academhack » Presentations

The University and the Future of Knowledge

dave — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:14:31 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I gave a talk as part of a lecture series here at The University of Texas at Dallas. The series is part of the events commemorating the 40th anniversary of the University, and as such I thought it would be a good opportunity to take a stab at looking at the future of the University. The video of this lecture is now available. But, a couple of warnings/disclosures before you view it. The audio is good, but not great, as every once in a while there is interference. Also the first five minutes of the video is a bit shaky, but if you get through that the video quality gets really good. Special thanks to two of our EMAC students who made this possible (Kim & Adam).

My central claim is that the organization of the University is based on a factory/print broadcast, model of knowledge creation and dissemination, and thus is ill prepared (or perhaps cannot make the transition) into the new knowledge landscape.

Watch below, or click thru to the larger version.

The question and answer portion of this talk was really good, and maybe I can get it posted here in the future.

A few references:
There are two key inspirations for this talk.

1. Michael Wesch, particularly his talk at The University of Manitoba.
2. Mark Pesce particularly several talks he gave on the future of education, and the crucial concept of hyperconnectivity.

Other references:

The Shirky reference is from Here Comes Everybody. I think at times Shirky can be overly praising of the network, without being critical enough, but his reflections on journalism and the internet are spot on, and help me to think through parallel changes in academia.
The Sir Ken Robinson reference is to this TED talk, but he makes this point in other venues as well.
“Transparency is the New Objectivity” is a phrase I first heard from Dave Weinberger, although I don’t know if he is the origin.

On What it Would Mean to Really Teach “Naked”

dave — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:08:56 +0000

Not surprisingly, given my inclination to think about ways that technology can help education, this week I have received more than a few emails from colleagues pointing to an article at The Chronicle of Higher Ed about a professor at SMU, Jose Bowen, who likes to encourage what he calls, Teaching Naked, or more descriptively teaching without technology. More than a few of these emails seemed to be gleeful: “look here,” “see you and your technology is not all its cracked up to be,” “teachers just need to get back to the basics,” “this guy is doing it right.” (Okay none of those are exact quotes but the tone is correct.) Even the Dallas Observer took a stab at making a connection. Brief Aside: Dear Dallas Observer, I have never said the best way to engage students is by having them “tweet” through class. I would never say something so ridiculous. (I have said that “a” way to engage students might be to use Twitter, or more broadly social media technology, but that’s a far cry from “best.”)

But, what is more striking to me is that otherwise capable intellectuals, ones who are excellent readers, make a career out of analyzing text, seem to have not read the piece by Jeff Young, and instead jump to a conclusion about what it says. Indeed, I would actually agree with Jose, or at least agree with a large part of what he says. The article, and Jose’s take, are not that technology is bad or evil, it is far more nuanced than this. Indeed the nuance is the important part, revealing what I believe is one of the central issues in teaching students today.

Let’s start with the initial premise: Students shouldn’t spend class time looking at boring PowerPoint lectures. Agreed. In fact I couldn’t agree more, PowerPoint is a horrible pedagogical tool, see my ongoing rant. PowerPoint as it is generally used is a poor pedagogical device. Collecting slides, and using PowerPoint as an amped up version of chalkboards and old carousel slide projectors is a really bad use of resources. As with Blackboard though, the issue is not the technology itself, but rather a poorly developed tool that tries to mimic old technology without really considering how the technology might actually change teaching practices.

Indeed as the article makes clear, Jose is not “anti-technology” he is just “anti” the way it is currently used. He uses podcasts and video games to teach. His approach is thoroughly technological. In fact the approach is a really smart one; by using technology he is able to deliver the “lecture” material outside of class time, and save the in class time for discussion and participation. This is not a story about a luddite professor, but rather about a professor who has developed an effective way to use technology in education.

In fact what Jose has done, is allowed technology to thoroughly change the way education happens, rather than just treat it as a supplemental, incremental change. Notice further down the article mentions that it was not that computers were completely removed from the class, creating a “tech free space,” but rather than classroom computers the tech budget is focused on getting professors laptops and helping them create podcast lectures. Bravo! I say. In fact the classroom space described (movable tables and chairs for in class discussion) is precisely the one we are using for EMAC here at UT Dallas.

