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Interesting article dealing with the responsibility and consequence of being on social media. Post something racist on Twitter then be prepared to be called out about it.

The nature of the academic lecture has changed with the introduction of wi-fi and cellular technologies. Interacting with personal screens during a lecture or other live event has become commonplace and, as a result, the economy of attention that defines these situations has changed. Is it possible to pay attention when sending a text message or surfing the web? For that matter, does distraction always detract from the learning that takes place in these environments? In this article, we ask questions concerning the texture and shape of this emerging economy of attention. We do not take a position on the efficiency of new technologies for delivering educational content or their efficacy of competing for users' time and attention. Instead, we argue that the emerging social media provide new methods for choreographing attention in line with the performative conventions of any given situation. Rather than banning laptops and phones from the lecture hall and the classroom, we aim to ask what precisely they have on offer for these settings understood as performative sites, as well as for a culture that equates individual attentional behavior with intellectual and moral aptitude.

"The nature of the academic lecture has changed with the introduction of wi-fi and cellular technologies. Interacting with personal screens during a lecture or other live event has become commonplace and, as a result, the economy of attention that defines these situations has changed. Is it possible to pay attention when sending a text message or surfing the web? For that matter, does distraction always detract from the learning that takes place in these environments? In this article, we ask questions concerning the texture and shape of this emerging economy of attention. We do not take a position on the efficiency of new technologies for delivering educational content or their efficacy of competing for users' time and attention. Instead, we argue that the emerging social media provide new methods for choreographing attention in line with the performative conventions of any given situation. Rather than banning laptops and phones from the lecture hall and the classroom, we aim to ask what precisely they have on offer for these settings understood as performative sites, as well as for a culture that equates individual attentional behavior with intellectual and moral aptitude."

Some techy checking tools for DNS, message headers and log files.

While DRM has largely been defeated in downloaded music, it is a growing problem in the area of ebooks, where people have had their books restricted so they can't freely loan, re-sell or donate them, read them without being tracked, or move them to a new device without re-purchasing all of them. They've even had their ebooks deleted by companies without their permission. It continues to be a major issue in the area of movies and video too. Join us in working to eliminate DRM! This is the fourth year we've run the international Day Against DRM. In previous years we've focused on music, held events at the Boston Public Library and more! On May 4th, the Defective by Design DRM Elimination Crew will of course be running an event in Boston. But for this day to send a strong message against DRM, we need people all over the world to join us and hold their own events! As well as attending or running events, you can join other activists in blogging about DRM, putting up banners on your Web sites and blogs, talking about DRM on your social networks and more.

"The message to students is clear: the internet is not looking out for you, and it's certainly not going to do the thinking for you. Educators miss the chance to teach such valuable lessons when they restrict the use of the internet for research."

After several years in which American diplomats have inveighed against Internet censorship in China, the (SOPA) proposals have inspired a bit of snickering. "The Great Firewall turns out to be a visionary product; the American government is trying to copy us," one commentator wrote. A Chinese message making the rounds on Thursday said: "At last, the planet is becoming unified: We are ahead of the whole world, and the 'American imperialists' are racing to catch up."

Brian Lamb with another insightful and inciting post on the poverty of critical thinking in Higher Education regarding the future of that self same education. If they don't pull their fingers out their fundaments we are all doomed is the message. And by the way, the 'they' is us.

"Boomerang for Gmail is a Firefox / Chrome plugin that lets you take control of when you send and receive email messages." Looks good and allows follow up reminders

Interesting. "We analyzed 700 million words, phrases, and topic instances collected from the Facebook messages of 75,000 volunteers, who also took standard personality tests, and found striking variations in language with personality, gender, and age."

Interesting and easy to read piece on why predictive analytics can be beaten by knowledge on the ground and what we can learn from data and measurement error.

Long Storify about a embedded racism and sexism with a US educational reform movement. The real message is that we must stand up what what is right and not allow the perpetrators free rein to the platform.

"Open Cobalt Alpha is the first step in a long term project to make available to all people a free and open source platform for constructing, accessing, and sharing virtual workspaces for research and education. This 3D multimedia wiki technology makes it easy to create deeply collaborative and hyperlinked multi-user virtual workspaces, virtual exhibit spaces, and game-based learning and training environments that run on all major software operating systems. By using a peer-based messaging protocol to reduce reliance on server infrastructures for support of basic in world interactions across many participants, Open Cobalt makes it possible for people hyperlink their virtual worlds via 3D portals to form a large distributed network of interconnected collaboration spaces. It also makes it possible for schools and other organizations to freely set up their own networks of public and private 3D virtual workspaces that feature integrated web browsing, voice chat, text chat, and access to remote desktop applications and services."

Hey guys. Just watched a live session online at Cisco w the developers of this system, still in development, but interesting differentiators vs 2Life, e.g. peer-to-peer, nested worlds, oh and its open-source. Thought yaz might be interested in tracking it.

"A brief but informative booklet has just been released by BECTA titled Messages from Evidence: Assessment using technology."

Short post from Howard Jarche reminding us that we need to get better at managing our knowledge in the knowledge economy.

Not just "A form was submitted" but the data submitted too.

Like Votapedia, create audience polls that can be answered using SMS, Twitter, website etc.

"Can words really account for only 7 percent of the meaning of a spoken message? This short video animation puts 'Mehrabian's rule' under the magnifying glass and shows why it can't be true. "

Proposal for transmitting data using tuples via Twitter and then exposing via other apps, widgets, etc. Interesting.

David Parry, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, talks about using Twitter, a new messaging service, for his courses.