Twitter Mosaic and TwitterSheep: See Who is Following You

Twitter is filled with ways to visualize your TwitterWorld.

Here is a mozaic of my twitter followers that I made through Twitter Mozaic:

Get your twitter mosaic here.


If you want to know something about the profiles of those who follow me, you can look at this cloud created by TwitterSheep. (Hmmmm . . . Look at all of those teachers and educators with technology)

Kind of fun to see the ingenuity that has been used to make Twitter more useful and fun to use.

I found these references along with a number of other ideas at the 10,000 words blog.

So do you use a mozaic or word cloud to see who is following you?

If not, what DO you use?

Follow Dr. Z on Twitter by clicking here.

Z

Are Screen Captures Copyrighted?

Image via Wikipedia

One of my students asked me a copyright question about screen captures recently that I couldn't answer.

After teaching them about how to make a screen capture and suggesting that this would be a great thing to use when creating tutorials. An educator could take screen shots of software while progressing through the software and then write accompanying instructions.

Here's the question "Aren't those screen captures copyrighted?" I didn't know the answer.

I would imagine that under fair-use guidelines, an educator could include screen captures that are used in the classroom.

The question lies in whether or not such a tutorial could be posted on the web for free distribution. At another level, what about selling the tutorial to others? Do you need to pay a copyright royalty to Microsoft if you use screen captures of Microsoft Word in a tutorial book?

What do you think?

A Taste of the Future: SixthSense Computing from MIT

I was just watching a TED Talks video of Patti Maes describing her SixthSense project at MIT. It is a "wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information." This computerized device is something that hangs around your neck like a pendant. It is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The mobile computing device is in the user's pocket.

This is a mobile computing device that can what you see and what you know about your surroundings. This is definitely Augmented Reality where what you see is made more meaningful with additional information. The camera reads the environment and the projector projects images upon whatever is in front of you to provide additional information. When you pick up a book, the computer can look at the AISN number and then beam reviews onto a blank page in the book. If you want to make a phone call, the projector will project a key pad onto your hand and you can just press on the projected numbers to dial. My favorite is that you can just create a box using the thumb and forefinger on each hand and the system will take a photo of what you see through the box (you have to see this one to understand it.)

It is difficult to describe how this system works so you should watch the TED Talk and the additional WUW/SixthSense video (this video has some of the footage used in the TED talk, but it goes beyond that.)




What do you think? How would this device change your life?

Z

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sixth Sense Wearable, "Gestural" Interface. Cool. (marklogic.blogspot.com)
• Would You Want To See Meta Data on Everything? Here's A Minority Report-like Approach to New Media! (performancing.com)
• Mash Your Future with Augmented Reality (myventurepad.com)

Telecollaboration: Connecting Classroom Across the Globe

I was just reading Scott McLeod's blog, Dangerously Irrelevant, where he is asking for resources in connecting classrooms around the globe. Telecollaboration is an important opportunity that enables students to talk and write with other students in other cultures. Sometimes it even involves monumental activities like when classrooms from around the world follow an explorer who is trekking to the north pole.

My favorite site for finding telecollaborative projects it the Global School Network. This organization in southern California has been sponsoring and connecting telecollaborative project around the world for over 2 decades. The originators, Yvonne Andres and Al Rogers were pioneers in the technologies that connected classrooms even in the 1980 (e.g., FrEdMail).

Tonight, I am fortunate enough to have Yvonne Andres skyping into my classroom (in Iowa) from San Diego. She will be sharing her visions and experiences with us.

I will also be announcing the beginning of a Telecollaborative project that my class will begin with another class in Poznan, Poland. This is the GLEX project. I will be sharing our GLEX project with you as time progresses.

Share Your Ideas

Dangerously Irrelevant is asking for sites and if you know of any, please add them to the list.

I am interested in whether or not you have been involved in a telecollaborative project yourself (or know of anyone who has done this.)

Here are some questions that you might want to use to help guide your response.

• Have you been involved in a telecollaborative project before?
• How did you find the other classes that were part of your project?
• Did you originate it?
• What did you do?
• What ideas do you have for a telecollaborative project (even if you have never done one.)
  

I look forward to your comments.

