Terence Armentano - eResume & ePortfolio

“Here’s where we are now” on what makes communities tick online,
on mobile, in face-to-face settings, and why understanding this is so
important for learning”

edublogs: Unleashing The Tribe: small passionate communities

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Check out this cool certificate I got from Firefox for helping them set a world record for the most downloads of a software app in one day. Firefox 3 is awesome and has tons of add-ons that you can download to make your browsing experience excellent. Plus, since it is open source, everything is free so don’t worry about forking over tons of money. I think it is time for people to put their Internet Explorer and Safari browsers to bed. But remember, the browser is only awesome if you know how to use it, so do some research on it and start customizing it to your needs. I’ll do some jing videos in the future of some cool add-ons that I use with Firefox.

Check out my Jing Video Here to see how I integrated Small Worlds right into my Blackboard Learning Management System. It’s nice that Small Worlds provides a unique URL for each account. Usually stuff built in flash doesn’t have unique URL’s. Very web 2.0! I could use the same technique with other LMS’s too, I assume.

Small Worlds is a simple, neat, fun, and “potentially” educational virtual world that doesn’t require any downloading and installing of special software such as in Second Life. According to the developers, “SmallWorlds brings together the best aspects of online games, instant messaging, social networks and digital media, and wraps them into a persistent 3D virtual world.” It’s very easy to use and the graphics are pretty cool too. It kind of reminds me of the Nintendo Wii in some aspects. You can play mini golf, shoot pool, watch youtube videos, import your flickr photo album, etc. It might be an easier way for online students to hang out in a MUVE (multi user virtual environment) because there is no special software and getting around is quite easy. Plus, it might be cool to have office hours with your instructor over a game of pool or mini-golf. The gaming aspect of Small Worlds has great potential since the entire site is Flash based. Plus, they are opening up their API to flash developers so the games and widgets will probably be pretty cool; and if educators get a hold of it, I think they could develop some pretty neat educational materials as well. Go ahead and check it out and let us know what you think. My avatar’s name is Ter Rock. I think a lot of research still needs to be done to discover what educational scenario’s are most beneficial in the MUVE environment. What are your thoughts?

This is a great video that reveals the changes that the information revolution is having on the world. How is your university or institution adapting to these changes?

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