This is what the Dallas Observer article, and all of those people emailing me this article miss, this approach is pretty close to the one I advocate: use tech to generate more discussion and outsource content delivery. In fact one of the reasons I like Twitter is the way it can foster discussion, especially in larger lecture style classrooms (as the article about SMU doesn’t makes clear they are dealing with 10-15 person classes). Technology isn’t good or bad, but it isn’t neutral either. It opens up new possibilities for engaging students, but if we simply use it to reproduce old pedagogies and student-teacher hierarchies—I’m looking at you PowerPoint and Blackboard—then we fail as educators. Certainly as the article points out there will be resistance, not the least of which comes from the students. Students who have been mostly educated in old instructional ways, sit in a desk face forward, learn the correct answer so you can perform on the test, teach to test etc., will be made uncomfortable by a classroom space where they have to take ownership of their own knowledge production, but that’s the point, to make them uncomfortable, to challenge them to learn better.

But, what really got me about this article is the term “naked,” which actually reveals the problem with the way this issue is being framed. This is probably where I would end up disagreeing with Jose, as I think his term “teaching naked” gets in the way, but to be sure it is far more a problem in the Dallas Observer story when they mischaracterize what he means by “naked.” Because, no professor I know of is actually advocating teaching without technology. Sure, I know a lot of faculty who say they don’t want computers in their classrooms, or projectors, who don’t use PowerPoint and refuse to adopt WebCT, whose only computer interaction with the class comes in posting grades (which they do only because the administration forces them to do it). This luddite teaching philosophy (and lest you think this is a strawman argument please come visit me sometime and I’ll introduce you to some folks), suggests that technology is bad for education and that we need to get back to basics.

But here’s the thing, to really be anti-technology these professors would have to really advocate teaching naked, and I mean that in the fullest sense of the term, as in teaching sans clothing. For, any teaching practice requires technology. Are we to imagine that these luddite professors disallow paper and pen from class? “Students should not take notes in class, the technology gets in the way of discussion.” Are we to imagine that they do not allow books in class? “No books, they get in the way of discussion.” Books, paper, pen, desks, chalkboards, whiteboards, all of these are technologies. In fact clothing itself is a technology, so if a professor really wanted to be against technology he would have to give up his tweed jacket and bow tie, because as a technology this might get in the way of the students learning, instead really go “naked” so as to better connect with the students.

Of course this is an absurd proposition, teaching, communicating, learning are thoroughly technological affairs, there is no learning without technology. The issue is not technology but using the technology well to teach our students. PowerPoint, generally speaking = bad. Blackboard generally speaking = bad. Podcasting lectures, distributing content to students openly in ways they can easily access = good. But I’ll even make the stronger claim here: Teaching without digital technology is an irresponsible pedagogy. Why? The future is digital, love it or hate it. We can argue later about whether or not this is a good or a bad thing. (Hint: the answer is both.) But to educate students, or to attempt to educate students without developing their digital literacy is to leave them ill prepared for their futures. You wouldn’t think of educating a student and not teaching them how to read, digital literacy is this crucial. In the future if you don’t know how to use this technology you will be “illiterate.” The problem with PowerPoint pedagogy is that it uncritically uses technology, doesn’t teach students to reflect on how technology shapes ways of knowing and learning. So, to simply eliminate PowerPoint and “go naked” is to not address the central issue. We can’t go back to “teaching the way it was,” because this will produce a generation of students who don’t know how to critically engage with, leverage, use, resist, these very technologies. Eliminating technology produces not the affect of a more engaged literate student populous, rather it produces the reverse, an ill informed, uncritical, unengaged student populous who will become at the very best passive consumers of the technology being resisted, and at the worst its willing victims.

THATCamp hopefully the Model for Future Conferences

dave — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:43:31 +0000

I have finally returned from my end of month traveling and am getting back to work on my current project (more on that later). But for now I wanted to join an ongoing conversation, about what was one of the most productive academic conferences I have been to: THATCamp. First, let me say mad props should be given to David Lester and Jeremy Boggs the two who organized it, as well as praise to the Center for New Media and History for hosting it.

I have been thinking a great deal since last weekend (when this conference was) about what made it so different from other academic gatherings. Many of the participants agreed with this sentiment, and many are talking about organizing others with a similar organizational structure. So, I thought it might be useful to offer some reflections as a way to improve THATCamp in the future, and more importantly as a way to encourage other conferences to adopt some of its features.

