(PHOTO: "Do you think he's alive???" shot by Kevin Law.)

Over at Ethicurean, there's an extensive post exploring what the newly elected American president might do differently about food, farms, and related systems of energy and technology in the United States:

According to Speech Wars, between April and October, John McCain uttered the word “agriculture” only twice, and “nutrition” just once. Barack Obama did slightly better, referring to “agriculture” twelve times and “nutrition” four times. He gave farms a passing mention in his speech at the Democratic National Convention in August. But let’s face it: for the most part, food was a quiet issue, sacrificed to our discussions about race and religion, gender and sexism, oil and bailouts.

Meanwhile, food prices continued to rise. Our nation continued to lose farms daily. We continued to spend billions of dollars treating lifestyle diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Rural towns continued to wither. Fertilizer runoff continued to damage our drinking water.

There’s no way around it: the Obama administration will need to address food issues head-on.

Last month, Michael Pollan published a sweeping letter to the next president, Farmer in Chief, in the New York Times. After Pollan’s article was published, the American Farmland Trust noted that “there is no topic of greater importance than the issues [Pollan] raises…it is time to elevate these issues to their rightful place on our national agenda.”

Turns out Obama might agree; Obama read Pollan’s article and even worked it into discussions of energy policy. So what might we expect from an Obama administration when it comes to food policy? Maybe quite a bit. In his plan for rural America, he lays out a number of policy positions that are a departure from the status quo.

A detailed list of what we know about Obama's likely changes in food policy follows, read the whole post here: What does an Obama win mean for the U.S. food supply? (Ethicurean)

As part of the promotion around The Best of Instructables Volume 1, PT offered me a guest blogging spot at Makezine, which I naturally jumped at. This is the first of my periodic posts

In the best talk of the 2008 Web 2.0 Summit Al Gore called for president-elect Obama to make a man-on-the-moon-like pledge to generate 100% of the United States' electricity from renewable and non-carbon sources within 10 years. Al Gore is truly an amazing orator, and when he got fired up about the climate, renewable energy, energy independence, and how it could play a centerpiece of our economy, I got fired up and so did the rest of the audience.

What really sent shivers down my spine was this observation: When Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon, the average age of the control engineers running the mission from Houston was 26, making them 18 when Kennedy made his pledge in 1960.

Generating 100% of our electricity from renewables and non-carbon sources in 10 years (let's call it 100-in-10) is the same caliber of challenge, but unlike getting to the moon -- which was something only a government could do at the time -- building a full economy of renewable energy should be orchestrated by the government, but requires the efforts of countless makers. I seem huge numbers of opportunities, both large and small, to make a difference and have impact. Get an engineering degree and invent a new type of powerplant, design and publish plans for low-cost DIY solar home heaters, be an advocate of renewable products and services.

It's clear that a lot can happen in 10 years, and even if Obama doesn't call for 100-in-10, the time to make a difference is now.

This is cross-posted on my site, Instructables, here. The image is (CC) Brian Solis, www.briansolis.com, bub.blicio.us.

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Obama Grabs Headlines - November 5, 2008

CWmike writes "Microsoft is working on a software distribution scheme along the lines of Apple's iPhone App Store, CEO Steve Ballmer said yesterday at a developer's conference in Sydney, Australia. 'There's not much money being made, but the general concept of giving developers a way not only to get their code distributed, but to really get visibility for the code, is a good idea,' Ballmer said. Ballmer hinted that something similar would be coming soon from Microsoft. While he said Micrsoft was not ready to detail the works in progress, he said '... fear not, we're hard at work, and you'll see some of the benefits [of that] with some of the concepts, particularly Facebook's.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "You may recall that when the RIAA decided to run away with its tail between its legs in the long running Brooklyn case against a home health aide who has never used a computer, UMG v. Lindor, it decided to take some parting shots at the defendant and NewYorkCountryLawyer, asking for 'discovery sanctions,' and blaming them for its inability to prove its case. Today NYCL gave them his response, accusing the RIAA lawyers of persistent misstatements of fact (PDF) throughout their motion papers, and of flouting the rules and misstating the law (PDF). Although the RIAA's motion papers took a number of shots at NYCL's copyright law blog, 'Recording Industry vs. The People,' NYCL confined his response on that subject to a single footnote."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "You may recall that when the RIAA decided to run away with its tail between its legs in the long running Brooklyn case against a home health aide who has never used a computer, UMG v. Lindor, it decided to take some parting shots at the defendant and NewYorkCountryLawyer, asking for 'discovery sanctions,' and blaming them for its inability to prove its case. Today NYCL gave them his response, accusing the RIAA lawyers of persistent misstatements of fact (PDF) throughout their motion papers, and of flouting the rules and misstating the law (PDF). Although the RIAA's motion papers took a number of shots at NYCL's copyright law blog, 'Recording Industry vs. The People,' NYCL confined his response on that subject to a single footnote."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "You may recall that when the RIAA decided to run away with its tail between its legs in the long running Brooklyn case against a home health aide who has never used a computer, UMG v. Lindor, it decided to take some parting shots at the defendant and NewYorkCountryLawyer, asking for 'discovery sanctions,' and blaming them for its inability to prove its case. Today NYCL gave them his response, accusing the RIAA lawyers of persistent misstatements of fact (PDF) throughout their motion papers, and of flouting the rules and misstating the law (PDF). Although the RIAA's motion papers took a number of shots at NYCL's copyright law blog, 'Recording Industry vs. The People,' NYCL confined his response on that subject to a single footnote."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kirsten Anderson says that this baby pygmy hippopotamus is "ridiculously cute." I agree. Named Monifa, it lives at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia. (via Cute Overload)

