An online gallery of gang photography by Robert Yager. Not new, just something rediscovered that kicks the ass of my eyes all over again. Link (thanks, Siege) [Boing Boing]
Here's a nice optical illusion. A bunch of almond-looking things arranged in a particular pattern appear to undulate. (Also, don't miss the link to the confounding checkershadow illusion, which I wrote about a couple of years ago in BB.) Link [Boing Boing]
Now that wireless Internet access is common in coffee bars and restaurants, can trains and buses be far behind? A look at the first tests of Wi-Fi access for commuters. [New York Times: Technology]
(via Tim Wilson) Think wikis are just a passing fad? This is an amazing list of wiki engines that makes me want to play even more. I can't count the number of times I've been showing and talking about Wikipedia lately. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if collaborative construction of content won't be the rule instead of the exception in the future. [Weblogg-ed News]
Just wanted to post Bernie Dodge's NECC presentation link about incorporating blogs and wikis with Web Quests. It was a really thought-provoking talk that I know got lots of people (over 500) thinking a lot more about how to use these technologies. The important point to note, I think, is his reference to blogs and wikis and pedagogy. At his talk, Bernie said on a couple of occasions that teachers really need to think through how to use these tools, not just to blog for blogging's sake. His context with Web Quests is such a great way of not only learning to use the tools but to think about how to use them well. For example, this Austrian class that used a wiki to compile what it found about the upcoming US presidential elections. And there are countless other ways that teachers can do this.
Oy...I need more hours. We should all be wikiing or collaborating to capture these ideas in one place like at Tom's Webloggy Websites for Schools. Just very tough to carve out more time than it takes to read, think, and reflect on things in this space. [Weblogg-ed News]
So it appears that Apple has once again taken the lead, this time in integrating both blogs and RSS into their products. Tom has a great post about the blog piece and the implications.
I guess my point here is that Apple seems to be doing just about the simplest thing that could possibly work, and I'm impressed by their judgment. And Blojsom jumps way up the list of weblogging apps to keep an eye on.
And Dan Gillmor gets to the RSS part and more:
Jobs spent a fair amount of time talking about the native inclusion of RSS into an upcoming version of the Safari browsers, and a "personal clipping" service. There's a special search function just for RSS; I'm not clear on whether it's searching via one of the main RSS search engines, whether Apple will write its own or whether it's only searching your designated feeds. More on that later.
It's great stuff...as someone posted, we are getting close to critical mass. Even more reason to keep focused on the pedagogy of blogging... [Weblogg-ed News]
(via Alec Couros) Amy Gahran goes as far into Furling as I've seen anyone yet and comes up with a great primer for the uninitiated. She also creates a new job title:
Discussion group support: Some online dicussions mention a lot of links – articles to check out, recommended sites or services, etc. Hunting through archives of postings can be exceptionally tedious, and often fruitless. If you designate a "furler" for your discussion group (someone who creates a Furl item for every link referenced in the discussion), finding those valuable nuggets can be much easier later on.
On first blush, one addition I would make to her list is to use Furl to push content to various pages similar to what I did with the "What's Mr. R. Reading?" section of my journalism portal. But this is a great list of creative ways to use the tool, one definitely worth Furling. [Weblogg-ed News]
The Tour de France blog is once again keeping track of cycling's main event [remainder]
The teaching profession has one fundamental problem: good performance is not rewarded. If we want to change this, the crucial point is how to measure the quality of teachers. I will propose a scheme for doing so below. [Kuro5hin.org]