First a brief introduction for those not familiar with THATCamp or gatherings of its ilk. (For those who are familiar you might want to skip this paragraph as it is sure to bore you, and I am bound to get something wrong which might just confuse the matter.) My guess, although I don’t this for certain is that THATCamp takes its inspiration from BarCamp and FooCamp. The idea behind this type of conference (conference is perhaps the wrong word, indeed organizers often refer to it as an unconference, gathering is probably closer, although that is not very descriptive either). The idea is that rather than have a rigidly designed program at the start, with panels which feature speakers who dominate the break out sessions, participants themselves decide the breakout sessions, with each session being structured as a conversation rather than a presentation. Think of it as a wikiconference. For those who haven’t been to one I realize you might be thinking this sounds chaotic, unorganized, and less than productive. You would be right about only one of those: chaos (but it is a really productive sort of managed chaos).

Let me start by re-itterating something I started with, that this conference was by my evaluation tremendously successful. Indeed, if I was only able to attend one conference/gathering next year, I would probably chose THATCamp. Usually I am very resistant to conferences, I think they are far less productive than our profession makes them out to be, but THATCamp was the antithesis of the typical intellectual masturbation of most conferences. Why? Because you actually learn something, and collaborate on knowledge production. Rather than go to a panel and listen to somebody read a paper for 20 minutes telling you how smart they are, only to suffer through a question and answer period where nearly every person asks a question that is meant more to demonstrate how smart they are (the typical I don’t have a question but a comment where the questioner talks for five minutes) rather than generate conversation. THATCamp works precisely against this logic. If I want to read someone’s long form argument I am better off reading the 20 pages or so on my own time, rather than paying for a plane flight, a hotel for several nights, and having them read it to me in a hotel conference room with bad acoustics. I have for some time thought that the importance, or the real academic purchase of conferences is what happens after the panel (aside from networking which also happens after the panels) most of the better conversations have been had outside of the sessions where dialogue can happen. THATCamp makes those conversations the center of what happens rather than the supplement. Every hour and fifteen minute session is a conversation rather than a series of structured monologues.

Perhaps obviously the thing that made the conference so worthwhile was the people. This is probably a bit of a chicken and egg issue though, as the format of the conference probably attracted good people just as much as the participants made the conference good. There were a number of people whose work I had always respected from a far, or only ever knew through online communication so the conference afforded an opportunity to meet these people in physical space. But aside from the people what made the conference so successful?

Ideas not conclusions: Most conferences seem to be structured around individuals presenting conclusions of their research, or their final statements. Read a 20 minute paper, defend your thesis. THATCamp was markedly different, instead each session was more about generating ideas, testing out thoughts, and sharing perspectives. Thus individual egos were mostly put on hold in favor of trying things out, testing thoughts. Its really hard to overstate the importance of this, or even to fully capture what happened in each session, but by removing the “defend your thesis” from being the center of the conversation, the discussions turned out to be far more productive.

Organized Chaos: When I describe the format of this conference to some more traditional academics, they look at me weird, and usually ask “how could this possibly work?” “Don’t you need a program and strict organization ahead of time?” The answer is really no. Leveraging internet technologies and being comfortable with a flexible schedule allows for a bottom up organization where the participants determine what is important, rather than organizers deciding ahead of time what works for the participants. It probably helps that those who attended were familiar with the ethos of Web 2.0 where this kind of organization works. Simply put the conferences organizers designed a good “platform” and let the participants work and rework the “content.”

Keeping it Brief: Honestly I don’t need to hear you speak for 20 minutes. Lots of people with short ideas can be more productive than a few with really long ones. One of the more fascinating parts of the weekend was “dork shorts” where presenters had three minutes to demo a project they were working on. The organizers kept people to this schedule (think gong show but rather than a gong you were ushered off by keyboard cat if you went over time). So, by the end of lunch I had seen maybe 15-20 projects. Some useful for me, some not, but the ones I was more interested in, I got to follow up on.

Twitter: Seriously, I know some people here think I make too much of twitter, but it really added to the conference experience. Unlike many conferences without internet connections THATCamp had wifi throughout the weekend. (A couple of times it buckled under the strain of 100 overly connected academics, their netbooks, computers, and iPhones, but this only happened briefly.) This meant that participants could leverage the internet to enhance the session experience. Not the least of this was using twitter. So, those who were not at THATCamp could follow along, you could follow concurrent sessions, but perhaps most importantly it served as a sort of live organic note taking process, in addition to being a backchannel. You can see the archive here. Tech savvy participants also took advantage of the network to produce a wiki of the event. The twitter activity and collaborative note taking is definitely something other conferences can learn from.