CryoStasis writes "I am a graduate student getting my degree in biomedical sciences. Because my work often requires me to maintain a local sterile environment (under a biological hood) I find that I am unable to physically touch my computer, which sits aside of me, in order to open my notes, protocols, etc. while I'm working. As a result I have begun to search for a voice-recognition program that will allow me to tell the computer what files/programs to launch. I know that the general field of voice recognition has come a long way, but I find that the build in speech recognition systems in both OS X and Vista, clunky and difficult to use. Are there any good quality, cross-platform speech-recognition programs available that might fit the bill?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CryoStasis writes "I am a graduate student getting my degree in biomedical sciences. Because my work often requires me to maintain a local sterile environment (under a biological hood) I find that I am unable to physically touch my computer, which sits aside of me, in order to open my notes, protocols, etc. while I'm working. As a result I have begun to search for a voice-recognition program that will allow me to tell the computer what files/programs to launch. I know that the general field of voice recognition has come a long way, but I find that the build in speech recognition systems in both OS X and Vista, clunky and difficult to use. Are there any good quality, cross-platform speech-recognition programs available that might fit the bill?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

twitter writes "Analysts at Bloomberg noticed the tumble in Microsoft's traditional software sales last quarter and blamed it on netbooks: 'The devices, which usually cost less than $500, are the fastest-growing segment of the personal-computer industry — a trend that's eating into Microsoft's revenue. Windows sales fell short of forecasts last quarter and the company cut growth projections for the year, citing the lower revenue it gets from netbooks. When makers of the computers do use Windows, they typically opt for older and cheaper versions of the software. Equipping Linux on a computer costs about $5, compared with $40 to $50 for XP and about $100 for Vista, according to estimates by Jenny Lai, a Taipei-based analyst at CLSA Ltd.' This is why, MS declared war on the segment last year and palm top computers in previous years. While they may have successfully tamed the Asus EEE PC but, they can't hold back everyone who wants to make a buck on cheap hardware and free software. Analysts have predicted the fall of MS's business model when computers break below $250/unit retail. We are there now, and it has shown in the bottom line."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A few observations after a full week of using for real deployed applications.

1. It works. No problems, absolutely reliable.

2. The docs could be vastly improved. They should take a "Hello World" approach, and tell you the minimum you need to know to get a Notepad window up. Since it runs Windows and so many people use Windows, this could be a mass-market product. The idea of having a virtual computer running "up there" is really powerful and it shouldn't just be for programmers.

3. In the end, the cost isn't prohibitive. I'm paying $300 a month for two colocated servers. I expect to pay about $200 a month for the same service at Amazon. I probably wouldn't switch just for the cost savings, but for the extra reliability, I'll take it.

4. They make a big deal about how the servers can disappear, but in the week it's been running, it hasn't gone down once.

5. One bother is that you only get one IP address per machine. I really could use three or four. On my colo service I get five. Yes, I know I can set things up so that addresses are delegated, but it's a PITA.

pasokon writes "ZDNet reports on an Android bug in T-Mobile G1s with early versions of the firmware: 'When the phone booted it started up a command shell as root and sent every keystroke you ever typed on the keyboard from then on to that shell. Thus every word you typed, in addition to going to the foreground application would be silently and invisibly interpreted as a command and executed with superuser privileges. ... open the keyboard tray on your G1, ignore anything you see on the screen, and type these 8 keystrokes: (enter)-r-e-b-o-o-t-(enter). Poof, your phone will reboot.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

William Robinson writes "After an 18-day journey, Chandrayaan-1, the moon mission of India, has entered Lunar orbit. The maneuver was described as crucial and critical by scientists, who pointed out that at least 30 per cent of similar moon missions had failed at this juncture, resulting in spacecraft lost to outer space. The lunar orbit insertion placed Chandrayaan-1 in an elliptical orbit with its nearest point 400 to 500 kilometers away from the moon, and the farthest, 7,500 kilometers. By November 15, the spacecraft is expected to be orbiting the moon at a distance of 100 kilometers and sending back data and images (the camera was tested with shots looking back at Earth). The Chandrayaan-1 is also scheduled to send a probe to the moon's surface."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

tsa writes "In a predictable move, TDS Telecom has filed an appeal after its complaint against Monticello, Minnesota's new fiber network was tossed by a county judge in early October. As you may remember, the city decided to build its own fiber-optic network after the telco made it clear they wouldn't build it because it wouldn't be economically feasible for them. TDS Telecom then changed its mind and sued the city for unfair competition."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sea-Urchin chair - made with 8,000 zip ties via NOTCOT.

