Imagine being able to examine books by looking at a pinwheel of tags, and see, in a visual style, which keyword and its synonyms, dominate. Then, if any part of the book touches on what you're interested in, clicking on that tag and being taken to the page (s) with the information your looking for.

• DocuBurst – the name is a mash-up of document and sunburst – is the brainchild of 28-year-old University of Toronto student Christopher Collins. It's a new method of information visualization (a.k.a. InfoViz) that allows a person to quickly determine the cumulative theme(s) of a given book or document, while at the same time allowing specific keyword searches.     - http://www.thestar.com/News/article/223620

This is a fascinating article about the digital version of an index, which is the academic researcher's fantasy. I can hardly wait but Ryan Bigg, the author of the article, says it may be 10 years before it's available.

Remember Abbott & Costello's "Who's on First?" Here's the digital version -
From Diva Marketing Blog, http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com/bloomberg_marketing/2007/06/friday_fun.html thanks to A View From the Isle - http://blog.larixconsulting.com/blog

The scene: Costello calls to buy a computer from Abbot.

Abbott: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
Costello: Yes. I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.
Abbott: Mac?
Costello: No, the name's Lou.
Abbott: Your computer?
Costello: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.
Abbott: Mac?
Costello: I told you, my name's Lou.
Abbott: What about Windows?
Costello: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
Abbott: Do you want a computer with Windows?
Costello: I don't know. What will I see when I look at the windows?
Abbott: Wallpaper.
Costello: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.
Abbott: Software for Windows?
Costello: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track
expenses and run my business. What do you have?
Abbott: Office.
Costello: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?
Abbott: I just did.
Costello: You just did what?
Abbott: Recommend something.
Costello: You recommended something?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: For my office?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: OK, what did you recommend for my office?
Abbott: Office
Costello: Yes, for my office!
Abbott: I recommend Office with Windows.
Costello: I already have an office with windows! OK, let's just say I'm sitting at
my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?
Abbott: Word.
Costello: What word?
Abbott: Word in Office.
Costello: The only word in office is office.
Abbott: The Word in Office for Windows.
Costello: Which word in office for windows?
Abbott: The Word you get when you click the blue "W".
Costello: I'm going to click your blue "w" if you don't start with some straight
answers. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track
my money with?
Abbott: Money.
Costello: That's right. What do you have?
Abbott: Money.
Costello: I need money to track my money?
Abbott: It comes bundled with your computer.
Costello: What's bundled with my computer?
Abbott: Money.
Costello: Money comes with my computer?
Abbott: Yes. No extra charge.
Costello: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?
Abbott: One copy.
Costello: Isn't it illegal to copy money?
Abbott: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.
Costello: They can give you a license to copy money?
Abbott: Why not? THEY OWN IT!
A few days later:
Abbott: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
Costello: How do I turn my computer off?
Abbott: Click on "START"

500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art Web 2.0 art - Just because it fascinates! It also reminds me of a music video from years ago where faces continuously and rapidly morphed into others - "Cry" by Godley and Creme - read about it here

Thanks to Jim for remembering who did the video! 

I'm always watching for tools that the digital natives are likely to find friendly. I have a tendancy to use tools popular in the edtech community, but those who are growing up with the Web often respond to different tools than I doKnowing this, I try to expand my horizon by following TechCrunch using my Bloglines blogroll. That's how I found a post on Yoono's Buzz It! http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/24/yoono-buzz-it-notebooks-reinvented/  

Here's the demo video -  

While Yoono allows adding "buzzes" directly to blogs, it doesn't appear to accept eduspaces blogs, so here's the link to my Blogger blog, with the embedded "buzz" and further comments added - http://webtoolsforlearners.blogspot.com/2007/06/new-web-research-tool-yoono.html

As the Web gets richer in its collections of information provided through text, image and video, plus audio, I can see Yoono being a useful way to bookmark. I still prefer del.icio.us because of its ease and my extensive collection, and Zotero for its academic orientation, but I suspect the digital gens will find Yoono more compatible.

