While doing a little late night reading, I was just reminded (thanks Rick) of Lessig’s new book. The new book, titled Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity will be certainly worth the read. I very much enjoyed Lessig’s earlier works, Code and The Future of Ideas. And hey … its’ online for free, under a Creative Commons license.
Check it out:
http://www.free-culture.cc

I noticed this link mentioned a while back at a Rick’s Café Canadien (from good friend Dr. Richard Schwier). This is a huge digital archive from the CBC. I just love this resource. Be sure to check out:
http://archives.cbc.ca/

Also, right on this site, you will notice that there is a link that’s especially useful ‘for teachers’. There’s some really great stuff here … here’s the shortcut:
http://archives.cbc.ca/for_teachers

A team of students at Western have become involved in both the development and distribution of Ignalium – an Enterprise level Linux system. I really like the idea of having more undergraduate students and Faculty members exposed to Open Source solutions. In this case, students can also contribute to the development, distribution and dissemination of a Linux distro. Interesting and powerful stuff.
See the full story here.

Finally … a thesaurus that works the way my brain works. Some of you may have seen this already, but I think this is really neat.
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/online/index.html
I am quite sure this is based on the original ThinkMap technology that’s been around for a while, but this is a neat demonstration of how it can be utilized. The online version is limited use (unfortunately), but it kept me busy for a few hours.

If you are like me, I love to good educational sites, but like I said in an earlier post (i.e., theteacherlist.ca), I don’t have the time to look a lot of the time. Here is a great site that lists an interesting educational website on a daily basis. There are a lot of other goodies here as well.
http://techlearning.com/webpicks/index.jhtml

This blog is a bit of an experiment for me to see how blogging and the concept of e-portfolios can be merged. I have always been a big proponent of electronic-portfolios in assessment, but I think now that the blogging ‘ethos’ could help to take this concept even further.

Recently, David Tosh, from the University of Edinburgh, has released the draft paper, “ePortfolios and weblogs: one vision for ePortfolio development” (pdf). It’s certainly an interesting read. To see more information re: e-portfolios from David Tosh, you can explore the ERADC site at: http://eradc.org/blog .

A conference entitled “Open Source and Free Software: Concepts, Controversies and Solutions” will be held Sunday, May 9, to Tuesday, May 11, at Convocation Hall, 31 King’s College Circle, University of Toronto. I think what is neat about this conference is that it is touted as being multi-interest, and not merely technical. Open Source and Free Software will be discussed from business, legal, technical and philosophical perspectives. For more information, check out the conference website at: http://osconf.kmdi.utoronto.ca/.

A new software program called ChatNannies has been developed by a British computer programmer. The software is designed to be deployed upon various chatrooms to detect possible pedophiles posing as children. See the full story from C-NET at: http://news.com.com/2100-1032-5174065.html.

Well the TappedIn virtual environment has been around for quite a while, but I often run into teachers that don’t know anything about. Additionally, I run into teachers who have nothing but good things to say about it. If you are interested in IT professional development, and you like the idea of being able to learn and connect with others in an online environment, you should really sign up for a membership. It’s free.
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I had the opportunity to go see Revolution OS at a seminar held at the University of Regina this week. I’ve seen the video before, so no surprises. However, what I was surprised at were the responses by people in the audience. The first question from the audience was “so … how can we make money from open source?”. Several questions afterwards were very much the same.
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Unfortunately, I never seem to have enough time to look through hundreds of educational websites to find a few good ones. However, a while back, I signed up to the mailing list at www.theteacherlist.ca, and every few days, I seem to receive a gem.
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Yes, yet another blog.
But this a bit different. As a professor in the area of educational technology, I want my students to be able to see both the power, and the evolution of web publishing. Through this medium, I hope to be able to provide rich and relevant information to my audience, and as well, be able to model the up-and-coming trends in my field.

Let’s see where this takes us …