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Yesterday I wrote about a great new book that I picked up at Maker Faire. Actually, I picked up 2 new books at Maker Faire, the other one was Getting Started with Arduino by Mossimo Banzi, co-founder of Arduino. Mossimo did a great job explaining all about this amazing little micro-controller and basic electronics. Here are some of the topics covered in the book:

• Interaction design and physical computing
• The Arduino hardware and software development environment
• Basics of electricity and electronics
• Prototyping on a solderless breadboard
• Drawing a schematic diagram

Getting Started with Arduino is a great place to start your journey into the amazing, and sometimes crazy, world of micro-controllers and physical computing.

In the Maker Shed:


Make: Arduino

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Bunnie (Chumby engineer and all around hardware hacker) got a Nintendo DSi... and took it apart...

I couldn’t help myself from buying one of these…and taking it apart. The DSi is pretty cool: it has not one, but two, cameras embedded in it. One faces forward so you can see yourself, and the other can be used to take pictures of others. Compared to the DS-lite, it’s a little bit thinner, isn’t compatible with the old charger, and more prominently features wifi connectivity status. The speakers are also a bit beefier. Finally, the feature I like the most is that the screens are a good bit larger than the previous model (I’m already enjoying Tetris on the bigger screen). Oh, and also, it has an SD card slot, so you can play AAC encoded audio from the memory card, as well as store pictures on there, so the device effectively doubles as a camera and a music player on the road.

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An anonymous reader points out a story in the Washington Post, which begins: "A single response from 12 million e-mails is all it takes for spammers to turn annual profits of millions of dollars promoting knockoff pharmaceuticals, according to an unprecedented new study on the economics of spam. Over a period of about a month in the Spring of 2008, researchers at the University of California, San Diego and UC Berkeley sought to measure the conversion rate of spam by quietly infiltrating the Storm worm botnet, a vast collection of compromised computers once responsible for sending an estimated 20 percent of all spam." The academic paper (PDF) is also available. We've previously discussed another group of researchers who were able to infiltrate the botnet for a different purpose.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I did a post a while back on making recycled paper and it covered making paper from dryer lint - here's a tutorial about making modeling dough from dryer lint.

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Just a few short hours ago, our fiendish friends at Billboard Liberation Front helped Wachovia Bank improve the messaging on a billboard in San Francisco's Mission District. From the BLF's press release:

This campaign emphasizes the silver lining in the economic storm front now threatening to swamp our economy as well as our individual fiscal inner tubes.

“The calamitous decline in the value of all investments and the impending total collapse of the dollar will render the true value of the average savings account or investment portfolio roughly equal to a bucket of warm piss," noted Thomas J. Wurtz, CFO of Wachovia. Dr. John Silvia, Managing Director and Chief Economist noted: “After that golden shower we got from Golden West, we decided to fight fire with fire and start bailing for our clients and stockholders, mixed metaphors notwithstanding.”

Billboard Liberation Front and Wachovia Bank

Just a few short hours ago, our fiendish friends at Billboard Liberation Front helped Wachovia Bank improve the messaging on a billboard in San Francisco's Mission District. From the BLF's press release:

This campaign emphasizes the silver lining in the economic storm front now threatening to swamp our economy as well as our individual fiscal inner tubes.

“The calamitous decline in the value of all investments and the impending total collapse of the dollar will render the true value of the average savings account or investment portfolio roughly equal to a bucket of warm piss," noted Thomas J. Wurtz, CFO of Wachovia. Dr. John Silvia, Managing Director and Chief Economist noted: “After that golden shower we got from Golden West, we decided to fight fire with fire and start bailing for our clients and stockholders, mixed metaphors notwithstanding.”

Billboard Liberation Front and Wachovia Bank

Linux Blog writes "The Google-Yahoo advertising deal has been rejected by the Department of Justice, and Google has pulled the plug on a search-ad partnership with Yahoo that would have given Yahoo major new revenue, but that raised antitrust concerns. Now, Yahoo has said the 'For Sale' sign is still on its front lawn and that Microsoft should buy the company. The internet portal's co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang made this comment despite the fact Yahoo rejected a $33 a share offer from Microsoft back in May. What a huge loss for the share holders. Microsoft was quick to respond that their buyout efforts were a thing of the past, but left the door open to a search partnership."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CurtMonash writes "Barack Obama promised to appoint the United States' first Chief Technology Officer. Naturally, the blogosphere is full of discussion as to who that should be. I favor American Management Systems founder and former IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti. Richard Koman thinks it should be one of the better state CTOs. John Doerr, going in a different direction, thinks it should be his partner Bill Joy. We can bandy names back and forth all month, but first a more fundamental question needs to be answered: What do we need most — a get-things-done CIO (Chief Information Officer), or a more visionary true CTO? I think it's a CIO, and based on his campaign statements it appears Obama agrees. Management of government IT is a huge, generally unsolved problem, and we need somebody deeply experienced to have a fighting chance. Of course, that doesn't preclude recruiting a visionary CTO in addition, but the highest priority is a CIO. What do you think?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Yesterday, I posted about psychopathy, a post that gave commenter Jack the willies, leading him to demand a cute cat video chaser. He suggested the oeuvre of Maru, an overweight male Scottish Fold residing in Japan who has a thing for putting himself into things.

Prepare yourself for the awesomeness that is Maru in hot cat-in-box action.

Apparently, Maru is huge in Japan.

Don't try this one at home, people.

Related: Maru's blog. Thanks, Jack!

