Futuring

• How does consciousness change throughout history? Jeremy Rifkin on “the empathetic civilization” (RSA Animate)
• U.K. report on Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World
• You can listen to my interview with NPR’s Word of Mouth about the future of education.
• A European report: Mapping major changes to education and training in 2025 (PDF)
• 10 Changes to the World of Work in the next 10 years by Gartner Analysts
• “Beware any scenario that does not sufficient explore changing attitudes along with changing technology.” from @ericgarland [via @WorldFutureSoc]
• The Future of Video: Becoming People of the Screen [via @hrheingold and @iftf]
• Today “texting is mainstream” from fresh Pew Research stats: Texting among adult mobile phone users is up to 72%, teens at 87%.  [via @sidneyeve]

• How to crowdsource the presentation of your syllabus.
• Social Networking Made Easy (Geek&Poke cartoon about learning how to participate in “Real-World Chat“)
• Great video called What Should Everyone Know? – RSA Events interviewed all sorts of people to find out what they think is important to learn.  (8 minutes and embeddable, which means you can put it up as an announcement in your LMS)
• Email’s Dark Side: 10 Psychology Studies [via @arossett] If  you haven’t managed Inbox Zero yet, Gmail’s Priority Inbox looks pretty cool, especially for the start of the school year!  And finally, if you’re trying to get email all together, read A World Without E-mail.
• Here’s a list of all TED Talks to date.
• Some basic etiquette if you play FourSquare, from Geek&Poke.
• Great video about the “old” technology of 1986.
• Bloom’s Taxonomy according to Pirates of the Caribbean.
• Great visualization of How to Be an Expert.
• I loved @hjarche blog post about “Active Sense-making” … reminds me of my own “Random But Organized Thoughts.”

Possibly Related Posts:

• Random But Organized Thoughts (8-29-2010)
• Random But Organized Thoughts (8-22-2010)
• Random But Organized Thoughts (8-15-10)
• Random But Organized Thoughts (8-8-2010)
• Random But Organized Thoughts (8-1-2010)

• “Snake Oil” is an incredibly data rich interactive data visualization.  Go play with it. You’ll see.
• I would love to see some of the stats from the Almanac of Higher Education [@chronicle] reformatted in data visualizations instead of pages of tables. Maybe this is a good project for someone’s classes this fall?
• Some blogs on data visualization: Information is Beautiful, Flowing Data, and Vizthink
• Some companies are beginning to mine the data of mood swings about their products on the Real-Time Web.
• According to Microsoft, the top three new technology majors are Data Mining, Business Intelligence, and Analysis/Statistics.  [via @flowingdata and @timoreilly]
• Google Earth now shows live weather. This is a pretty cool augmented reality visualization of data. [via @kylepace]
• The Geosocial Universe, by Jesse Thomas, shows the relative size of different social networking services as well as how much of the service is provided through mobile devices.  [via @gsiemens]
• Rapportive is an add-on for Gmail that makes email smarter by trolling for data about the contact you are emailing and then displaying some of their information.  [via @mashsocialmedia and @mcleod]

Great Links for STEM

• Repeat famous science and math experiments [via @johnfaig]
• @sciencemagazine has an article I’d like to read called “What is STEM Education?”  Of course, you can’t read it without a subscription. Bummer for us. This means I’m probably not going to take the time to look it up on my library’s system and place the order for Interlibrary loan.  Do you ever get the feeling that Academia is trying to keep us from reading their precious articles?
• A Futurama writer invented a new math Theorem just to use in the show. [via @edwebb]
• Newman’s book, Alchemy Tried in the Fire might be an interesting read for the chemists out there (and their students). [via @rpohancenik]
• There are some interesting applications of math modeling in this video about adding an augmented reality layer to Google Earth

Just for Fun

• Great video on plagiarism from Norway (a take-off on A Christmas Carol –  [via @derekbruff and @timchartier]
• Do you suffer from Information Overload Syndrome? is a very funny video from Xerox. ”IOS is highly contagious. In a matter of days, entire companies can fall victim.”
• Leadership Lessons from “The Dancing Guy” (3 minutes, an interesting observation about the importance of followers)
• Create your own Twitter Parade (and possibly drive your animals nuts).  Fun … and it was nice to see the whole crowd of followers a few at a time.
• SpatSolver is like Jing for marriages. LOL

