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Sir Ken Robinson, Ph.D is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources and a New York Times Best-selling author. He works with governments in Europe, Asia and the USA, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and some of the world's leading cultural organizations. In 1998, he led a national commission on creativity, education and the economy for the UK Government. All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education? (The Robinson Report) was published to wide acclaim in 1999. He was been honored with the Athena Award of the Rhode Island School of Design for services to the arts and education; the Peabody Medal for contributions to the arts and culture in the United States, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the Royal Society of Arts for outstanding contributions to cultural relations between the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2005 he was named as one of Time/Fortune/CNN's Principal Voices. In 2003, he received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts and education. He speaks to audiences throughout the world on the creative challenges facing business and education in the new global economies.

"How is the use of technology changing the way we think about education, and what are some of the new ways we can foster productive and co-operative learning environments through the use of computers? What will the classroom of the future look like? We'll tackle these questions and more in the Tech Stream this week with a special program focusing on education and digital technology. Follow the MP3 link

Interesting Radio Australia show that I am listening to again from ACEC2010. Helen Otway has some good points to make (and writes a great blog).

"This paper examines the educational impacts of the Berkshire Wireless Learning Initiative (BWLI), a pilot program that provided 1:1 technology access to all students and teachers across five public and private middle schools in western Massachusetts. Using a pre/post comparative study design, the current study explores a wide range of program impacts over the three years of the project's implementation."

Reading an interesting tertiary summary report of a 1:1 pilot computer progrqam.

Two decades after its birth, the World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services - think apps - are less about the searching and more about the getting. Chris Anderson explains how this new paradigm reflects the inevitable course of capitalism. And Michael Wolff explains why the new breed of media titan is forsaking the Web for more promising (and profitable) pastures.

In recent years there has been an explosion of virtual worlds intended for early childhood populations; however, because the majority of research on games and such worlds has focused on adults and adolescents, we know very little about these spaces. This article attempts to address this gap by providing a qualitative content analysis of the affordances that Webkinz World an online environment that as of March 2010 had over 3 million unique site visitors per month, offers for children's literacy and language development. Analyses suggest that the site provides unique opportunities for immersion in literacy-rich contexts and academically-oriented practices that may enhance those that are readily available in many children's daily lives. However, looking beyond the discrete linguistic and technical aspects of learning in Webkinz World reveals a designed culture with limitations on learning and a constrained set of literacies and social messages that warrant further critical exploration.

In recent years there has been an explosion of virtual worlds intended for early childhood populations; however, because the majority of research on games and such worlds has focused on adults and adolescents, we know very little about these spaces. This article attempts to address this gap by providing a qualitative content analysis of the affordances that Webkinz World an online environment that as of March 2010 had over 3 million unique site visitors per month, offers for children's literacy and language development. Analyses suggest that the site provides unique opportunities for immersion in literacy-rich contexts and academically-oriented practices that may enhance those that are readily available in many children's daily lives. However, looking beyond the discrete linguistic and technical aspects of learning in Webkinz World reveals a designed culture with limitations on learning and a constrained set of literacies and social messages that warrant further critical exploration.

"The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine puts the history of the World Wide Web at your fingertips. We invite you to explore this new, BETA version of the Wayback Machine and contact us with any feedback. The classic version of the Wayback Machine is still available at web.archive.org/."

Great tool for anybody using the web for historical research or data mining.

With support from the MacArthur Foundation, the GoodPlay project explores the ethical character of young people's activities in the new digital media. We seek to understand how young people conceptualize their participation in virtual worlds and the ethical considerations that guide their conduct. We are exploring five themes which we believe to be undergoing reformulation in the digital age, with implications for ethics-identity, privacy, ownership and authorship, credibility, and participation.