Pretty soon mobile devices will be used to stream live and on-demand, recorded training courses, engaging learners on the move even in the absence of traditional face-to-face approaches. But, would you attend a course via your mobile phone? Photo credit: lumigopereira Easy of access to high-speed networks is indeed empowering individuals, while forcing elearning designers and content producers to think more thoroughly at how to best engage the learner when his surrounding environment (public places, bus, underground station, etc.) becomes so potentially noisy and distracting. In all cases, what emerges clearly is the individual’s shrinking reliance on traditional brick-and-mortar institutions in favor of new and emerging virtual ones. In this edition of the Media Literacy digest, George Siemens keeps exploring the development of different technologies and their potential impact on teaching and learning. His focus is on tools that increase learner control over content, interaction, and on the creation of learning networks with peers and experts outside of classrooms. Here all the details: Intro by Daniele Bazzano

eLearning Resources and News

learning, networks, knowledge, technology, trends by George Siemens

Emerging Technologies Course

Final week to register for the first course in University of Manitoba’s is offering a Certificate in Emerging Technologies for Learning: Introduction to Emerging Technologies (starts November 17). I’m co-facilitating the course with Dave Cormier…so I’m looking forward to a great course! From the course description (.pdf):

“New technologies offer new opportunities for educators to increase learner engagement and improve the overall value of the learning experience. The last five years have resulted in the introduction of numerous new tools and approaches: blogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking, virtual worlds, and social networking services. This course will explore the development of different technologies and suggest their potential impact on teaching and learning. Focus will be placed on tools that increase learner control over content, interaction, and the formation of learning networks with peers and experts outside of classrooms.”

Creating Knowledge: Network Structure and Innovation

When organizations begin planning new ways for employees to share knowledge, the focus is often misplaced on the explicit act of sharing knowledge itself. We cannot meaningfully “force” people to share. At best, we can create situations / conditions / ecologies in which exchange of ideas will occur. Or, more succinctly:

“Promoting knowledge sharing is a matter of :

1. creating the relational conditions that facilitate interpersonal transfers, and
2. creating the structural conditions that facilitate diffusion.”

Designing Mobile Learning

According to the Oxford Internet Institute, the use of smart phones (i.e. mobile phones used for multiple activities: browsing, maps, music, video, etc.) is doubling every two years (.pdf). Designers and educators are recognizing that it’s no longer appropriate to think only of laptop / desktop browsing to access learning materials. Major LMS vendors - such as Desire2Learn (see here) are developing mobile functionality with their platforms. As is generally the case, consideration of the medium and its unique attributes is important. Designing Mobile Learning emphasizes this point from the learners perspective:

“Before embarking on creation of a mobile accessible course you will want to understand how the learner’s experience changes when they view your course through a mobile device. Mobile devices are typically used in a very distraction-filled environment. Learners may be on a bus, on a train, at the store, eating lunch, or at work. The mobile device screen is very small. This limits what the learner can see and can make it difficult to read a large amount of content, view graphics, or see moving graphics.” (via Workplace Learning Today)

My First Keynote

ZaidLearn has been an active blogger, focusing on open learning and open tools. Great to see he is giving (has given) his first keynote address to a Malaysian conference. As Stephen Downes states, it’s great to see people achieving genuine success in the pursuit of new tools / approaches in education. Congrats Zaid! (On a side note, I’m looking forward to my first visit to Malaysia in December as an extension of a presentation in Singapore. Wonderful things happening around the world in educational technology).

Analyzing The Obvious: Technological and Social Connections

I’ve been enjoying the delightful Australian weather and hospitality for the past week. Today, I presented at Learning Technologies 2008. My slides - Analyzing the Obvious: Technological and Social Connections have been posted. Richard Feynman, the legendary physicist and educator, used to state a concept most students first encounter in physics: everything is made of atoms. The key to understanding learning is similar: connections, and the patterns they create, are the foundation.

Understanding The Real Structure Within Your Organization

Strategy is enacted not by mandate, but by how resources are allocated. Bill Ives suggests leaders need to understand the actual structure of organizations. Organizational structure and information flow is often not what appears in formal policies and org charts. While organizations may not be very adaptive, people are… and people will find ways to address challenges and concerns based on context and need. Unfortunately, planning is future-focused, rather than reality-focused.

I’m Leaving

Formal education faces some of the most profound changes in its history. Social learning theory, technology, and learner empowerment / engagement are only a few of the change pressures facing education. Times of change, however, reveal our character (wasn’t it Warren Buffet who said something to the effect of “you only find out who is swimming naked when the tied goes out”?). After decades of changes in educational philosophy, divisions are becoming more evident. I’m Leaving is an article that should raise the blood pressure of any educator. The author reveals a disdain for learners and calls for a return to high ideals and expectations of education (can’t we be learner focused and still adhere to high ideals??). The comments further reveal strong divisions. Some educators agree that learners have “become soft” with a growing sense of entitlement. Others suggest the real problem is with the professor.

The Future of Universities

How are universities likely to be impacted by current technological trends? Two publications seek to address this question: The Tower and the Cloud:

The emergence of the networked information economy is unleashing two powerful forces.

