Monday, February 21, 2005

Toys R Kids: High-Tech Playmates. Competing with iPods, cell phones and video games to attract kids' interest, toy makers hope electronic chips that enable dolls to learn your name, display 'emotions' and interact in other ways will bump up sales. But others ask, what about the imagination? [Wired News] 9:20:11 PM      Google It!.

Linux In Robots, Windows in Handhelds [Slashdot:] 9:17:22 PM      Google It!.

Increasing Visual Literacy Skills With Digital Imagery. I very much agree with this statement: "Visual literacy is becoming more important from a curricular standpoint as society relies to a greater degree on images and visual communication strategies. Thus, in order for students to be marketable in modern society, they must acquire visual literacy skills." All part of the new literacy. By Lance Wilhelm, T.H.E. Journal, February, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily] 9:15:03 PM      Google It!.

Community Blogging. So anyhow I have been stranded by the weather for the second time in as many weeks, this time thanks to a snowstorm in Toronto. I'm on my way home from Northern Voice where I delivered this talk, an analysis of community as it emerges in blogging: how it is formed, how it should reshape the blogosphere, and how it can be implemented (quite easily) technologically. And along the way, deflating a few pet concepts of the blogerati, such as the value of the long tail and the utility of tagging. The main link is to the slides (about 9 mB); I have also posted an MP3 of Community Blogging (about 6 mB) (Also available here). Commentary on the talk in the blogosphere has been widespread, so if you don't want to listen to it, you can read summaries and opinions from any of these sources: a whole minute, Nancy White (who with Jon Husband was influential in its creation), Blogaholics, Mark Hamilton, Lee LeFever, Northern Blog, Ryan Schultz. I also sat on the Blogging in Education panel: here is the MP3 of Blogging in Education and here is a summary by Nancy White. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, February 19, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily] 9:10:45 PM      Google It!.

Another Bookmarklet Tool- Quick Furl Search. I cannot claim this was an Urgent/Important task, but my curiosity got the better of me... I made a new bookmarklet tool that allows me to run a search against my furl-ed sites either by entering the search terms or by highlighting the words in any web mouse-selectable content. This avoids having to load a search interface , and may save me seconds of precious time ;-) Like I said, it was just a fun little programming task. See the new Furl Search Maker: http://jade.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/alan/furl_search_maker.php to create your own, another in the set including the Multi-Site Submission Tool Maker, and the MovableType Search Bookmarklet. This one is just out of the hatch, and not widely tested beyond my own browser(s). [cogdogblog] 8:52:32 PM      Google It!.