Wired Campus: International Universities Release Content on iTunes U - Chronicle.comThis week ten universities in the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia began sharing educational content on iTunes U.
Reviews: The Ultimate Cheap Camcorder Battlemodo (via Gizmodo of course)
“Ever since the world caught wind of the Pure Digital Flip cam’s success, super-cheap digital pocket camcorders have sprouted up everywhere. With everyone and their mother trying to become the next Lil Show Stoppa or Soulja Girl, people need a cheap and easy way to capture those magic moments. I tested six of these cams—from Creative, RCA/Audiovox, DXG and Pure Digital—all $180 or less.”
“Turning historical and social-science data into pictures could help scholars identify new patterns in old records, according to researchers who gathered at George Mason University this weekend for a conference on technology in the humanities.At a session devoted to visualization — as making pictures out of data is called — participants discussed their favorite examples. Here are three they discussed…”
The first visualization site is called WorldMapper, and if a great example of how data visualizations convey meaning that most people cant see when looking at raw data sets.
Wired Campus: New Online Video Game Teaches Students Chinese - Chronicle.com
“A professor at Michigan State University has created a free online video game to help students learn Chinese.The multi-player role-playing game, Zon/New Chengo, allows users to choose Mandarin phrases to converse with other characters in the game about exchanging money, buying breakfast, and other activities visitors to China would experience.”
Beta Beat: New York Times Reader Now Available for Mac
Musopen puts classical recordings, scores in public domain
“Pre-twentieth century music all exists in the public domain, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to get access either to recordings or sheet music. Want to include a Beethoven sonata as background music in your wedding video, documentary, or indie feature film? You’ll need to pay unless you can dig up an ancient recorded copy from the early 1900s (and can live with the sound quality). Want to pass out sheet music of that same sonata to your high school band? Again, you will need to pay unless you can track down an ancient, out-of-copyright score.”
ODF wins the office document format war? | InfoWorld | News | 2008-05-22 | By Neil McAllister, PC World
Microsofts backpedaling on support could have something to do with its current regulatory troubles in Europe and with the standards bodies that govern OOXML
By Neil McAllister, PC World
May 22, 2008
“Good news for those of you who have been following the XML office document standards battle. Microsoft Wednesday announced that Office 2007 will support ODF Open Document Format, the document standard used by OpenOffice.org and other open source productivity suites, with the release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2, due sometime in early 2009.”
“If you think that you always get what you pay for, the just-released beta of OpenOffice 3.0 should convince you otherwise. This free, open source software suite provides most of what anyone could want in an office suite, including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program, database, drawing tools, and math equation editor.”
Apple: Music Video Is Complete Mac OS X Leopard Tour
via Gizmodo
Hello everybody! Welcome to the 2008 Summer Laptop Program!
Beta Beat: OpenOffice 3.0 Beta Now Available, Adds Native OS X Support
Windows/Mac/Linux all platforms: OpenOffice.org, the free office application suite, has released a beta of its 3.0 version to the public with a few key features rolled in. The biggest update is native support for Mac OS X platforms, meaning no need to install X11 packages on older Macs or switch to NeoOffice for a smoother experience
Maxtor 500GB OneTouch™ 4 External Hard Drive $89.99 at Staples®
Everyone needs a backup hard drive. At $0.18 a Gigabyte, this is one of the cheapest I’ve seen so fare. If you get frisky, add $10.01 in filler and user the $25 off $100 coupons that are floating around right now, it comes to $75 or $0.15/GB.
Wired Campus: A Class Blog Studies Fair Use - Chronicle.com
A professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law has created a nifty blog for students to hash out a debate about a fictional copyright-infringement case.
Wired Campus: Publisher Compares Wikipedia to Oxford English Dictionary - Chronicle.com
“Over at the Oxford University Press’s blog, OUP publisher Niko Pfund paid Wikipedia the ultimate compliment: He compared it to the Oxford English Dictionary.”
In an earlier post, I mentioned that as an anthropologist I like to pay attention to clichés as little insights into the current state of education. I pointed out that the often-heard lament that “some students are not cut out for school” is a telling statement about the state of our schools not so much our students because school is designed for learning, and we would never say “some students are not cut out for learning.” Yet the lament passes without a hint of protest. It’s just something we say.