1. On one hand, easy access to high-speed networks is empowering individuals. People can now discover and consume information resources and services globally from their homes. Further, new social computing approaches are inviting people to share in the creation and edification of information on the Internet. Empowerment of the individual - or consumerization - is reducing the individual’s reliance on traditional brick-and-mortar institutions in favor of new and emerging virtual ones.


2. Second, ubiquitous access to high-speed networks along with network standards, open standards and content, and techniques for virtualizing hardware, software, and services is making it possible to leverage scale economies in unprecedented ways.

The Future of Higher Education:

Technological innovation, long a hallmark of academic research, may now be changing the very way that universities teach and students learn. For academic institutions, charged with equipping graduates to compete in today's knowledge economy, the possibilities are great. Distance education, sophisticated learning-management systems and the opportunity to collaborate with research partners from around the world are just some of the transformational benefits that universities are embracing.

Both publications are technology-centric. I can understand that emphasis, after all, technology is changing the rest of the world, surely it will soon make a more significant impact in education. A view of educational change pressures needs to be more broad. Economic, societal, population trends, rise of education levels in emerging countries, may all apply as much influence in altering education as technology.

New Issue of IRRODL

Terry Anderson just announced a new issue of IRRODL focusing on a timely range of issues: transactional distance education theory, student blogging, connectivism, etc. I found the process reengineering article particularly interesting. It’s a bit too narrowly focused for my liking, but starts on a path that will continue to gain explorers; namely - how do we change education? How do we change our systems to account for trends?

Originally written by George Siemens for elearnspace and first published on November 7th 2008 in his newsletter eLearning Resources and News.

About the author To learn more about George Siemens and to access extensive information and resources on elearning check out www.elearnspace.org. Explore also George Siemens connectivism site for resources on the changing nature of learning and check out his new book "Knowing Knowledge".

Photo credits: Emerging Technologies Course - Microsoft Creating Knowledge: Network Structure and Innovation - Leonardo Da Vinci Designing Mobile Learning - Feng Yu Understanding The Real Structure Within Your Organization - Stephen Coburn I'm Leaving - ronen The Future of Universities - adistock New Issue of IRRODL - IRRODL

Pretty soon mobile devices will be used to stream live and on-demand, recorded training courses, engaging learners on the move even in the absence of traditional face-to-face approaches. But, would you attend a course via your mobile phone? Photo credit: lumigopereira Easy of access to high-speed networks is indeed empowering individuals, while forcing elearning designers and content producers to think more thoroughly at how to best engage the learner when his surrounding environment (public places, bus, underground station, etc.) becomes so potentially noisy and distracting. In all cases, what emerges clearly is the individual’s shrinking reliance on traditional brick-and-mortar institutions in favor of new and emerging virtual ones. In this edition of the Media Literacy digest, George Siemens keeps exploring the development of different technologies and their potential impact on teaching and learning. His focus is on tools that increase learner control over content, interaction, and on the creation of learning networks with peers and experts outside of classrooms. Here all the details: Intro by Daniele Bazzano

eLearning Resources and News

learning, networks, knowledge, technology, trends by George Siemens

Emerging Technologies Course

Final week to register for the first course in University of Manitoba’s is offering a Certificate in Emerging Technologies for Learning: Introduction to Emerging Technologies (starts November 17). I’m co-facilitating the course with Dave Cormier…so I’m looking forward to a great course! From the course description (.pdf):

“New technologies offer new opportunities for educators to increase learner engagement and improve the overall value of the learning experience. The last five years have resulted in the introduction of numerous new tools and approaches: blogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking, virtual worlds, and social networking services. This course will explore the development of different technologies and suggest their potential impact on teaching and learning. Focus will be placed on tools that increase learner control over content, interaction, and the formation of learning networks with peers and experts outside of classrooms.”

Creating Knowledge: Network Structure and Innovation

When organizations begin planning new ways for employees to share knowledge, the focus is often misplaced on the explicit act of sharing knowledge itself. We cannot meaningfully “force” people to share. At best, we can create situations / conditions / ecologies in which exchange of ideas will occur. Or, more succinctly:

“Promoting knowledge sharing is a matter of :

1. creating the relational conditions that facilitate interpersonal transfers, and
2. creating the structural conditions that facilitate diffusion.”

Designing Mobile Learning

According to the Oxford Internet Institute, the use of smart phones (i.e. mobile phones used for multiple activities: browsing, maps, music, video, etc.) is doubling every two years (.pdf). Designers and educators are recognizing that it’s no longer appropriate to think only of laptop / desktop browsing to access learning materials. Major LMS vendors - such as Desire2Learn (see here) are developing mobile functionality with their platforms. As is generally the case, consideration of the medium and its unique attributes is important. Designing Mobile Learning emphasizes this point from the learners perspective:

“Before embarking on creation of a mobile accessible course you will want to understand how the learner’s experience changes when they view your course through a mobile device. Mobile devices are typically used in a very distraction-filled environment. Learners may be on a bus, on a train, at the store, eating lunch, or at work. The mobile device screen is very small. This limits what the learner can see and can make it difficult to read a large amount of content, view graphics, or see moving graphics.” (via Workplace Learning Today)

My First Keynote

ZaidLearn has been an active blogger, focusing on open learning and open tools. Great to see he is giving (has given) his first keynote address to a Malaysian conference. As Stephen Downes states, it’s great to see people achieving genuine success in the pursuit of new tools / approaches in education. Congrats Zaid! (On a side note, I’m looking forward to my first visit to Malaysia in December as an extension of a presentation in Singapore. Wonderful things happening around the world in educational technology).