Doing it on the Cheap: The conference was free. That’s right free. They asked for donations of $25 per participant, but no one charged at registration. Rather than host it at some big swanky hotel it was held at George Mason, thus cheaper. Breakfast on two days and lunch was included. I think I heard that the conference cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $3500 to host. My guess they made most of that back in donations. (Note: If you haven’t donated you should do so now.)

Diversity and Similarity: THATCamp was a good mix of people of diverse backgrounds within the humanities, but with similar interests. This meant that there was a mix of people with coding and technical background and a people more like myself, some technical knowledge but by no means an expert. This really helped in the sessions. My sense from some of the post THATCamp discussion was that some of the coders wanted more “hacking” (or coding time) and a little less discussion, so perhaps the panels were weighted a little in favor of conversation and less in production, but I think future conferences could easily change the percentage here. The key though is the mix of technical abilities and disciplinary approaches. Many academics talk about being interdisciplinary, few ever are. There was also a pretty good spread of students, staff, and faculty. In fact one usually had little idea who was who—and that was a good thing. My conference experience has often been that the conference reproduces the hierarchy of the institution, with faculty dominating conversations and ignoring the voices of the non-tenure track. No such thing here at THATCamp, I met undergrads, librarians, coders, and faculty alike. No one cared.

Size Matters: This is probably the unfortunate part of THATCamp: they capped the enrollment, turned people away. This had the positive effect of keeping the conference small, but the negative effect of limiting participation. I think the small feel really added to the sense of it being a friendly conference rather than an academic performance, and adding to the number of participants I think would really change this dynamic. I am not sure one could have more than 150 participants without seriously changing the dynamics. The up side is that the participants made it part of their participation to communicate to those not at THATCamp what was going on. I think in future iterations it might be nice to capture the video (or at least the audio) and turn it into a podcast. But more importantly nothing prevents there from being a lot more of these, several a year in fact, perhaps in different parts of the country, and with slightly different foci.

Here’s hopping that this serves as the model for more conferences like this. Maybe even outside of the digital humanities (but I won’t hold my breath for that one).

Back from the Election Time Suck

dave — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 17:59:20 +0000

Now that the election is over, and my digital politics class will require less time, hopefully I can return to blogging here more. So to start here is a list of things I have been collecting over the last few weeks that just got placed in the “to blog about” pile. (Incidentally, if the local news here covered my digital politics class, so if you would like to see the short piece on them you can view the video on the news stations website.)

First up is an article by Michael Wesch, A Vision of Students Today (& What Teachers Must Do). The article appears on the Britannica Blog, an institution I do not always associate with progressively thinking about how technology changes knowledge production. Nevertheless Wesch’s piece is worth a read for he navigates the precarious but important middle ground between being a luddite and being techno-utopian, instead claiming that there is nothing new about the notion of playing the “getting by game,” even if the means by which this game is played is different. Ultimately he suggests a rather simple solution: Public Academia.
Group Table: Group Table is another web application in the list of online collaboration/group organization tools. While there are many out there, most people I know prefer Bassecamp and Backpack, Group Table is focused on specifically serving the student population.
Open Huddle: When I was searching for free online tools for hosting my virtual grad class, I looked into many (way too many) options. (I just needed chat function, so in the end ended up using a chat program but I digress.) But, Open Huddle was one of the better ones people sent me. Unlike Group Table (above) which is focused on organizing the group, Open Huddle’s purpose is to provide a set of tools for collaborating in real time. Open Huddle has video chat and a drawing board (think virtual white board) as well as allowing messaging and file sharing. My guess is in the future we will see a lot more of these types of sites for robust online learning and collaboration.
Last but not least, watch Antonio’s presentation on using YouTube as a Classroom Resource.

Digital Literacy Presentation

dave — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:24:27 +0000

For those who requested it, here is the information and links to the talk I recently gave to the Texas Community College Teacher’s Association.