Graham Attwell links to an amazing story - a radical plan for learning using the web. 

• The style of learning will be completely different. The new centres will open from 7am until 10pm in both term-time and what used to be known as the school holidays. At weekends, they will open from 9am to 8pm.

  Youngsters will not be taught in formal classes, nor will they stick to a rigid timetable; instead they will work online at their own speeds on programmes that are tailor-made to match their interests.

  Children will be able to study haircare, beauty therapy, leisure and tourism, and engineering as well as the more traditional academic subjects.

  They will be given their day's assignments in groups of 120 in the morning before dispersing to internet cafe-style zones in the learning centres to carry them out.

  The 21,000 youngsters of secondary education age in Knowsley will also be able to access their learning programmes from home."

  http://www.knownet.com/writing/weblogs/Graham_Attwell/entries/5449685290
  

Logically, this is where education should be going; this is the way learning works (will work) for many (most?) people. I hope this grand experiement doesn't get de-railed by nay-sayers or those who think they can save money by under-supporting it. Youth will still need teachers and/or mentors to arouse their curiosity and extend/guide their learning.

http://www.knownet.com/writing/weblogs/Graham_Attwell/entries/  

I learn by trolling my online sources. One of my first and best is Stephen Downes. Today, while reading yesterdays OLDaily Newletter, I stumbled across this post on how publically-funded data should be freely accessible. It looked interesting (I'm Canadian) so I followed the link to http://datalibre.ca/ and scrolled down to see if I wanted to add it to my del.icio.us  There I found this

 

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92 I watched it - 20 minutes - and learned so much about where the world is now and how data can be displayed.

 

I highly recommend it!

Then I went to TED  to find it and share with friends and family. Instead I found this

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/140  

which was even more amazing, especially the last few seconds!!!!

So in slightly over 40 minutes, you can learn a HUGE amount about the world.

This trolling and sharing, I believe, is the future of learning. 

I had a wonderful supper last night, with a wide-ranging talk, from training/teaching online to web applications to gender behaviors to parenting and more, in a Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Huong, right across from the Royal Ontario Museum's new wing.

 

http://www.rom.on.ca/crystal/index.php

A "friend" became a friend, and  I met someone new with shared interests. Once before I met someone whose online work I followed, Stephen Downes, at a conference and was a bit starstruck, and thrilled that he attended, and blogged positively about, my presentation. I found meeting him fleshed out my sense of him from cyberspace.

Last night, over our bowls of grilled chicken/pork/shrimp with vermechelli, vegetables and spring rolls, and our glasses of white wine, we talked. And Janet Clarey became a richer presence for me, someone whose cyber presence I enjoyed and someone who was physically present. Wow! 

And Charlotte, whom I met last night and look forward to seeing writing in a blog online, will be my first friend whom I "friend", whose physical presence I met before I'll experience her blog voice. (Charlotte - this means you have to set up your own blog;-> )

So the cyber and the real intertwined for me last night as I met some congenial people whom I never would have encountered without the Web and blogging. The Web has changed how we socialize, allowing us to find people who share our interests, and then, if time and space allow, moving from cyber to actual presences.

Thanks for the great evening, Janet and Charlotte. 

• Most of the options for course management, like WebCT and Blackboard, are very expensive and clunky. Institutions and organizations could reasonably charge students large amounts of money for enrollment and participation in an online course if they were using one of these two tools. WebCT and Blackboard are archaic structures that resemble how students learn in face-to-face environments. Continuing to build online education in ways that resemble the face-to-face environment harms our students and reflects poorly on us as educators. We should know better than to create a hostile learning environment. WebCT and Blackboard are still the norm in instructional design, but there is hope.
  

http://www.techsource.ala.org/blog/2007/06/unsucking-online-education-part-two.html

An interesting analysis of Moodle, Joomla, and Drupal - and I'll add the suggestion you check out Elgg - http://elgg.org/features.php

from http://www.techsource.ala.org/ via NeatNewStuff by  Marylaine Block