Great Links for Everyone

• To move all your content out of Blackboard and to the open web quickly and easily, try bFree.
• How to find Royalty-free music for YouTube videos (could be helpful for student projects).
• Here’s a really nice site on Information Literacy from the University of Idaho.
• There are some great statistics in this white paper from Xerox: Cutting the Clutter: Tackling Information Overload at the Source.  While we’re on the subject of Information Overload, you might as well read Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime (NYT) [via @noahWG]
• As an Android user, I found this story to be a little unsettling.  Apparently Oracle (likened to Mordor by a friend of mine) bought Sun (which makes Java) and is suing Google over the Android OS.  There is a remote possibility that the lawsuit could force Google to pull the plug on Android.  (I said remote, right?)
• I keep saying that we’re going to have to shift higher ed away from being content providers.  Well, here’s a company hoping that you’ll want to sell your online course to other instructors or colleges. I wonder what something like will do to instructors’ ownership rights to course IP?
• I’ve been wondering off and on about whether I will leave Academia one day.  This post from Danah Boyd [@zephoria] is a great “food for thought” about why she left and how she likes her position at MS Research.
• Still one of the best explanations of Creative Commons License out there: The Mayer & Bettle Animation
• If you’re trying to teach with more of an International flavor, try these modules from the Midwest Institute.
• What leads someone to leave a following of 10,000 on Twitter?  Read: Quitting Twitter.  For the record, if you only follow 7 people, you probably don’t get much value from Twitter.  A Followers:Following ratio like 10,000:7 just shouts “all about me” to me. [via @gsiemens]
• Is professional development for educators moving the wrong direction?  [via RT @mcleod]
• How Can We Teach Someone If We Do Not Know How They Learn? Another must-read from @simbeckhampson which will lead you to a 182-page report about Learning Styles and Pedagogy.
• Westerners vs. the World: WE are the WEIRD ones.  This is seriously one of the most interesting articles I have read in a while.  Don’t skip it just because it’s last. [via @hrheingold]

• Wabash College picks a computer game (Portal) for the reading list in some of its Freshman-year seminar courses. [via @BryanAlexander]
• Farmville has more active users than twitter! “If Farmville wanted to take down productivity in the world, they could just change to a 30-min crop cycle and everything would stop.” from Seth Priebatsch’s TED on The Game Layer on Top of the World “School is a game. It’s just not a terribly well-designed game.”
• Games designed to help with real-world productivity, like the EpicWin App are intriguing.  Of course, they are only intriguing if you can actually try them.  Cross-platform please. 
• Gaming for the Greater Good: How Social Gaming Can Advance Sustainability by Derrek Mains is a MUST-READ about the potential power of social gaming. [via @randyfuj and @ricardolucas]

In other news, our Math ELITEs are ready to be used!  Here’s a picture of the new tables.  Also, my husband and I spent our 15th Wedding Anniversary sitting in front of a large screen TV (with no reception … not watching it) and watching TED Talks on a 3″ phone screen.  It was a great way to celebrate!  Also, I booked my trip to Mountain View for September. Can’t wait!

Possibly Related Posts:

• Random But Organized Thoughts (9-5-2010)
• Random But Organized Thoughts (8-22-2010)
• Random But Organized Thoughts (8-15-10)
• Random But Organized Thoughts (8-8-2010)
• Random But Organized Thoughts (8-1-2010)

How do you prepare for uncertain career paths where technical knowledge doubles every two years? You pay attention to the skills that surround the content: Interact, Flex, Learn, Explain, Analyze, and Focus.

Possibly Related Posts:

• I am here.
• ADA and Hyperlinks
• Agonizing eBook Reader Choice
• Mathfaery: Elizabeth Hamman
• Upcoming Events

Edward Tufte also discusses the importance of data visualization, but he is something of a technology Luddite.  David’s interactive digital data visualization “Snake Oil” is simply awesome and demonstrates a path that “information supergraphics” could take if Tufte were to embrace technology instead of just bashing it (I went to one of Tufte’s workshops last year and I can tell you that the only “good technology” was his iPhone).

If there was ever a video to show a math or statistics class at the beginning of the semester, this might be it.  Of course, then you’ll actually have to DO some data visualization during the semester, but hey – it will keep you honest!

Possibly Related Posts:

• My Interview at Wolfram Alpha HomeworkDay
• Math Videos at the Sputnik Observatory
• Calculus Rhapsody
• Sixty Symbols
• Moving Math from Analog to Digital

• Do you teach Linear Algebra? Check out the University of Florida Sparse Matrix Collection
• If you assign online homework, you should probably be aware of one of the new ways students can cheat and their interesting (but very questionable) argument for why it’s not cheating.
• A scale-model of the solar system for a web browser. [via @davidwees]  It’s actually a bit maddening to scroll through and FIND the planets, which nails the point about how much of the model is space!
• Augmented Reality with Google Earth [via @Neogeobart] You’ll see why this is in STEM about 3 minutes in.