Approaching Digital Literacy: Creating a Networked Culture on Campus (Texas Community College Teachers Association 2008). (You can download the high quality Quicktime Movie or the lower quality mp4.) Below are the references for this presentation:

Mark Pesce on Hyperconnectivity: A lot of my thinking on what happens when we increase the speed at which people are connected comes from Pesce, particularly this presentation.
Clay Shirky Here Comes Everybody: This is one of the best books on how organizing changes in the age of the network. Shirky’s book is both informed and accessible. He also did an interview for weblogg-ed which focuses on education.
Micheal Wesch is well known in academia for his work on Web 2.0. In this presentation at the University of Manitoba he talks specifically about using Web 2.0 tools in the classroom.
Axel Bruns’s book Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond is worth reading. His thoughts on how the industrial model of production is shifting to a “produsage” one carries implications for academia.
In the presentation I talk about Sakai and Moodle which are free alternatives to Blackboard, WebCT etc. However, I prefer something like edublogs, as blogs offer one of the best alternatives to Course Management Software.
If you are looking for more analysis, news, and tips on digital literacy and academia, Digital Campus (a bi-weekly podcast) is one of the best places to start.
Finally this talk references MIT Open Courseware, Open Yale Courses, and Physics for Presidents.

Another Online Slide Creation Tool

dave — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:26:11 +0000

No, that is not a screen shot of Keynote, it is from an online slide creation tool called 280Slides. The interface though is so similar to Keynote that one might accuse them of just ripping off Keynote, stripping it down and turning it into a web application. Indeed in reading thru the few blog posts it seems that the developers have a Mac bend. Given my preference for Keynote over PowerPoint (“Power Corrupts. PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely“) one might guess that I like the interface of 280Slides. Like Keynote it is designed more towards a visual presentation and less towards putting text on slides.

280Slides is relatively easy to use, and comes with the advantage of other web applications, i.e. working from any computer, accessing your presentation from any browser, not worrying about file compatibility, etc. And, while I might prefer 280Slides to something like Google Presentation, this still finishes a distant second to SlideRocket (which I reviewed here).

Some Useful, Some Not, Things for You

dave — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:26:26 +0000

Here is a list of things I have been collecting as of late, which may or may not be of interest to those in academia . . .

I frequently make the argument that blogs are one of the most useful “tech tools” in education. In fact I now run a class blog for each of my classes, which becomes the primary means thru which students can access course information (cutting out WebCT and Blackboard all together). Even more importantly though in several of my classes I require students to blog as part of the coursework. So, I am always looking for ways to make the blog composing/maintaining process easier and smoother. Lifehacker’s recent post on the Top 10 Blogging Tools is worth a read, even for the most experienced bloggers. As usual, reading the comments to a Lifehacker post can be just as productive as reading the actual post (this is where I learned about Windows Life Writer which looks impressive for PC folks). Most of the tips here are for those who use Firefox and/or blog from their web browser, so not the most useful for those who use MarsEdit or Ecto, but well worth the read for those who don’t want to spend money on software for blogging.
Powerset which has been in private Beta, recently went public. (Read the CNET article here). Powerset is one of the first stabs at creating a semantic web search (i.e. using natural English). You can watch the video demo to see how this works. Right now it only works as an interface for Wikipedia, but for me this is what makes it really interesting. One of the shortcomings of Wikipedia has been the interface, layout, and search function, Powerset improves all of this.
Following up on last weeks post about online presentation software, Omnisio has also launched. Omnisio solves one of the problems with making your presentation available online. Before you had to either sink your audio to the slides, and not show yourself talking, or show the video of your presentation at the expense of not always being able to see the slides. No longer. Omnisio allows you to synchronize the video with the slides and show both.
A reader sent me a link to jygy a mobile social networking site. Despite my interest in twitter mobile computing is not really my thing, so I have not really checked it out, but it does let you create texting “micro apps” which might be useful for teachers mobilizing the mobile space.
The above not withstanding I do own an iPhone, which I might add is totally worth it, changed my life. As of now I have not yet jailbroken it (in other words I can’t install applications on it). For me though, the “killer app” so far has been anywhere access to Wikipedia (instant knowledge). I was using Wapedia for this, but have recently switched to Comoki which rather than splitting the information into several pages (like Wapedia) presents it in a collapsable outline (see below).

Presentation Software-For Free

dave — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:36:10 +0000

Just finished my semester here at University of Texas at Dallas, which gives me time to return to this neglected blog.

Over a month ago I signed up for a beta-invite for Sliderocket, a what looked to be promising online presentation tool. Think of it as Google Docs for Power Point. To be sure there are several free options for presentation software out there, but none are as feature rich as I would like. And since slides are all about visual presentation I don’t just want something that lets me make bullet points or show slides of text. I want something that looks nice. After playing with Sliderocket for several hours, I can say so far it is the best in its class.

