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Gapminder and Google share an enthusiasm for technology that makes data easily accessible and understandable to the world. Gapminder’s Trendalyzer software unveils the beauty of statistics by converting boring numbers into enjoyable interactive animations. We believe that Google’s acquisition of Trendalyzer will speed up the achievement of this noble goal. Trendalyzer’s developers have left Gapminder to join Google in Mountain View, where Google intends to improve and scale up Trendalyzer, and make it freely available to those who seek access to statistics. The Stockholm-based Gapminder Foundation will continue to spearhead the use of new technology for data animations. The goal is to promote a fact-based worldview by bringing statistical story-telling to new levels. In collaboration with producers of accurate statistics that are eager to give the public free access to databases, Gapminder hopes to recruit and inspire many users of public statistics.

Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004,[1] refers to a perceived second-generation of Web-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users. O'Reilly Media used the phrase as a title for a series of conferences, and it has since become widely adopted. Though the term suggests a new version of the Web, it does not refer to an update to Internet or World Wide Web technical standards, but to changes in the ways those standards are used. According to Tim O'Reilly, "Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform."[2]. Some technology experts, notably Tim Berners-Lee, have questioned whether the term is meaningful, since many of the technology components of "Web 2.0" have been present since the creation of the World Wide Web

"Individuals are forced to consider more information and opportunities than they can effectively process. This information overload is made worse by ‘data smog’, the proliferation of low quality information allowed by easy publication. It leads to anxiety, stress, alienation, and potentially dangerous errors of judgment." Complexity and Information Overload in Society: why increasing efficiency leads to decreasing control by Francis Heylighen. Even when we’ll have much better summarizing and other meaning-making tools than we have today, no amount of technology will give us peace of mind when we will need it most - in the midst of rapid technological changes which affect how we live, work, learn, and play. To rightfully trust our capacity to learn as fast as necessitated by the pace of changes which affect us--individuals, communities and organizations--, we need to learn how to learn faster together. Recommendations and pointers to resources, emailed by friends and colleagues in our social and knowledge networks, are some of the signposts that many professionals and managers use for navigating in today’s fast-moving landscapes. If none of us is as smart as all of us, then creating shared resources, shared social and knowledge capital, is one of the smartest things we can do. The intent and core idea of Collaboration Campus™ is to provide a space for mastering the arts of collaborative learning, and building valuable social capital just by participating in the life of the campus community.

They've got the smarts and the confidence to get a job, but increasing numbers of the millennial generation — those in their mid-20s and younger — are deciding corporate America just doesn't fit their needs. So armed with a hefty dose of optimism, moxie and self-esteem, they are becoming entrepreneurs. "People are realizing they don't have to go to work in suits and ties and don't have to talk about budgets every day," says Ben Kaufman, 20, founder of a company that makes iPod accessories. "They can have a job they like. They can create a job for themselves."

"They want to create a custom life and create the kind of career that fits around the kind of life they want," says Bruce Tulgan, the founder of RainmakerThinking, a management training firm in New Haven, Conn., and an author specializing in generational diversity in the workplace. Experts say these children of the baby-boom generation, also known as Gen Y or echo boomers, are taking to heart a desire for the kind of work-life balance their parents didn't have. They see being their own boss as a way to resolve the conflict. So now they're pressing ahead with new products or services or finding a new twist on old-style careers. They're at the leading edge of a trend toward entrepreneurship that has bubbled for decades and now, thanks in large part to technology, is starting to surge. "It is a fun-loving generation," says Ellen Kossek, a Michigan State University professor in East Lansing who has spent 18 years researching workplace flexibility. "They view work as part of life, but they don't live to work the way we were socialized as boomers. There is a real mismatch between what the young generation wants and what employers are offering."

Those who have studied generations in the workplace, such as author David Stillman of Minneapolis, do have some insights. Stillman, who co-wrote the 2002 book When Generations Collide, say these young workers have very different ideas than earlier generations. "This generation has the group-think mentality," he says. "When you are raised to collaborate at home, then you are taught how to do that in middle school and practice it in college, you show up at work saying 'Where's my team?' They're just comfortable working with peers." Many go into business with friends.