Other great stuff

• If you like geeky cartoons, you have to check out Geek&Poke!
• Teachers Without Technology Strike Back [via @jryoung] offers more on the digital divide when it comes to, technology and teaching. Let’s hope this professor doesn’t really see himself as the center of all knowledge in the classroom. [thanks @ppezzelle for pointing that out about the photo]
• Very interesting analysis of Los Angeles teacher data: Year after year, some teachers’ students make great strides and some do not.  Who’s teaching LA’s kids? is intriguing. Ask yourself what you’d do if you discovered your classes were falling behind the rest?
• Another interesting study finds that children who are younger than their classmates are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD.  It’s likely that we’re often confusing ADHD with simple immaturity. [via @courosa]
• It turns out that Android users use even more data than iPhone users! We may all end up with our bandwidth usage capped (let’s hope there’s always an option to pay for unlimited bandwidth for those of us without landline broadband at home). [via @hybridkris]
• A few folks on twitter were asking me about a cheap and portable data projector.  Here’s one for $300 that should do the trick (although, for the record I have not tried it myself).
• TIP: You should always download the flash version of any Prezi you plan to give as an in-person presentation.  First, once you’re duplicating your browser on another screen there are glitches in the Prezi browsing.  Second, there are still too many random down times on Prezi to take the chance that it happens during your presentation time.  Be safe: Download the flash files (free).
• NPR takes on the Beloit College “Mindset List” that is published annually, and they make some good points. [via @academicdave]
• Wired magazine has an eyecatching headline this month (big surprise): The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet.  It’s not that we’re less digital, it’s that we’re accessing the web more through applications than direct visits.  They have a great visual, which should make it worth the click. [via @eLearningGuild]
• The Face-to-face Lecture: Only Accidentally Valuable? is a great blog post by @erekbruff in response to reading Cognitive Surplus.  He poses the question: Are there activities in which higher education faculty engage that seem inherently valuable that are only accidentally valuable?
• Designing for the Mind by Francisco InChauste [via @oxala75]

Serious Games

• Glossary of gaming terms from @bigdoormedia
• TED Talk by Seth Priebatsch (who works at SCVNGR): The Game Layer on Top of the World.  He points out that “loyalty schemes” are basically a really bad game layer on the Internet.  He defines four of the seven game dynamics that can be used to get “just about anybody to do just about anything”:

1. Appointment  dynamic: a dynamic in which to succeed, one must return at a predefined time to take a predetermined action (i.e. Happy Hour, Farmville,
2. Influence and status: the ability of one player to modify the behavior of another’s actions through social pressure (i.e. Gold Medallion vs. Silver Medallion on Delta, report cards, Valedictorian)
3. Progression dynamic: a dynamic in which success is granularly displayed and measured through the process of completing itemized tasks (i.e. progress bars like on LinkedIn, World of Warcraft)
4. Communal discovery: a dynamic wherein an entire community is rallied to work together to solve a challenge (i.e. Digg, DARPA Balloon Challenge)

Great quotes

• “What looks like laziness is often exhaustion – change simply wears people out” -Dan Heath, from Why Change Is So Hard: Because Self-Control is Exhaustible (a video about why self-control is so hard, from Fast Company)
• “I don’t take attendance and don’t collect homework but I don’t think you can do well without it.” quoted from @DrTimony‘s favorite professor, who started the course with this statement.
• Why we shouldn’t restrict/ban Internet in schools: “We TEACH kids how to cross the street, we don’t ban cars!” – Jamie from #mcsli10 [via @logicwing]
• “It’s just a matter of time before Facebook becomes like Amazon: You went out with ____, you might also like ____.” from @jackscholfield
• This just made me giggle: “Since when are higher ed institutions a beacon for innovative pedagogy?” [from @mctownsley]
• “With seven game dynamics you can get anyone to do anything.” - Seth Priebatsch (from his TED Talk at TEDxBoston)  Also: “School is a game. It’s just not a terribly well-designed game.”

Events

• You might be interested in this conference Feb 27-March 1, 2011 in Banff (I am … but how to swing it in the travel budget?):  Learning Analytics & Knowledge 2011 [via @gsiemens]
• MichMATYC Fall Conference, October 15-16, 2010 at Muskegon Community College (be sure to do a search on Facebook for the MichMATYC Facebook page)

In other news, I cancelled my Kindle order because I got used to reading books on my HTC EVO (Android) and the screen sizes are not so different between the 6″ Kindle and the EVO.  I invested in a souped-up battery which should give my EVO 24 hours or more of battery life.  I’m still reading Kindle books, just not waiting for a Kindle device.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Random But Organized Thoughts (9-5-2010)
• Random But Organized Thoughts (8-29-2010)
• Random But Organized Thoughts (8-15-10)
• Random But Organized Thoughts (8-8-2010)
• Random But Organized Thoughts (8-1-2010)

I have planned 20 hours a week to work on my finishing the dissertation starting in September. I’m guessing I have about 100 hours to go (which doesn’t sound too bad considering I’ve got 425 hours in).  I probably won’t be much fun for a few weeks.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Future-Proof Your Education
• ADA and Hyperlinks
• Agonizing eBook Reader Choice
• Mathfaery: Elizabeth Hamman
• Upcoming Events

Here’s the question:  If you’re making a hyperlink and you leave the title or alternate tag blank, will the text-to-speech readers automatically just default to the text you’ve linked to?  For example, suppose your hyperlink is on the words “brief twitter guide”.  Without any extra tagging, will this get read aloud as “brief twitter guide” or do I have to retype it into the secondary tags?  Obviously, creating a hyperlink to text like “click here” would really suck for visually impaired users unless you included alternate titles and alternate text.  So the question is really whether the alternate or title tags are redundant when you already have good hyperlink practices.

