri laboratori. Forse i nostri tecnici non fanno corretta manutenzione (però anche noi abbiamo XP e non installiamo con facilità utilities varie, perché la password ce l'hanno solo gli amministratori, cioè i nostri ITP). Ci stiamo trovando bene invece con Linux, gli stessi vecchi PC con Linux girano 10 volte meglio che con Windows, quindi in una mia ipotetica classifica, il sistema operativo di Bill lo metterei in coda. Però hai ragione, per la scuola (soprattutto per i PC), sistemi e software aperti sono sicuramente la soluzione migliore. Via libera al pinguino ;-)

Attorney General Eric Holder Speaks at the E-books Press Conference Washington, D.C. ~ Wednesday, April 11, 2012 "Earlier today, we filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, against Apple and five different book publishers - Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster. In response to our allegations, three of these publishers - Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster - agreed to a proposed settlement. If approved by the court, this settlement would resolve the Department's antitrust concerns with these companies, and would require them to grant retailers - such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble - the freedom to reduce the prices of their e-book titles. The settlement also requires the companies to terminate their anticompetitive most-favored-nation agreements with Apple and other e-books retailers. In addition, the companies will be prohibited for two years from placing constraints on retailers' ability to offer discounts to consumers. They will also be prohibited from conspiring or sharing competitively sensitive information with their competitors for five years. And each is required to implement a strong antitrust compliance program. These steps are appropriate - and essential in ensuring a competitive marketplace. Beginning in the summer of 2009, we allege that executives at the highest levels of the companies included in today's lawsuit - concerned that e-book sellers had reduced prices - worked together to eliminate competition among stores selling e-books, ultimately increasing prices for consumers. As a result of this alleged conspiracy, we believe that consumers paid millions of dollars more for some of the most popular titles. During regular, near-quarterly meetings, we allege that publishing company executives discussed confidential business and competitive matters - including Amazon's e-book retailing practices - as part of a conspiracy

New to Scratch? You're curious about computational creation, but not sure where to start. Begin here »

"By Liana Heitin (...) In a growing number of K-12 schools, the use of 1-to-1 computing devices-including iPads, laptops, and Chromebooks-is becoming a central part of instruction. For teachers making the digital leap, one of the greatest hurdles can be figuring out how to manage the tech-infused classroom. How do you keep kids, who suddenly have the Internet at their fingertips, on task? How do you ensure the devices are safe and well-maintained? And how do you compete with your most tech-savvy students? (...)"I think this is the new frontier frankly with classroom management. We've never confronted this," said Kyle Redford, a 5th grade teacher at Marin Country Day School in Corte Madera, Calif. "

Suggerimenti interessanti su come assicurarsi che gli allievi facciano quel che devono fare in classe con aggeggi web-connessi anziché lasciarsi trascinare da altre cose. Ma si tratta proprio di una "nuova frontiera" per gli insegnanti? In tempi pre-web, era lo stesso quando mandavi gli allievi a far ricerca in biblioteca, o gli facevi fare lavoro di gruppo sul prato della scuola, no?

Aggiungo solo questo: che se si va a scuola per lavorare in modalità 1-to-1, tanto valeva restarsene a casa, no? Va bene per brevi periodi di tempo e per scopi precisi, ma altrimenti la scuola è preziosa per comunicare con l'insegnante o lavorare a coppie o in gruppo. Socializzare e costruire la comunità, insomma.

January 9, 2013 by Jeffrey R. Young "...Setting the Price The company also revealed more details about how it would award certificates and how much it would charge for them. Students who want a verified certificate will have to decide early in the course and pay upfront. Paying that fee will put students on what the company is calling the "Signature Track." The company and colleges are still struggling to decide what to charge for the certificates, though in its latest announcement Coursera said the price would run $30 to $100. "It's a huge decision: You're essentially setting a market," said Daphne Koller, a co-founder of Coursera, in an interview this week with The Chronicle. "No one has ever priced this before." Officials also stressed that they would offer financial aid to students who demonstrated that they could not afford the fees but could benefit from the verified certificates. Ms. Koller said Coursera would continue to offer free unofficial certificates to students who passed some of its courses. So why would someone pay for the verified certificates? Peter Lange, provost at Duke University, which plans to offer one of the courses in the new pilot, said each free certificate would have a clear disclaimer on it: "It says something to the effect of, We cannot vouch that the person who got this document took the course or did the work." The new Signature Track could mean serious revenue for Coursera, and for the 33 partner colleges that will get a cut of it. Exactly how the colleges will divide that revenue is still being worked out, it seems. Mr. Lange said the question was on the agenda at the next monthly meeting of Duke's Advisory Committee on Online Education." So, when Coursera staff offered free Statements of Accomplishment as "Recognition" to the volunteers of the Global Translator community, they did so in full awareness of their lack of value and of the mentioned disclaimer

Tentativo di vedere quali dei corsi Coursera che offrono soltanto la certificazione "Signature Track" a pagamento sono e non sono disponibili per la traduzione nella Global Translator Community di Coursera 14 signature-track-only couses not on GTC: - New World, New Map: GPS for Today's Music Industry https://www.coursera.org/course/gpsmusic . West Virginia University - Re-Enchanting the City - Designing the Human Habitat https://www.coursera.org/course/city . UNSW Australia - Pre-Calculus https://www.coursera.org/course/precalculus . University of California, Irvine - The American South: Its Stories, Music, and Art https://www.coursera.org/course/south . The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - Foundations of Virtual Instruction https://www.coursera.org/course/virtualinstruction . University of California, Irvine - Forensic Accounting and Fraud Examination https://www.coursera.org/course/forensicaccounting . West Virginia University and Association of Certified Fraud Examiners - What's Your Big Idea? https://www.coursera.org/course/bigidea . The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - The Magna Carta and its Legacy https://www.coursera.org/course/magnacarta . University of London - Introduction to Environmental Law and Policy https://w

8 signature-track-only courses on GTC: - The Art of Teaching History https://www.coursera.org/course/teachinghist . Rice University - What a Plant Knows (and other things you didn't know about plants) https://www.coursera.org/course/plantknows . - The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem https://www.coursera.org/course/jerusalem . Tel Aviv University - The Power of Macroeconomics: Economic Principles in the Real World https://www.coursera.org/course/ucimacroeconomics . University of California, Irvine - Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects https://www.coursera.org/course/learning . University of California, San Diego - Learning to Teach Online https://www.coursera.org/course/ltto . UNSW Australia (The University of New South Wales) - Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies: The First Step in Entrepreneurship https://www.coursera.org/course/innovativeideas . University of Maryland, College Park - The Emergence of the Modern Middle East | Coursera https://www.coursera.org/course/modernmiddleeast . Tel Aviv University