Kaizen philosophy continuous incremental improvements Kaizen method   The Kaizen method of continuous incremental improvements is an originally Japanese management concept for incremental (gradual, continuous) change (improvement). K. is actually a way of life philosophy, assuming that every aspect of our life deserves to be constantly improved. The Kaizen philosophy lies behind many Japanese management concepts such as Total Quality Control, Quality Control circles, small group activities, labor relations. Key elements of Kaizen are quality, effort, involvement of all employees, willingness to change, and communication.   Japanese companies distinguish between innovation (radical) and Kaizen (continuous). K. means literally: change (kai) to become good (zen).   The foundation of the Kaizen method consists of 5 founding elements: 1. teamwork, 2. personal discipline, 3. improved morale, 4. quality circles, and 5. suggestions for improvement.   Out of this foundation three key factors in K. arise: - elimination of waste (muda) and inefficiency - the Kaizen five-S framework for good housekeeping       1. Seiri - tidiness       2. Seiton - orderliness       3. Seiso - cleanliness       4. Seiketsu - standardized clean-up       5. Shitsuke - discipline - standardization.   When to apply the Kaizen philosophy? Although it is difficult to give generic advice it is clear that it fits well in incremental change situations that require long-term change and in collective cultures. More individual cultures that are more focused on short-term success are often more conducive to concepts such as Business Process Reengineering.   When Kaizen is compared to BPR is it clear the K. philosophy is more people-oriented, more easy to implement, requires long-term discipline. BPR on the other hand is harder, technology-oriented, enables radical change but requires major change management skills.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Tags) Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the information technology term. For other uses, see Tag (disambiguation). "Tags" redirects here. For the Wikipedia template list, see Wikipedia:Template messages. For a proposal for tagging in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Microformats#MediaWiki issues A tag cloud with terms related to Web 2.0 A tag is a (relevant) keyword or term associated with or assigned to a piece of information (like picture, article, or video clip), thus describing the item and enabling keyword-based classification of information it is applied to.

If you are blogging with your students, or you are thinking of blogging with your students, I encourage you to not think of blogs as a writing assignment, but instead to look at them as conversations. Conversations that can give you both feedback about a lesson, or continue a conversation well after a lesson has ended. Blogging brings a new dimension to the classroom. You cannot blog and not change the structure of your classroom.

Lifelong learning is the concept that "It's never too soon or too late for learning", a philosophy that has taken root in a whole host of different organizations. Lifelong learning is attitudinal; that one can and should be open to new ideas, decisions, skills or behaviors. Lifelong learning throws the axiom "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" out the door. Lifelong learning sees citizens provided with learning opportunities at all ages and in numerous contexts: at work, at home and through leisure activities, not just through formal channels such as school and higher education. Lifelong education is a form of pedagogy often accomplished through distance learning or e-learning, continuing education, homeschooling or correspondence courses. It also includes postgraduate programs for those who want to improve their qualification, bring their skills up to date or retrain for a new line of work. Internal corporate training has similar goals, with the concept of lifelong learning used by organisations to promote a more dynamic employee base, better able to react in an agile manner to a rapidly changing climate. In later life, especially in retirement, continued learning takes diverse forms, crossing traditional academic bounds and including recreational activities. One of the reasons why lifelong education has become so important is the acceleration of scientific and technological progress. Despite the increased duration of primary, secondary and university education (14-18 years depending on the country), the knowledge and skills acquired there are usually not sufficient for a professional career spanning three or four decades. Contents

A new open-source social networking software gains its power to be used in schools and other organizations. University of Brighton was the first to introduce Elgg, a social network to help teachers in their interaction with children and use social networks like MySpace, blogs and document.write(MLnkMk('=b!isfg>#iuuq;00efm/jdjp/vt#!!ubshfu>#`cmbol#?Efm/jdjp/vt=0b?'))Del.icio.us feeds for educational purposes. If earlier, the access to these sites were seen as a an obstacle and were banned, now many teachers see it a helpful tool as this attracts great interest among teenagers. Every participant taking part in the project will have a blog with profile page, and have an opportunity to share photos, ideas and communicate with friends in online communities.