Analyzing The Obvious: Technological and Social Connections

I’ve been enjoying the delightful Australian weather and hospitality for the past week. Today, I presented at Learning Technologies 2008. My slides - Analyzing the Obvious: Technological and Social Connections have been posted. Richard Feynman, the legendary physicist and educator, used to state a concept most students first encounter in physics: everything is made of atoms. The key to understanding learning is similar: connections, and the patterns they create, are the foundation.

Understanding The Real Structure Within Your Organization

Strategy is enacted not by mandate, but by how resources are allocated. Bill Ives suggests leaders need to understand the actual structure of organizations. Organizational structure and information flow is often not what appears in formal policies and org charts. While organizations may not be very adaptive, people are… and people will find ways to address challenges and concerns based on context and need. Unfortunately, planning is future-focused, rather than reality-focused.

I’m Leaving

Formal education faces some of the most profound changes in its history. Social learning theory, technology, and learner empowerment / engagement are only a few of the change pressures facing education. Times of change, however, reveal our character (wasn’t it Warren Buffet who said something to the effect of “you only find out who is swimming naked when the tied goes out”?). After decades of changes in educational philosophy, divisions are becoming more evident. I’m Leaving is an article that should raise the blood pressure of any educator. The author reveals a disdain for learners and calls for a return to high ideals and expectations of education (can’t we be learner focused and still adhere to high ideals??). The comments further reveal strong divisions. Some educators agree that learners have “become soft” with a growing sense of entitlement. Others suggest the real problem is with the professor.

The Future of Universities

How are universities likely to be impacted by current technological trends? Two publications seek to address this question: The Tower and the Cloud:

The emergence of the networked information economy is unleashing two powerful forces.

1. On one hand, easy access to high-speed networks is empowering individuals. People can now discover and consume information resources and services globally from their homes. Further, new social computing approaches are inviting people to share in the creation and edification of information on the Internet. Empowerment of the individual - or consumerization - is reducing the individual’s reliance on traditional brick-and-mortar institutions in favor of new and emerging virtual ones.


2. Second, ubiquitous access to high-speed networks along with network standards, open standards and content, and techniques for virtualizing hardware, software, and services is making it possible to leverage scale economies in unprecedented ways.

The Future of Higher Education:

Technological innovation, long a hallmark of academic research, may now be changing the very way that universities teach and students learn. For academic institutions, charged with equipping graduates to compete in today's knowledge economy, the possibilities are great. Distance education, sophisticated learning-management systems and the opportunity to collaborate with research partners from around the world are just some of the transformational benefits that universities are embracing.

Both publications are technology-centric. I can understand that emphasis, after all, technology is changing the rest of the world, surely it will soon make a more significant impact in education. A view of educational change pressures needs to be more broad. Economic, societal, population trends, rise of education levels in emerging countries, may all apply as much influence in altering education as technology.

New Issue of IRRODL

Terry Anderson just announced a new issue of IRRODL focusing on a timely range of issues: transactional distance education theory, student blogging, connectivism, etc. I found the process reengineering article particularly interesting. It’s a bit too narrowly focused for my liking, but starts on a path that will continue to gain explorers; namely - how do we change education? How do we change our systems to account for trends?

Originally written by George Siemens for elearnspace and first published on November 7th 2008 in his newsletter eLearning Resources and News.

About the author To learn more about George Siemens and to access extensive information and resources on elearning check out www.elearnspace.org. Explore also George Siemens connectivism site for resources on the changing nature of learning and check out his new book "Knowing Knowledge".

Photo credits: Emerging Technologies Course - Microsoft Creating Knowledge: Network Structure and Innovation - Leonardo Da Vinci Designing Mobile Learning - Feng Yu Understanding The Real Structure Within Your Organization - Stephen Coburn I'm Leaving - ronen The Future of Universities - adistock New Issue of IRRODL - IRRODL

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories released a new version of their AVR breakout board...

We've just released a new version of our super-handy business card sized target board for programming 28-pin AVR microcontrollers like the ATmega168 and ATmega328. These are just the thing for programming these chips through an ISP programmer like the USBtinyISP.

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CNet is running a story about research from security expert Joe Stewart into the CoreFlood botnet, which has harvested at least "50 gigabytes of compressed data, searchable in a MySQL database," from a group of over 370,000 bot IDs. Stewart explains how the botnet operates and some of the things he's learned about the group that operates it. "Within the 50GB file, Stewart was able to discern how the thieves culled the data. He said they run a test script against that data that will log via a proxy into the bank using the credentials captured, say by a keylogging application. The CoreFlood script will then capture the HTML data on the post long-in page. In most cases, that page also contains the account's bank balance. They do that, he said, so that after running the test they have a picture of what are the highest dollar amounts. 'I don't know whether they steal from all of them. We don't have access to the accounts; the bank is not going to tell us how much was stolen out of any given account. We're not going to get that information, but we know they're actively logging and checking accounts to collect the balance data. The only reason (the script) can see that data is to target the biggest accounts first,' he said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The funnel wall at the Kunsthofpassage in Neustadt plays music when it rains... via NOTCOT.