Why would you want one of these? Why use a web based application when a desktop based one works so well? Good question. I don’t see web based applications replacing desktop applications completely but they are useful in ways that desktop versions are often not. For instance, web based applications allow you to collaboratively author a document/work together in real time. Several times over the course of the semester I used Google Docs to work on a document with colleagues, either simultaneously, or back and forth over the course of several days (without having to navigate swapping files, which can get tricky when we are using different applications). Having a good slide creation program will allow me to collaboratively create slide presentations with others, or you can require students to use it, allowing you to easily add comments directly to the slide (again sans the problem of swapping files). Second, while I probably won’t be giving up Keynote anytime soon, a web based application will allow me to edit a presentation easily when I don’t have my computer. I am big on being redundant with presentation information. When I am going somewhere to give a talk I always have the slides available on the net somewhere in case my computer crashes/dies or can’t be hooked to projector etc. . .So, having a backup for editing is also a good idea. And finally, having a free online tool to which you can point students is important. This way students can author presentations/documents without having to buy expensive software (a presentation authored in Sliderocket could easily look better than Power Point-and its free).

Why Sliderocket “rocks:” Unlike a few other free versions out there (including both web based and desktop based) the people who designed Sliderocket understand that slide presentation is a visual/layout “thing”, not a text/word “thing.” All of the essential features are there: images, build in, build out, slide transition (those ones only available in Keynote, can now be used thanks to flash on a PC), embed movies, embed audio, text manipulation, etc. Right now they only offer five templates (but they are the only ones I really want). You can upload presentations for Power Point (not from Keynote though, which isn’t really too much an issue as Keynote exports to Power Point).

But where Sliderocket really shines is in its ability to share. As you create you can share whole presentations, or individual slides, for collaborative editing or viewing. You can even use Sliderocket to host a “meeting,” giving out the web address for others to view the presentation. And again because it is done in flash, you don’t have to make the sacrifices in style necessary to use something like Slideshare (which I currently rely on).

Sliderocket does have a few limits. First, it is still in beta so you will have to sign up and wait in line to give it a try, and it could be a bit buggy (although I had no problems). Second the load times were a bit more than I would like, nothing annoying but just that extra second too long. In fairness this could be a result of the internet connection I am working from, but this is something to keep in mind (more data is being transfered here than via a much simpler web application). Finally, no web application yet is faster than what I can do with a desktop one. This is partly because of speed of connection, load times etc., but also partly because of things like keyboard shortcuts, automation etc. So, while I probably won’t use Sliderocket as my replacement for Keynote, it will be my collaborative tool of choice (just as soon as all my friends get invites).

Two Quick Useful Links

dave — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:55:10 +0000

If you want to convert a Microsoft Word document into an HTML document that makes sense, follow the suggestions on this tutorial. (I know Microsoft Word lets you do this automatically, but the HTML is produces is at best questionable, and usually horrendous.) The methods in this tutorial are much better, and worth the effort if you are converting a document to be viewable via the web.

Continuing my long rant against bad PowerPoint presentations, check out this post on the Lessig blog, about how a physicist adopted the “Lessig style” and learned how to be a far more effective communicator.

This Week’s Collection O’ Stuff

dave — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:47:40 +0000

Here is this week’s collection of things you might want to check out if you are interested in academia, technology, or perhaps just looking for something to read while you wait for that download to finish.

Scholarly Research Excahgne: Someone I follow twittered this earlier in the week (sorry not sure who so I can’t give credit). Anyway it is a new peer-reviewed open access journal, focusing for now at least, on the sciences. There is not much content as of yet, but the advisory board is international and substantial. Equally as important, the developers seem to have spent time thinking through the layout and structure. I’ll be interested to see how this develops.
Wikis in Education: One of the things I have been thinking about his how to use Wikis more effectively in teaching, particularly because I want students to develop collaborative literacy as I think this will be an important rhetorical skill in the future. This recent interview with Stewart Mader is a good place to start.
Twiddla: Twiddla is a virtual whiteboard. I have been waiting for this to be done right, as it is an extremely useful tool, and not everyone has Mac OS 10.5 which allows easy screen sharing. Twiddla is extremely easy, as they say “no plugins, no downloads, or firewall vodoo.” (Firewall Vodoo? Haven’t heard that before, but think I will now use it regularly as a catch-all phrase.)
AideRSS: I am always on the look-out for how to pull off new tricks using RSS feeds. AideRSS allows you to sort and rank posts. This is particularly useful if you are trying to monitor sites which produce high volume updates.