In this video from WIRED Science, Luis von Ahn demonstrates some worthwhile uses of captchas, shares cutting edge strategies in digitizing books and tagging images, and shares the latest methods for translating online content.
Perhaps I’ll dislike captchas a tad bit less after seeing this.
More on this episode is available here.
Everyone should take a look at Merlin Mann’s advice for managing email. His ideas are actually simple and obvious, but many of us overlook them in our management of email. You will know within 10 minutes whether or not you need to watch the entire presentation. I am hoping that I see zero in my inbox, soon!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9UjeTMb3Yk
“Don’t let your [email inbox] turn into exploding cats.” –Merlin Mann
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My blog’s draft box contains over 20 postings in various degrees of development. I’ve been reflecting on the below posts and slowly developing my response to each. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to dedicate the desired time and mental energy to them, so I’m posting links to them here in an effort to share them while the conversations are still hot. Each is worthy of your consideration.
All the best,
Clif
Cover the Material – Or Teach Students to Think
Biggest Danger on the Internet Is Bad Judgment
David Thornburg and Humorous Video
photo credit: guldfisken
Dear Eye-Fi,
I’d grown tired of all the time it took to download and organize my photos from my camera to my computer. Even more burdensome was the effort it took to then upload them online so that they could be shared with friends and family. Argh! Technology should be easier!!!
Then I heard about your wireless card, the Eye-Fi. I read your claims that it “automatically uploads pictures from your digital camera to your PC or Mac and to your favorite photo sharing, printing, blogging or social networking site.” I admit that I was skeptical. I waited for nearly five months and kept an eye on your progress, technical reviews, user feedback, etc. Your product and services consistently received high marks and my interest grew stronger.
I recently ordered my own Eye-Fi and it arrived in a timely fashion. I’ve been playing with it for only a short while but I would like to share the following points with you.
Thank you for a great product. Thank you for freeing me from having to dig out the old USB cord, hook up my camera to my computer, download and organize the photos, login to my online photo sharing site, and upload all the images. Thank you for making photos fun again.
All the best,
Clif
I received a comment last night on my post, Twitter in Education, that I found interesting. It was from a doctoral student in our program and she was recounting her recent entree into twitter. It is honest and highlights both the excitement and difficulty in becoming comfortable with this networking technology. I liked it so much that I asked her permission to make it a post.
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GUEST BLOGER
Kristy Conger
In the last 24 hours I have become totally sold on Twitter. I signed up a while back but never really got into using Twitter. The only person who followed me was my friend Mary who sits less than four feet away from me all day at work. Needless to say, all we had to do was look over at one another to see what was going on : ) Then I came across and article that talked about using Twitter in the classroom. The name @newmediajim was mentioned as being someone really neat to follow. Turns out he works for NBC news and covers the president, the White House, etc. His posts to Twitter were really neat to follow. So, I added him and began following his adventures. OK…so here’s where the cool part comes in. He sent me a direct message after seeing what I had written about trying out Twitter again but not knowing if I would be successful at keeping up and posting updates. He encouraged me to post updates, and we started a conversation from there. I’m actually communicating directly with someone who is part of the White House press detail for NBC. He also just sent out a Twitter link the other day for a live web interview that he was doing with Sir Bob Geldof. One of his friends received the link via Twitter and began to watch the video. While watching this live interview, he sent a question via Twitter for Jim to ask while conducting the interview. Sir Bob Geldof was more than happy to respond to the question and addressed the person by name who sent it via Twitter. Now that is Web 2.0 technology at its finest!
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I know that Twitter is a hot topic with many of this blog’s readers and I wanted to share a few more related resources.
I Use the Web Differently Now…Do You?
Sickness has finally made its way into our home. All but one of us have been sick since the weekend and I am not that lucky one. As a result, I have had lots of time to grade, plan and read. I though I’d share these particularly interesting posts with you this evening.
Web 2.0 Is the Future of Education
Student Voices on Cyberbullying
RE Social Network Sites-An Open Letter to the Superintendent
If you’ve spent much time in the blogosphere in the last six months you have likely heard about Twitter. I have mentally been writing this post for about ten days. I want to provide my critical review and share the pros and cons as I see them. I realized that many people have already covered the bulk of this information and I just found it unnecessary for me to fully cover this topic with my own original post. Therefore, here are a few BIG points that I briefly want to make followed by valuable resources to further pursue this topic.
Resources
Here is a great introduction to Twittering.
This video provides a full overview for setting up and using Twitter.
Twitted, Tweets and Young Learners
Twitter – Meaningful or Trivial – Up to the Writer
Tips for Using Twitter in the Classroom
I’ve found the following to be interesting reading material. I’d like to write a full post regarding each but I just don’t have the time. Instead, I’ll just mention them and suggest that you take a look at them.
Top 10 Ed-Tech Stories Still Resonate in 2008 – from eSchool News
Taking the One Laptop Per Child XO Laptop to the Preschool Classroom – Anne provides several strategies that she has used with preschool children.
Carl Dickerson gives the gift of literacy to low-income children – We need more people like this.
What I’d Teach the Teachers – An interesting perspective on effective teaching.
Is Plagiarism a Problem for eLearning?
Take a free course from MIT.
Ever wonder what would happen if your computer-created designs turned on you? This cool video explores some of the possibilities. 
Hat tip to Lee for sharing this with me.
