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A survey of internet leaders, activists and analysts shows they expect major tech advances as the phone becomes a primary device for online access, voice-recognition improves, artificial and virtual reality become more embedded in everyday life, and the architecture of the internet itself improves. They disagree about whether this will lead to more social tolerance, more forgiving human relations, or better home lives.

Comet is the name of a set of templates that language teachers can use to create multimedia instructional materials in nearly any language. Developed by the Center for Language Study at Yale University, the Comet templates simplify the authoring of online materials by allowing instructors to focus more on pedagogical intent and foreign language content than on technical details of design and implementation. (The name COMET is an acronym for COurse Materials and Exercise Templates.)

Online journal

Professorial podcasts Colleges, museums and other institutions are contributing content to iTunes U, for free. How is this reshaping the role and place of the university?

"Online education is booming, but not at elite universities-at least not when it comes to courses for credit. Leaders at the University of California want to break that mold. This fall they hope to put $5-million to $6-million into a pilot project that could clear the way for the system to offer online undergraduate degrees and push distance learning further into the mainstream. The vision is UC's most ambitious-and controversial-effort to reshape itself after cuts in public financial support have left the esteemed system in crisis."

Links to a video of a teacher training session on Web 2.0 Tools and a 53-page booklet with suggestions and step-by-step instructions for using them.

VideoAnt is an online video annotation tool created by the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota. It allows users to make time-line based textual comments in synchronization with online video. It's an ideal tool for providing feedback or facilitating peer reviews.