The answer (from @suburbanlion) is that it is just redundant.  If the original hyperlink is descriptive in the same way the alt tag would be, there is no need to do both.  He provided me with a great resource to check on these types of issues, Dive into Accessibility (Day 14 covers adding titles to links), although it is a little old.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Future-Proof Your Education
• I am here.
• Agonizing eBook Reader Choice
• Mathfaery: Elizabeth Hamman
• Upcoming Events

• If you’d actually like to play with a Kindle, you can physically hold one at Target. [via @bschaaf]  You can play with a Nook at any Barnes & Noble (they are a bit hard-to-miss right now).
• Amazon’s Kindle platform also works on iPad, iPod Touch, Android, and Blackberry and has a technology called Whispersync which allows you to read simultaneously across platforms.  In other words, start reading the book on your Android phone, pick up where you left off on the Kindle by your bed, and finish the book on your Android.  Whispersync simply tracks where you are in each book so you can always pick up where you left off.  [via @ricetopher, who made a great pitch for Kindle last Sunday]
• I was also concerned about the inability to “tag” on the Kindle.  I tend to use tags instead of notes (learned how valuable this was in A.nnotate).  So I want to be able to highlight some text and add a tag, but the eBook readers will only let you highlight text and take notes.  I thought this was a dealbreaker for using any eBook reader until @mrch0mp3rs pointed out that a note can become a tag if you use something (like the # symbol) to make sure it will be unique in a search.  So, in my notes, I could simply write my “tags” like this: #faculty #math #change #brainresearch … and then a search for these “hashtags” would function like tagging.
• The 6″ Kindle will not provide a great experience for PDF reading, the DX would be better, but not on par with tablets or iPads. [via @ricetopher]
• You can actually surf the web on a Kindle (it’s got an experimental browser window), but it will be in black & white. Not sure how desirable that is.  People were quite curious why I would even want to surf the web on a Kindle in B&W, but you have to remember that not everyone has good Internet at home and the 3G option might be the best option if the only other option is dial-up.
• Apparently, I’m not the only one struggling with this issue, because at the end of our twitter conversation, we discovered that The New York Times was speculating about the same kind of things in its articleE-Book Wars: The Specialist vs The Multitasker. [via @mrch0mp3rs]

Once you decide to buy something (for me, it was a Kindle), you’ll have to struggle with choosing a size (6″ vs 9″) and a delivery option (WiFi vs 3G).  In the end, I settled with WiFi, since my HTC EVO provides me with WiFi pretty much anywhere there is 3G.  In the end, I just couldn’t resist the $139 pricetag.  If I want a bigger screen, I’ll read on my PC Tablet.  If I want more portability, I’ll read on my Android.  Why am I buying a Kindle?  For the storage space, notetaking, and battery life.  Of course, as soon as I made my purchase, I became immediately annoyed when books don’t appear in the Kindle format, so prepare yourself for that little drawback.

Now I just have to wait for my new Kindle to arrive in the mail, which might take a while – they are a bit back-ordered.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Future-Proof Your Education
• I am here.
• ADA and Hyperlinks
• Mathfaery: Elizabeth Hamman
• Upcoming Events

• RT @IanSchreiber: “New hires at SCVNGR memorize 50 game dynamics.” Anyone have any idea what list they use? http://tcrn.ch/caMOdA #
• Amazon releases free games for Kindle http://is.gd/eaEgS #
• RT @PCSTech Game Play Is Important for Learning - http://bit.ly/aDi9RX – #edtech – Something familiar about this…  #
• RT @Seriosity RT @ricardolucas Women Game Differently http://is.gd/e4oVI #
• RT @Seriosity RT @brynn: Yay, our #sxsw #gamification panel “Don’t Play Games With Me” is up http://bit.ly/aGsLbW” #

• RT @KoreenOlbrish “@zimmermaneric: Video of me, @aburak, et al on “games for change.” http://bit.ly/bmTlGe literacy, subversion, play #

Great Quotes …

• “The celebration of mere competence is the surest sign that incompetence is the rule of the land.” from On Hiring: When Competence is Heralded as Excellence in the Chronicle of Higher Education [via @chronicle]
• This from the NY Times Opinion piece, Down on the Social Farm: “we would like to invite the 60-some million FarmVille users to consider growing some actual plants.” [via @mathpunk and @judell]
• “I’m at my limit of usernames & passwords. Any site that requires me to register, I’m not doing it unless they show up and clean my house.” from @annmariastat on Twitter.
• “I think the fact that following in Twitter is asymmetrical, whereas friending in Facebook is symmetrical is a key difference.” from @derekbruff on Twitter. I’ve already used this quote in conversation to explain the difference – it took a mathematician to explain it so succinctly.

