Cole Camplese

Mipper Rogers

PBS, though, hopes that Mr. Rogers will live on for children — online. Last month, PBS began streaming full-length episodes of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” on both its Rogers site and its PBSKids site. “We think about Fred every single day,” said Lesli Rotenberg, senior vice president for children’s media at PBS. “The PBSKids site is based on a philosophy that I think he pioneered of looking at the whole child.”

via www.nytimes.com

When I was little I would sit on the couch every evening to watch Mipper Rogers -- that's what I called him. Almost everything I know about interpersonal behavior can be traced to his lessons. The fact that his reruns aren't shown on any of the channels I get is a crime. Am I being too nostalgic or is there nothing like him around today? Read the NYTimes piece and make sure you watch the video below (even though I've linked it before) ... if you care about people and education it makes you smile. Even if it makes me a hippy.

I Live in a Van Down by Duke University

It would be nice. A middle-class family might think it would be nice to have an in-ground swimming pool. A millionaire might think it would be nice to have a yacht. The billionaire, a private jet. Someone, somewhere might think it would be nice to have food to feed her family tonight. Someone, somewhere might think it would be nice to live in a van in order to afford to go to a wonderful school. I could begin satisfying my desires and buying comforts, but I've learned to appreciate what little I have instead of longing for what I do not.

via www.salon.com

I saw this posted by my friend and colleague Brad Kozlek and found it a wonderful read. Its a great story of how one student decided education was worth more than an iPod, heat, and the debt it takes to get it.

Evolution of Storage

via cache.gawker.com

Very cool piece of visual goodness from Flickr user Curtiss Spontelli showing the evolution of storage. The one thing this doesn't take into account is how radically different so many of the modern devices make our home media ecology. These new storage devices both simplify and complicate our landscape in so many ways ... just a few years ago I had separate devices to manage my music, movies, Internet, photos, and more right in my family room. Now I have a Mac Mini -- I no longer have a dedicated DVD player, CD player, or even an Apple TV. The same device that offers playback is also a massive storage device.

I will say I am thrilled I am no longer swapping the 400K 3.5" disks my original Mac 128K came with! I'll take a speedy TB portable drive any day of the week.

New 'Noveller' Allows People To Post Novels They Write During Course Of Their Day

SAN FRANCISCO—Noveller, the online macroblogging service that lets users post their impromptu narrative ruminations on modern life, society, and the nature of existence itself, celebrated its millionth post late last week, officially making it the world's most popular prose-sharing tool.

via www.theonion.com

 

 

This out of control funny. I wonder how much they'll raise in round one?

The Most Inarticulate Generation .... Ever.

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

Typography Animation project for class

Poem by Taylor Mali (www.TaylorMali.com)

A Tale of Two Sites

This is just a quick post to share something I found very interesting and well written -- even if it does come from the (fake) Secret Diary of Steve Jobs.  The post, "Why the mainstream media is dying" shares a tale of how the blogosphere can go after a story unencumbered, while someone as powerful as the NY Times can simply move right on by.  Not sure I totally agree that once the newspapers are gone we won't notice, but I will say that the landscape is moving so quickly under our feet that we may not have time to care.  I don't know, but I thought it was a terrific illustration of what is happening.

Every once in a while you get to see a mainstream outlet cover a story right alongside a blog, so you can put them up against each other and see why one was so much better than the other. This week TechCrunch and the New York Times photo provided just such a lesson.

via The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Why the mainstream media is dying.

Miniposts

Is the Miniposts plugin an easy solution to posting lots of stuff and not having it show up in the body of the blog? Perhaps. Some testing is required.

Freebies

For most of what I do I rely on a bunch of free online applications -- I've written about it before, so there's no real need to rehash the story. But today as I was scanning feeds I came across a post at Read Write Web, Google Giveth, and Taketh Away that has me thinking about it all a little bit. The post tells of Google either closing or stopping work on several free web-based services ... clearly they aren't their most popular ones, but with Google Video, Notebook, Jaiku, Catalog Search, and Dodgeball all going away it makes you pause and think about how much a bunch of us are relying on open and free services to do all sorts of things.

I wonder what would happen, if economic times continue to worsen, to other services that more people use? I know I would have a really hard time going back to paying for simple things like word processing and note taking applications -- especially ones without the advanced syncing I've come to expect. I would also hate to see the innovation going on in the web-based application universe start to die. I am guessing YouTube killed Google Video, but Notebook was loved by many and existed as a powerful add on for FireFox -- in other words, it was an app without real competition. My current favorites include Evernote, Google Docs, and LaLa ... all free, but with some sort of revenue model sitting there for advanced features. I just wonder how much energy to dedicate to them given they could go poof in the middle of a massive economic downturn. What happens if Yahoo jumps out of the delicious or Flickr business? I (and a boat load of others) would be SOL.

I know it isn't restricted to free online apps ... many of us used HyperCard for years and Apple killed it. Remember Claris Works? Gone as well. I shouldn't worry too much, but watching the mighty Google just decide to stop offering tools gave me a little pause. What should we be doing?

New Publishing with the Embed

My friend and colleague, Ken Udas, had asked me earlier in the Summer to contribute to his excellent Terra Incognita blog but I kept blowing deadlines and missing obligations. Ken gave me an extension and has been gracious to allow me to squeeze a guest post in between a few very smart people. I had a good time working up something that was very different than what usually shows up at his site and I hope he isn't too put off by it. My post addresses the changes in big media and their evolving and emerging interest in embracing the social web. It looks at big media and their amazing move into allowing us to embed their property -- legally! It asks what it means for us in higher education and how we should be addressing this move.

I would really appreciate it if you took the time to bounce over to read the post and leave a comment for us to chew on and discuss. Besides, if you are interested in open content and learning then you should be tracking Terra Incognita. Thanks!

New Conversations

I have been making the argument lately in my talks that what is beginning to happen (in a more general sense) is that the web is finally starting to fulfill its promise as a platform to support and extend conversations. I know this isn't news to all of us, but its emergence recently to a larger audience is very interesting in several ways. As an example, I've been using a handful of youtube videos that at first glance seem insignificant, but upon further investigation leads you down a path towards the discovery of rich online conversations. I've been showing "Charlie bit my finger - again" as an illustration of how something as simple as a home video can generate not only millions of views (53 million of them), but more interestingly, thousands of comments and video responses. My claim is that this activity is at the heart of the ever expanding understanding of the web as a platform for extending conversations. I am asserting that these are real conversations that happen in real time on a global scale. If you've been paying attention to the merging of technology and politics the last few weeks you may have noticed things like Current TV's Hack the Debate mash-up, the explosion of media supported embedded video across the web of candidate interviews, and the Election Twitter mash-up site. This to me is an indication that what was recently seen as a waste of time is being viewed with new lenses. I have an Op/Ed piece for the Christian Science Monitor appearing today that attempts to make the following as the central point:

It’s easy to criticize the rise of participatory social media as a giant waste of time. And it's true that a fair amount of what's being created is adolescent. But that criticism misses the point: This trend is setting the stage for greater long-term engagement. It’s an indicator that people are working to find new ways to collaborate and to be part of something larger than they are individually. The sheer immensity of the participation is the story.

No matter if you agree that the social web is a place that supports open conversation, open learning, and open connections you should see the fact that popular media is getting it. Once the mainstream embraces what we've been watching for a half a dozen years (or more) it will become the norm to connect with, until recently, unconnected friends and family in places like Facebook and Twitter. I think the entire space is set to explode and I think it is a good thing. Thoughts?