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p1234 writes with this excerpt from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics: "Simulations by the Virgo team show how the Milky Way's halo grew through a series of violent collisions and mergers from millions of much smaller clumps that emerged from the Big Bang. ... If Fermi does detect the predicted emission from the Milky Way's smooth inner halo, then it may, if we are lucky, also see gamma-rays from small (and otherwise invisible) clumps of dark matter which happen to lie particularly close to the Sun. ... The largest simulation took 3.5 million processor hours to complete. Volker Springel was responsible for shepherding the calculation through the machine and said: 'At times I thought it would never finish.' Max Planck Director, Professor Simon White, remarked that 'These calculations finally allow us to see what the dark matter distribution should look like near the Sun where we might stand a chance of detecting it.'" We discussed a related simulation a few months ago.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AskPang has an thoughtful reflection on Tinkering as a Mode of Knowledge: Production in the Digital Age, a conference presented by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Tinkering isn't so much a specific set of technical skills: there tends to be a pretty instrumental view of knowledge. You pick up just enough knowledge about electronics, textiles, metals, programming, or paper-folding to figure out how to do what you want. It certainly respects skill, but skills are a means, not an end: mastery isn't the point, as it is for professionals. Competence and completion are.

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How does Tinkering help us learn? How do our schools encourage Tinkering as a technique for exploring the world around us or our students? Add comments to tell us what you think about Tinkering as a technique for teaching and learning.

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RjDj is a sound application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch* that allows users to access "scenes" that transform sound that comes in through the microphone and allows additional tweakage via the the iPhone's accelerometer and touch screen. But did you know that RjDj's scenes are made with PD (PureData), a free, open-source multimedia programming environment that uses a visual patch cable-style interface to create interactive applications for audio and multimedia? Yup. This makes RjDj scenes incredibly hackable, and it also makes it very easy to port RjDj scenes that you've made to other platforms. Because RjDj is built with PD under the hood, it isn't difficult to modify the scenes that come bundled with RjDj, and with a little PD know-how, you can also create scenes from scratch (see my video below). Read on to see how.

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With modern console technology making it easy to develop and distribute small games, more and more companies are taking advantage of gamers' nostalgia to re-release decades-old hits, and to create entirely new titles in older styles. Gamasutra takes a look at what the retro game fad has become, and where it can go from here. What old games or series do you think would translate well onto today's consoles? "Many gamers who bought Mega Man 9 did so because of the game's inherent nostalgia, or because they never had a chance to enjoy the older games on the Nintendo Entertainment System when they were younger. Mega Man 9 is very much a product of its context. Its gameplay is fantastic, but it too is a product of the time period in which it reigned supreme. It suggests the question: can neo-retro games stand the test of time? Will games that mimic or lampoon the 8-bit era remain relevant and interesting to the masses long after its original audience has disappeared?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Phenomenal pop surrealist Andrew Brandou has a new show of vibrant, psychedelic, mind-bending paintings opening tonight at Perihelion Arts in Phoenix, Arizona. The Brandou exhibition is accompanied by a group show by members of the Art Dorks Collective, whose work I've posted about previously. Andrew Brandou and Art Dorks Collective at Perihelion Arts

Previously on BB:
• Andrew Brandou: new paintings
• Andrew Brandou: Jonestown Paintings
• Andrew Brandou writes about his Jonestown Paintings
• Art Dorks Collective show at Thinkspace in Los Angeles

Andy Wilson of MS Research—a name you may recognize from yesterday's $1 gesture recognition post—is responsible for a number of pretty unbelievable projects involving image processing and human computer interfaces. It's the sort of stuff that really blurs the boundaries between real and digital environments.

I was blown away by the video above, in which Andy demonstrates a multitouch-like hand gesture interface. Get this. It uses only a standard webcam.

The webcam is positioned to watch your keyboard and by simply making a pinching gesture with your thumb and index finger, you can grab and move objects on the screen, or rotate them by twisting your hand. Pinching with two hands, you can control two separate points on the screen, allowing you to easily perform more complex zoom and rotation actions by pulling your hands apart or moving them relative to each other.

I haven't seen source for this anywhere, but he does describe the technique, which is quite clever. By subtracting the background and examining the topology of the remaining image (just the solid background and your hands), you can easily determine how many shapes are made by the background.

With fingers unpinched, the background is a single shape, albeit with a hand shaped isthmus pushing into it. When you pinch and form a circle with your thumb and forefinger, things change. A little island is created in the middle of your fingers and the background becomes two distinct shapes. The position and rotation of the inner shape provides you enough information to control objects on the screen.

Hand Gesture Multitouch [via Procrastineering]
Andy Wilson

Previously:
Gesture recognition for Javascript and Flash

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We see all sorts of ridiculous patent applications and patents, but my favorites tend to be the patents that have to do with patents themselves (such as the patent app on a method for filing a patent). However, the folks over at Patently-O have highlighted a fascinating patent application from an attorney at Halliburton, which appears to be an attempt to patent the process of patent trolling. The application covers, quite explicitly, having a company (we'll say Company A) that does not invent something, find a company (Company B) that did invent something, but chose to use trade secret protection, rather than patents. Then, the Company A files a patent covering Company B's technology, and then use the issued patent to get money out of Company B. Now, one could hope that Halliburton's intention in patenting such a process was to use it to stop other companies from doing this, but it does make you wonder. Of course, especially after the Bilski ruling, this patent is most likely dead in the water, but these days, you never know.