Random Stuff …

• Love that MAA, NCTM, AMS, and SIAM all have a Facebook presence and AMATYC does not. Whatever.
• The new sharpie liquid pencil writes like a pen, erases like a pencil, but becomes permanent after three days:  [via @sewsueme]
• Does an extra space matter in HTML?  It might if it’s inside the tag, but definitely not if it is outside the tags.

Great Links …

• Why women can’t sleep (aka what my brain looks like on a normal basis)  [via @kerisb]
• On the subject of ADA, here are two links about handheld devices and ADA, both from @john_larkin: Amazing Innovation: Mobile Apps for the Disabled http://tinyurl.com/25ukmbg # and Briiliant iPad Usability report by the Norman/Neilsen Group. App interfaces are inconsistent. http://bit.ly/bUelBt #

Blog posts from the MCC Math & Technology Workshop

• Monday Math and Tech Workshop, from @mathhombre
• Using Social Bookmarking (Diigo in particular) from @mathychick
• Tuesday Math and Tech Workshop, from @mathhombre
• Clickers in the Math Classroom from @mathychick
• Wednesday Math and Tech Workshop, from @mathhombre
• Thursday Math and Tech Workshop, from @mathhombre
• Friday Math and Tech Workshop, from @mathhombre

Still uncategorized …

• RT @PCSTech Online Lectures That Will Make You A Better Teacher – http://bit.ly/91yeyC #edtech #
• RT @opencontent Great article on the pains of #writing – sounds like dissertation, thesis, journal article writing! =) http://bit.ly/aO1r1F #
• RT @mathhombre Does http://bit.ly/ct95cM work from the hashtag? #mccmathroom #
• The ‘premium’ chatzy room failed after 37 users for 8 min. Considered all posts spam after that. #epicfail #
• I need a good free or cheap option as an alternative to chatzy that can host 40 people simultaneously chatting without claiming spam. Thx! #
• Reminded tonight of @mathfaery‘s great OneNote videos and wishing she was at #mccmath with us. http://is.gd/eaOGV #
• RT @shamblesguru Added “Second Life in Edu” Elluminate archive webinar from #rscon10 to http://bit.ly/9fiQy0/ #
• Tablet PCs, clickers, Mathematica and Second Life #mccmath #
• RT @wiredcampus Web Site Lets Students Bet on What Grades They’ll Earn http://bit.ly/9NSxbL #
• RT @andykemp RT @googleos: Gmail’s Streamlined Interface and Better Contact Manager http://goo.gl/fb/DWocV #
• RT @bschlenker Army has selected Android 2.1 platform moving to 2.2 for mobile learning #
• RT @marcparry RT @openculture: In case you missed, Harvard offers free open courses http://cultr.me/aUxKqn #
• RT @WendyDrexler Interesting copyright news http://bit.ly/dnNoqp/ #
• learned some great features of OneNote from our crowdsourced TabletPC crowd today at #mccmath #
• Used Google Moderator to handle questions about teaching math online at #mccmath … which worked VERY well. #
• The most valuable thing I learned today (for OneNote TabletPC users): http://screencast.com/t/MGIwZDMzY #
• Second great OneNote tip of the day: You can scratch out something you’ve written with your pen tool, and that will erase it. No kidding. #
• I wish I had gotten screenshots/photos from some of the OneNote users to show how they had organized their course files. #mccmath #
• Planning meeting for #gale2011 tonight … looking forward to a new kind of #STEM conference (free … and online) #
• Chat plan for tomorrow: Sign up for several free chat room services. Every time we break a room, move on to the next. #mccmath #
• Thought we might use http://todaysmeet.com but it has 140 char limit and doesn’t handle long URLs well. #
• If you need a “twitter simulation” for non-tweeters, http://todaysmeet would be a good one to use. #
• Thought we might use http://tinychat.com, but it won’t automatically make URLs into hyperlinks (need that) #
• I guess it’s just links longer than one line that don’t work in tinychat. #
• Has anyone tried using tinychat with a large number of participants all using the same IP? (this is what crashed chatzy) #
• I’m so bummed about not being able to use chatzy … it worked SO WELL at ICTCM in the spring. #
• Just tried bravenet … hyperlinks don’t work AT ALL in this one. Also, Ctrl+V doesn’t work. Lame. #
• Parachat might work for the chat problem but I need 37 simultaneous users and can’t afford $45/month. #
• Grrrr… URLs don’t go live in everywherechat either. #
• I guess we’ll use tinychat with no URL shorteners and no backup. We already know chatzy will fail in our lab. #