Distributed Story Online - Workshop Template More here personalizemedia.com - Being used as part of a course but openly published for general use. Please attribute (draft in further development with other assets). This cross-genre, new format, online story development sheet should be printed A3 and ideas for each area can be sketched in. It helps media creators understand how to develop across multiple online channels and spaces and what fragments of the story can be cross connected. It is suggested that you number each instance with the 'release' date to help aid the campaign thinking. The axes indicate the likely 'maintenance' required - top right most maintenance (rich living environments) and bottom left least maintenance (ad hoc textual updates). NOTE: All the below can be on PC or mobile or console.

Transmedia storytelling template - awesome!

"The creator of the short-lived but popular Harvard version of the Am I Hot or Not? website said he will not have to leave school after being called before the Administrative Board yesterday afternoon. Mark E. Zuckerberg '06 said he was accused of breaching security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy by creating the website, www.facemash.com, about two weeks ago."

Amazing when you consider who this is really talking about and what happened next to this social software.

Darfur is Dying is a viral video game for change that provides a window into the experience of the 2.5 million refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan. Players must keep their refugee camp functioning in the face of possible attack by Janjaweed militias. Players can also learn more about the genocide in Darfur that has taken the lives of 400,000 people, and find ways to get involved to help stop this human rights and humanitarian crisis.

When kids at the Suffern Middle School were asked to talk about education and their future, they gave Peggy Sheehy, the SMS media specialist, an earful. Listen and learn the bits of wisdom that can be gleaned from the students, if we only dare to ask them. Students from The Elisabeth Morrow School Tech Club contributed machinima created in Quest Atlantis. Marianne Malmstrom (aka Knowclue) worked remotely with the students of Suffern to create machinima of their avatars. Original music, "Harpsicord" was created by a former Suffern Middle School student, Larry Bordowitz. All editing was done by Peggy Sheehy and Marianne Malmstrom.

This is Will's wiki - Why the Read / Write Web Changes Everything. "It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change" - Charles Darwin "The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." -- Alvin Toffler

"As a tribute to XKCD's 'Map of Online Communities', we have decided to re-create our own, updated version of this map. The numbers are taken to reflect many new developments in the social networking communities, including Facebook surpassing Myspace as the preeminent online community:"

Very nice map of the social networks in the web2.0 space. Has anybody seen the XKCD original version? :-)

" The second Horizon Report for the K-12 sector describes the continuing work of the NMC's Horizon Project, a research project that seeks to 1 identify and describe emerging technologies that will likely have a significant impact on K-12 education. This report was produced in partnership with the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and was made possible via a grant from HP."

"Photo laboratory photl.com is the owner and distributor of the largest collection of exclusive free photos (Free Stock Photo Images) of high resolution for commercial purposes. All the photo images are subject to extended license on usage (Extended Royalty Free). They are absolutely free and are intended to be used in commercial activity. All the photo images can be used as a whole and also partially (their fragments). After a simple and quick registration (necessary for a better functioning of the resource) your account will be immediately activated and you will be granted with full access to our images. "

Free images available for commercial and non-commercial use.

"The online behaviors of youth and how to improve and correct them are part of how James feels new media can be used to address the world's challenges .. In their research, the team has found that most young people are devoid of ethical thinking or consideration for others when using the web."

Interesting article, are the youth really devoid of ethical thinking when using the web? Is this because there are no adults around to correct or give feedback to their behaviour?

"So while I was talking to a client today who has been agonising over the detail of the design, features and colours for their website (for the last 5 months) I was reminded of the principle of "Just Ship It" and how important it is in the new age of digital media and how even more relevant Nikes slogan of "Just Do It" has become."

Some good lessons and rules here for teachers mulling over social networking, when and where to start. Just do it.

"In what could be one of the great misjudgments since the record company that turned down The Beatles, one of Stephen Fry's teachers once described him as "feckless, fickle, flamboyant and evasive .. He told ABC Radio's PM of his enthusiasm for all things digital, including micro-blogging site Twitter, which he think has also been misjudged as trivial."

Fascinating to read this interview with Stephen Fry and consider how he has engaged with social media such as Twitter.