Martin Terre Blanche:
"I suspect that most Google searches have as much to do with getting a
feel for context as with locating something specific."
Great examples
in there of how search engines and related tools help us sense the
landscape surrounding a term in an impressionistic manner. (Recall is another tool in that constellation, which Martin didn't mention.)
I hadn't even thought of Jury Duty as an example, and I just recently was
foreman of one.
With only one example my experience is purely anecdotal, but I think the
value of 12 in a jury is that that the group isn't cohesive, and has a tendency
to break into two groups, i.e. guilty and innocent. Then it is up to those two
groups to persuade each other one way or another.
Also, a smaller jury pool might allow for someone's personality to win over
some else's judgement. Not that this don't happen anyhow, just that with 12
people you are more likely to find someone with a like opinion and you'll be
able to stand with them against the strong personality.
I'm pretty sure the interest in ePortfolios is going to boom over the
next one or two years. Here's a recent document from Berkeley U. that explains
the concept and its possible relevance to the future of education. It offers the
following definition of ePortfolio:
An ePortfolio is a highly personalized, customizable, web-based
information management system, which allows students to demonstrate
individual and collaborative growth, achievement, and learning over
time.
I don't know about you, but to me this sounds awfully close to a weblog
tool... the document also lists five practical uses for ePortfolios
once they are in students' hands, which won't come as a surprise if
you've been following eLearning/KM bloggers' discussions (Lilia you're going to love this!):
Generate RSS Feeds for your favorite eBay Search. Build it once and enjoy.
Especially usefull if you are continously Searching for the same Items on eBay.
By Using eBay2RSS with your favorite News Aggregator you will see your
favorite items when they get listed on eBay.
Neat. And you can have the feed include images of the items.
