Archive for the 'Edtech' Category

15
Aug

Have you seen this?

  • I saw it for the first time this week on youtube, though it has been around and revised a few times by Carl Fisch. He remixed content from David Warlick, Ray Kurzweil, Ian Jukes, and Thomas Friedman.  It highlights issues of globalization first mentioned in “The World is Flat” by Friedman .

\”Did you know?\”

  • University of Washington students have created a system for enhancing video imagery using still photographs. The video explanation is a little technical for most of my ninth-graders, but the concept is very interesting and my techies will love being in the loop. I found the information on the TechCrunch blog.
  • My children can’t believe they have seen this. I am now texting messages. I’ve refused in the past because my thumbs just aren’t fast enough, and I absolutely hate trying to remember which initials I can use as a short cut. Now I’ve signed up for Jott and am leaving myself and everyone else messages just by dialing and talking. I love it.
08
Aug

Comic Book Bios of McCain and Obama

I am constantly amazed by how often coincidence and good RSS feeds provide resources for my art classes. Kim blogged about comic book biographies of the major candidates for president on her Art is Messy page. The online AP story she linked to discusses the research process and how the artists and writers worked to be unbiased. Still readers read bias into the images.
Push to Play Podcast

01
Aug

Giving others credit on projects…and at Wordle

I’m not sure how the universe works for others, but mine usually seems filled with coincidence and chaos. Perhaps that is why my blog is so disorganized.

As I work on my class wiki project at wetpaint coincidence equals copyright and Chaos equals the majority of information and opinions I have seen or heard on copyright.

And then I found Sherpa, a site on fair use has very clear information about public domain photos. It cleared up the foggy edges about finding and using images legally and has links on copyright, using music, books and maps.

Perhaps I should include randomness as an operating force in my universe also. The random topics of my life, eventually form a pattern. Which brings me to  Wordle, a java aplet tool that creates word clouds from text blocks or word lists.

Johnathan Feinberg created the toy with algorithms he wrote while on-the-clock at IBM and they allowed him to use it for his personal project.He allows wordle users to use the images they create in any way they want.

Feinberg’s credit page is the best example I have seen of acknowleding those who help.  And coming full circle, I thought it was appropriate to bring this up during a week when the it seems copyright is a daily topic in the emails, surveys, blogs and wikis I’ve read.