• RT @MathyChick: RT @JingTips: @jdornberg @keisawilliams: Embed Jing Video in PPT? You bet. Here’s how: http://bit.ly/Up47B good for #mccmath #
• Help! SMARTboard question: If the pen tray does not appear to be on, how do I turn it on? Is there a battery somewhere that I’ve missed? #
• Anyone know of research that debunks the old “PowerPoint 7×7 Rule”? #
• Photos from #mccmath (attempt #2 : http://bit.ly/cCLFo6 #
• Photos from this week’s #mccmath workshop … 40 math instructors from 30 different colleges meet to get a crash… http://fb.me/GNVXzU9w #
• RT @john_larkin: This is so ridiculous it could almost be an April Fool’s Joke. is it? http://bit.ly/d5CL4H / Digital drugs? iDoses? #
• RT @republicofmath Will #universities become irrelevant for many, as #employers increasingly take over role? http://bit.ly/8Y3IOl #
• RT @johnfaig 50 Free Open Courseware Classes About Psychology and the Human Brain – http://bit.ly/9R2zHv via http://bit.ly/9Imadf #teacher #
• RT @BryanAlexander RT @rschon: Helpgul short overview RT @keithhampson: Why Does College Cost So Much? – Forbes.com http://bit.ly/akA8B6 #
• RT @courosa “Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech” http://is.gd/egXc6 #
• RT @mathhombre blogpost: Math and Tech: Fri http://goo.gl/vBGF Last day of #mccmath with beaucoup resource links. #
• RT @sahana2802 RT @DesignMagTweets It’s About the Design Not the Tools http://bit.ly/asHAjA #
• RT @Tim_M_Martin RT @web20education: Gmail Gets an Unofficial Snooze Button http://t.co/SkpXlRp via @mashable #
• RT @CarnivalOfMath Don’t forget to submit your articles to the upcoming Math Teachers at Play Carnival http://bit.ly/91txdH #
• RT @aschouten603 enjoyed working at #mccmath I got to learn some useful things while I was there too! #
• RT @Wolfram_Alpha Where are Wolfram|Alpha Widgets? http://bit.ly/bU6pXA #
• RT @agregory Attendees of #mccmath here’s the link to a HootCourse I created for us! http://bit.ly/dBHxvH/ #mccmath #
• RT @barrydahl RT @mfeldstein67: New post: Xplana.com: Is This a PLE? http://bit.ly/csLOmR – Great post by Michael. Lots to chew on here. #
• RT @tonnet: Why good jobs are going unfilled – http://is.gd/ehC4B #
• My illustrator is awesome – here’s the background for the next @prezi http://screencast.com/t/MDE4OTI1OT #
• RT @Chronotope: Top 10 Ways Your Brain Is Sabotaging You (and How to Beat It) [Lifehacker Top 10] http://ff.im/-pfo4n #
• This Pew Internet survey makes me want to move … http://is.gd/ehK8i I’m afraid that the have-nots are a little too happy having not. #
• Chrome overtakes Safari for number three browser spot in the US sez StatCounter http://t.co/85KwS9M via @engadget #
• RT @michael_rowe Social networking and loneliness. See this in some students…the pressure of living for an audience http://bit.ly/d1HQOM #
• One of the GREAT slides from yesterday about TechSmith from @chirpdeb http://screencast.com/t/ZDU0ODEyZTc #
• What do dogs and education have in common? Swear I had this conversation a month ago w/spouse. http://goo.gl/6dPs via @mcleod #
• RT @rossdawson RT @kcarruthers: OMG brain wiring is like teh internet: New Study Examines the Brain’s Wiring http://bit.ly/dsRaI5 #
• RT @erikretallick The internet: is it changing the way we think? http://bit.ly/coiCdj < Article from The Guardian about Nicholas Carr #
• RT @simbeckhampson If you use Gmail you may want to add http://bit.ly/bnOaxj “shows you everything about your contacts inside your inbox.”

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• “The most important thing for allowing bonobos to acquire language is not to teach them.” -Susan Savage-Rumbaugh on Apes that Write I wasn’t sure why this was a TED Talk at first … but about 5 minutes in, you’ll understand.  A video about cultural transfer between humans and Bonobos.  Absolutely amazing.
• “Grades may encourage an emphasis on quantitative aspects of learning, depress creativity, foster fear of failure, and undermine interest” (Butler and Nissan 1986, p. 215) for more on this, read Grading: Not How but Why by Alfie Kohn [via @tonnet]
• “… knowledge about technology cannot be treated as context-free, and that good teaching requires an understanding of how technology relates to the pedagogy and content,” -TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) [via @tonnet] The premise is that there are three overlapping domains: Content Knowledge, Technological Knowledge, and Pedagogical Knowledge – in the center of these three domains is TPACK.

