Terence Armentano - eResume & ePortfolio

TechCrunch, a reputable technology blog, reports that “Sometime soon, perhaps this week, Facebook will turn the year-old Facebook Platform into an open source project, multiple sources have told us. The immediate effect will be to allow any social network to become Facebook Platform compatible - meaning application developers can easily take their Facebook applications and have them run on those social networks, too.

This poses some interesting scenarios for Colleges and Universities that would like to leverage the facebook platform in the educational environment. It will be interesting to see how this differs from other social network scenarios such as google’s OpenSocial, the clone-able Ning system (which I also use to run my online teaching community), and the fully open source Elgg system. Which of these will be most useful in the education environment. They each function differently and are offered in different ways to the consumer. What do others think?

Terence

Here is an interesting article from Business Week on Why Twitter Matters. Twitter is a microblogging website where users have 140 words or less to make a blog post. It is a way for people to easily stay in touch with their community at all times asynchronously. Many of the things people write in less than 140 words are quite silly and one might wonder how or why something like Twitter is becoming so popular. The following quote from the article reveals part of that answer.

“How could tiny Twitter ever become such a titan? It’s not the core technology, which is simple, but instead the community. Twitterers find and follow the people they care about on the service. Late in April, following one of Twitter’s outages, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington wrote: “I realized that in the last two months a subtle shift occurred: I now need Twitter more than Twitter needs me.” Arrington, who has nearly 17,000 people following his Twitterstream, continued: “It is now an important part of my work and social life, as I carry on bite-sized conversations with thousands of people around the world throughout the day.” It’s a huge marketing tool, and information tool. But it is also a social habit that’s hard to kick.”

On a side note, one of our English Instructors, Amanda McGuire Rzicznek, at BGSU had her entire class use twitter to cite and share their sources for their papers.

Another thing I found very fascinating is something called Twittervision. Basically, you can see live posts that people are making from various countries on a Google Map. For example, here are new Twitter posts from people living in Ireland

What do others think of Twitter? Is it a useful technology for educators?

Looking for more good blog resources? Check out the nominees for the 2007 Edublog Awards. Categories include:

1. Best individual blog

2. Best group blog

3. Best new blog

4. Best resource sharing blog

5. Most influential blog post

6. Best teacher blog

7. Best librarian / library blog

8. Best educational tech support blog

9. Best elearning / corporate education blog

10. Best educational use of audio

11. Best educational use of video / visual

12. Best educational wiki

13. Best educational use of a social networking service

14. Best educational use of a virtual world

The following is an interesting story about a man doing time in an overcrowded jail that has become the first prisoner in Tanzania to be awarded a degree. Gombella said, “I chose law because I want to assist - as many prisoners are convicted because the prosecution framed them.” Read full story

I think it is appropriate that Brian Childs, our BGSU IDEAL liaison in Kenya, Africa, actually IM’d me this story just a few minutes ago. I have written about the $100 Laptop program several times on this blog regarding the affect it could have on the progress of worldwide education. We are currently assessing the technological capabilities in Kenya and TZ for future delivery of online courses in Africa and the $100 laptop program might be a huge part of the puzzle. Contrary to the name of the laptop, it is not cheap in the sense of quality. The $100 laptops actually use state of the art technology for durability, wi-fi, energy efficiency, and more.

“Five years after the concept was first proposed, the so-called $100 laptop is poised to go into mass production. Hardware suppliers have been given the green light to ramp-up production of all of the components needed to build millions of the low-cost machines. Previously, the organisation behind the scheme said that it required orders for 3m laptops to make production viable. The first machines should be ready to put into the hands of children in developing countries in October 2007.”
Watch the video clip.

I have been thinking about ways of connecting with the folks that visit TerenceOnline and I thought one way to do it would be to create a social network. Join the revolution of online teaching & learning and harness the collective intelligence of your peers. Use this network to stay connected, share ideas, collaborate, and more.

JOIN THE REVOLUTION TODAY!

http://onlineteaching.ning.com/

“Imagine an electronic page for each species of organism on Earth, available everywhere by single access on command.” - Edward O. Wilson

This project is awesome in scope and looks to be be an amazing resource for the field of science and the world at large. It also serves as an example and reminder to institutions of higher education of the potential and power that online collaboration through technologies bring to the field of educating.

Watch the video:

What does Encyclopedia of Life seek to accomplish? What are its objectives?
“Ultimately, the Encyclopedia will serve as an online reference source and database for every one of the 1.8 million species that are named and known on this planet, as well as all those later discovered and described. Encyclopedia of Life will be used as both a teaching and a learning tool, helping scientists, educators, students, and the community at large gain a better understanding of this planet and all who inhabit it.” - View the Site