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super-papa sends us to Locus Magazine for an article by Cory Doctorow discussing the conflicts between copyright law and modern culture, and arguing against the perception that copying media is still unusual. Quoting: "Copyright law valorizes copying as a rare and noteworthy event. On the Internet, copying is automatic, massive, instantaneous, free, and constant. Clip a Dilbert cartoon and stick it on your office door and you're not violating copyright. Take a picture of your office door and put it on your homepage so that the same co-workers can see it, and you've violated copyright law, and since copyright law treats copying as such a rarified activity, it assesses penalties that run to the hundreds of thousands of dollars for each act of infringement. There's a word for all the stuff we do with creative works — all the conversing, retelling, singing, acting out, drawing, and thinking: we call it culture."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Lord Chief Justice in the UK has suggested that the internet generation aren't very good on juries because they're more used to reading information on a screen, rather than listening. That's a bit misleading. Just because people are used to reading lots of information or consuming it off of a screen, it doesn't preclude their ability to listen live. However, the suggestions to potentially upgrade the tools for jurors, such as by providing them screens with info, does make some sense. It could make it much easier to present a lot of information to a jury in a more manageable fashion, rather than requiring them to just listen. But, even so, it does seem a bit extreme to suggest that younger jurors are simply unable to listen in the jury box and follow the details of a trial.

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This is a really interesting project that uses an Arduino with an XBee to control an R/C airplane. You can purchase remote controls fairly inexpensively, but can they be infinitely hacked like an Arduino? How about 2-way communications? Think about all the cool sensors you could add!

Read more about the Arduino powered R/C airplane [hack a day]

In the Maker Shed:


Arduino Diecimila

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And here's a little Friday afternoon fun for you. The latest xkcd comic takes on the issue of automatic end user license agreements that seem so common these days: If they're going to be allowed, you might as well use them to your advantage.

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Geek Satire writes "Voting works only if you believe your vote gets counted accurately. The 2008 US elections have avoided many well-known problems of the 2004 and 2000 elections, but many problems remain. O'Reilly News interviewed Dr. Barbara Simons, advisor to the Federal Election Assistance Commission, to review electronic voting in the 2008 US elections, discussing the physical security of storing and maintaining election machines, the move from electronic back to paper ballots, and why open source voting machines don't necessarily solve problems of bugs, backdoors, and audits."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'm typing this post from backstage at the 2008 Web 2.0 Summit where Rebecca McKinnon and Isaac Mao are delivering their presentations right now. Mr. Al Gore is standing a few feet away here, with Joel Hyatt, both co-founders of Current. Mr. Gore is very graciously accommodating a flood of autograph requests, and he will be taking the stage at 4:30. The joint is filling up in anticipation of his speech. I've been in and out of sessions here for the past three days, and there's been great stuff nonstop. Two of my favorite sessions so far are embedded here, and there's much more online. Above, Lawrence Lessig, and below, Kevin Kelly. Check 'em out!

BTW, I just asked Mr. Gore if he's really the guy behind this Twitter account. He is, and he tweets his own tweets. And that, my friends, is one of many reasons why the man is our hero. His speech will be online later. Link to archive of 2008 Web 2.0 Summit videos.

UPDATE: Below, A snapshot from BB pal Brent Marcus at Current, who explains, "I thought this was a really cool photo of Al Gore talking to Kevin Rose yesterday. The interview is on tonight at 10."

The above depicts Photoshop if it existed in the physical world instead of in software. Brownlee has the details over at Boing Boing Gadgets. "Photoshop interface rendered in real-world objects"

For years, the big comic strip syndicators tried to pretend they could recreate a world of scarcities online. They tried to hide comic strips behind registration walls and make it difficult to regularly view them. RSS was completely out in some cases -- especially if that RSS included the actual strip. This was backwards, as something like RSS for comic strips is a perfect example of what the technology was designed to do. For many years, one of the most popular RSS feeds online was a scraped unauthorized version of Dilbert. All of this artificial scarcity and fear over openness actually allowed many webcomics to become quite popular in place of the professionally syndicated comics. Finally, earlier this year, United Features, which syndicates Dilbert, revamped the entire Dilbert.com site and added a real RSS feed.

It appears that United Features is taking that even further, freeing up all of its comic strips online, including vast archives, and is adding full RSS feeds for all of them. This includes 50 years (and 20,000 strips) of Peanuts. You can even create your own custom feed of comics that you like. United Features is probably about five years late in getting around to this, but better late than never.

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I understand Maker Faire Austin is done and gone, but I'm still thinking about how much fun it was. Over the next week or 2, I'll continue to share some highlights from the most make-tastic event Austin's ever seen.

Courtesy of the Austin Chronicle, here's a wonderful video showing some highlights from Maker Faire Austin 2008:

Maker Faire Austin from Austin Chronicle on Vimeo.

My new claim to fame is that my dishwasher was destroyed by the giant mousetrap. Seriously: look at 1:55 in!

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