Games …

• Just when you thought there was nothing else to be done with Tetris, here’s First Person Tetris.  Motion-sickness pills anyone? [via @courosa]
• The New Games People Play: Game Mechanics In The Age Of Social reminds us that individual games were only a recent phenomenon, social games are actually the norm, evolutionarily speaking.  [via @TechCrunch]  There’s not much to read here, but you might be interested in the 33 minute video on Social Gaming: The Mechanics of Fun at the end of the article.
• The blue elephant is back! Play Achievement Unlocked 2 from @armorgames, a quirky game that you only really understand as you play.  Fun and short, not TOO addicting.   [via @tweedcap]
• Gamers beat algorithms at finding protein structures and the results make it into Nature magazine!  This is all about the game FoldIt, an awesome experiment in crowdsourcing/harnessing human thought.  [via @arstechnica and @Seriosity]

Still unorganized …

• Open Scholar http://is.gd/dYeIb via @rhollingsworth #
• RT @derekbruff My thoughts on the @Chronicle piece by @jryoung about the “last technology holdouts”: http://is.gd/dV4Vx #clickers #edtech #
• RT @maanow: Today’s Math in the News: For K-12 Teachers: Free STEM Content and Professional Development Courses http://cot.ag/bKcCr2 #
• RT @Ginaschreck: FINALLY! //RT @mashable: Put All Your Club Cards on a Digital Key Ring – http://mash.to/2jNOs #
• RT @Ginaschreck: Impressive //RT @gigaom: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S. http://dlvr.it/3JWZs #
• RT @randyfuj: RT @TechCrunch Wave Goodbye To Google Wave http://tcrn.ch/9IgE6t #edtech #
• RT @c4lpt Useful resource fm Lifehacker – How to migrate your entire Google account to a new one http://bit.ly/dbnkPQ / awesome! #
• RT @mcleod You can forget facts but you cannot forget understanding http://post.ly/qKls #
• RT @cherylcolan Drag and drop attachments received in Gmail from Google Chrome to your desktop http://j.mp/b31xWy #
• RT @courosa Google to implement multiple sign-ins. http://is.gd/e3xKD #
• RT @simbeckhampson RT @RadHertz Dynamic Learning Maps http://bit.ly/cYpm0T – Interesting work… #
• The great twitter experiment of Summer 2010 Calculus was a success. By the end of 10 weeks, the students “got” why… http://fb.me/xuj8YCQU #
• Woo hoo! My @EDUCAUSEreview article on The Open Faculty is published! http://is.gd/e4neF #
• Q5) Venues for emotional and cognitive sparks? The shower. Seriously. Can stand there for 30 min thinking. #lrnchat #
• Q5) Also, airplanes. There’s something about the digital quiet and white noise that sparks my creativity. I love flying! #lrnchat #
• Do you think the shower space is also digital quiet and white noise? (that’s @mr_busynessgirl‘s theory) #lrnchat #
• RT @eLearnMag: Are inexperienced writers (or unconfident ones) not cut out for online ed? http://tinyurl.com/elearnBGwriters #
• RT @cnansen RT @oc_tony: Gmail Adds Drag-and-Drop Saving for Attachments http://bit.ly/d0Jx5R #gct #gtauk #
• RT @davidwees Inquiry based learn improves student’s scores on standardized testing & reduces achievement gap. http://bit.ly/b7MQNz #edchat #
• RT @ShowerThinker: If you get ideas in the shower and your need a waterproof tool to write on: http://bit.ly/gyhFY / #lrnchat #
• Did you know you can drag a tab out of Firefox or Chrome and it will just become a new window? One of those things I somehow missed I guess. #
• RT @cherylcolan: @busynessgirl you can drag tabs from one window to another, too – I do that a lot / Hmm … did I miss some class on this? #
• Have you had any of those “I can’t believe I didn’t know you could do this?” moments re: using computer or Internet. Please send my way. #
• Just discovered:Click on an item in your Windows taskbar and drag up to see the most recently visited sites/documents for that program. #
• RT @mathhombre: @busynessgirl COMMAND+` to cycle through windows on a Mac; my introduction to 2finger scrolling on a macbook #
• RT @jstein: When I learned to use Win quick keys, especially Win + M, Win + E… #
• RT @EDUCAUSEreview:The “open” issue: @opencontent @coolcatteacher @davecormier @gsiemens @busynessgirl @brlamb @jimgroom @carolinarossini #
• Still collecting “Boy I wish someone had told me this earlier” tips about PCs, Macs, and browsers … making a new resource #
• RT @krzyslower @busynessgirl Cmd/Ctrl + 1, 2, 3, 4, etc… Cycles through open tabs in Firefox. #