Z

How to Use Iowa AEA Online - Kay Rewerts

Iowa AEA Online is a significant set of clip art, photographs, streaming video, graphics, online tutorials, reference resources that are available for teachers and students to use. Beginning in the late 90s, the forward-thinking sages at the Iowa Area Education Agencies began to purchase statewide licenses to support learning resources. These licenses provide access for all public and private K-12 schools across the state of Iowa. The Iowa AEA Online resources include:

• AccuWeather
• AP Images
• Atomic Learning
• Clipart.com
• Discovery Education Streaming
• EBSCO
• SIRS Researcher and
• World Book Web

The licenses for using the graphic resources vary somewhat, but most of them allow students to use them on projects and web sites. Atomic Learning provides hundreds of tutorials for learning software and have recently begun to describe teaching strategies for educators. Discovery provides a plethora of videos (many editable) for instruction and to be used in video creation. Ebsco, SIRS, AccuWeather and World Book Web provide a wealth of research information.

The only problem with having access to all of these resources is learning how to use them.

TA-DA!!!! Enter Kay Rewerts!!!!!

Kay Rewerts is an educational consultant who have helped educators in 30 states. Fortunately, she lives here in Iowa and has worked as a never-tiring source of information and innovation for our educators. A few weeks ago, we were fortunate enough to have Kay in our class where she took us on a 45-minute tour of the obvious and not-so-obvious opportunities with Iowa AEA Online.

Mrs. Rewerts has given me permission to include her demonstration through my blog. It is something that will be well worth your time watching. Even if you don't live in Iowa, these resources are available globally and there are sections that will be useful for all educators.

If you are interested in contacting Kay Rewerts, please send her an email at krewerts@mchsi.com

Here is a link to the 45-minute Iowa AEA Online workshop that Kay provided.

Web Stats and the Future According to Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly gave a TED Talk in December, 2007, entitled "Predicting the Next 5000 days of the Web." In this 19-minutes talk, he discussed where the Web has been, where it is now and where it will probably be going.

I especially liked Kelly's talk because he agrees with what I have been thinking for years. He says that through the Web, we are developing a single one-ness of knowledge. We are building a semantic web of connectedness through which people can share, learn and develop a better understanding of the universere (however you define that.)

Throughout the talk, Kelly cited a number of stats that you might find interesting. He didn't cite his sources for the stats so if you use this information, you will probably have to cite his presentation or do additional research to find his source. (If you find the sources, please add them to the comments below.)

I STRONGLY recommend that you watch this TED Talk (as well as the other 400 talks). I know that David Thornburg has said that watching TED Talks has replaced his watching TV. I can't say that I have completely "made the switch" but I am definitely learning more from TED than "Burned Notice."

Web Stats according to Kelly:
(Remember that he quoted these stats in December, 2007. He also quoted Moore's Law that says computing power doubles every 2 years - you do the math.)

Kevin Kelly's Web stats:

• 100 billion clicks per day
• 55 trillion links
• 1 billion PC chips on the internet
• 2 million emails per second
• 1 million IM messages per second
• 8 terrabytes per second traffic
• 65 billion phone calls per year
• 255 exabytes of magnetic storage
• 1 million voice queries per hour
• 2 billion location nodes activated
• 600 billion rfid tabs used
• Uses 5% of global electricity

He compared the Web to the complexity of the Human Brain

• 1 billion social sites on the web
• 55 trillion links (similar to the number of synapses in the human brain.)
  
• 1 quintillion transistors (similar to the number of neurons in the human brain.
  

Moore's law indicates that this is doubling in power every 2 years

Identified it as a McLuen Reversal where:

• "Machines are an extension of the senses" (McLuen)
  
• The senses are an extension of The Machine (Kelly)
  

Explored the Restructuring towards a Semantic Network

1. Linking Computers - The Net
2. Linking Pages - The Web
3. Linking Data - The One Machine

Cited TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms) of the Web

XML - eXtensible Markup Language
RSS - Real Simple Syndication
API - Applicaton Programming Interface
RDF - Resource Description Framework
OWL - Web Ontology Language

Kelly ended by describing The One. This is his prediction of the future world and how it is interconnected through the Web or whatever form on connected network we will develop in the next 5000 days (13.7 years). (Sounds like The Borg to me.)

There is only One machine
The web is its OS
All screens look into the One
No bits will live outside the web.
To share is to gain.
Let the One read it.
The One is Us.

What do YOU think? Do you agree with these Web stats that Kevin Kelly has presented?