• RT @cnansen Install Readability into all browsers – click it and web based article displays article w/o all the clutter / LOVE this one in reply to cnansen #
• RT @jasonschmidt123: Quick tab-changing in Firefox – Ctrl + 1,2,3, etc (cmd+1,2,3… Mac) switches to that #tab in order from left. #
• RT @suburbanlion: Neat trick on a MacBook: hold Ctrl and slide two fingers up on the touchpad to magnify the screen #
• RT @cnansen: Here is a screen shot from an iPad marked up on a Mac with Skitch – http://tinyurl.com/2de8eg7 #
• PC tip: Select text in document program and press Ctrl+Plus for subscript, Ctrl+Shift+Plus for superscript. Handy for chemists. #
• PC Tip: Ctrl-Alt-V is paste-special (useful for image work) #
• For Chrome, try Lazarus Form Recovery (when your tab crashes, all the text you entered for that speaker proposal is not lost) #
• Another great Chrome extension is “Chromey Calculator” which uses Wolfram Alpha on back end. #
• RT @ricetopher: There are times when Microsoft impresses the hell out of me. This is one of those times: http://j.mp/bmrTJz #
• Super (free) Wolfram Alpha Intermediate Algebra worksheets from @ffeldon http://twurl.nl/hpp0c7 #
• Newbies to tech always claim there’s a “Secret Club” with “secret codes” . Here’s the cheat sheet we give them: http://twurl.nl/j13bf4 #
• RT @tonnet It Now Takes Six Years—and More—to Earn a College Degree http://is.gd/e6MHA #
• RT @tonnet Academics Build Blog-to-eBook Publishing Tool in One Week http://is.gd/e6Nnj #
• RT @tonnet RT @s_burke: Does “spring cleaning” happen in the summer for all teachers? / yes. #
• RT @lcbyoung RT @dompruitt: Bill Gates: In Five Years The Best Education Will Come From The Web – http://tcrn.ch/9isM05 #
• RT @rkiker Haven’t checked out Photosynth in a while, new interface seems nicer for image visualiz http://bit.ly/9vDfCL #PATeach #edtech #
• RT @JoyGayler: Caffeine infographic – http://flic.kr/p/7uZHAw (RT @timbwatkins) / awesome reference! #
• This infographic by Jess Bachman is really cool: http://www.deathandtaxesposter.com/ #
• RT @rtkrum: How Does Diet Soda Cause Weight Gain? [infographic video] http://bit.ly/a1M9Vf #
• Wow! This is like eye/brain candy for a Saturday morning http://www.historyshots.com How cool would these be in the classroom? #
• Wouldn’t it be cool if you could print a prezi in high-def to PosterBrain? #
• Perhaps the honors calc project this year will be to create an infographic of the history of calculus. #
• Both KartOO and Clusty seem to have died their Internet death in the last year. KartOO–>Knowhow and Clusty–>Yippy now. #
• .@mrdfleming Try setting up Chrome like this and you’ll be completely happy: http://is.gd/e7BBZ (except for the java part) in reply to mrdfleming #
• Hmmm … it seems that http://yippy.com is basically Clusty with a new name. Still clusters search results, calls them “clouds” now. #
• This is cool, a search engine that searches for mindmaps on a particular topic: http://www.mindmapsearch.org/ #
• RT @pwelter Also, addicted to address bar/search being one and the same in Chrome. / oh hell yes! #
• http://www.mahalo.com looks interesting, but I don’t understand why have to have an account to search. #offthelist #
• Oh YES! Java app to do Google search with mindmap display http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html #
• Here’s another cool search engine with visual display: http://eyeplorer.com/show/ #
• RT @cherylcolan: Cool! “most desirable graphing calculator this side of Pluto” http://j.mp/bDJMAl / can’t anything shame TI at this point? #
• RT @c4lpt: Do you get your best ideas when you are in the shower and wonder why?! http://bit.ly/9fU74z / just talking about this on Thurs #
• RT @CarnivalOfMath: 68th Carnival of math is up over at @plusmathsorg http://plus.maths.org/content/carnival #
• RT @Ginaschreck In 2005 avg cell phone call was 3 min. Today it is 1/2 that. Will the phone call go the way of written letter? #
• RT @ShellTerrell RT @Marisa_C: http://bit.ly/12Jvot Tech Singularity – interesting re technological progress and human brain limitations #
• You cannot even begin to imagine how awesome it is to have fast upload and not be always worrying about how much data I am using online. #

Possibly Related Posts:

• Random But Organized Thoughts (9-5-2010)
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