I showed this site to my ECMP 355 students a while back, and they were amazed. The Gigapxl Project is aimed at ultra-high resolution photography. Be sure to check out the amazing image gallery. Kind of puts my Canon S500 to shame.

I know many of you who read this are K-12 teachers, and have been experimenting, or at least contemplating the use of blogs with your students. The following is a good site which list pointers on how to keep young bloggers safe.

– “How can children stay safe using blogs?” – From the Australian government. (via Weblogg-ed)

Additionally, for those that use Blogger.com, you may want to think about removing the ‘next blog’ tag from your students’ blogs. This information will help you disable the Blogger.com navbar.

I guess I seem to have more in common with “Evil D’Arcy” than I have with “Romantic Rob“.

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Fear my wrath. Muhahahahahahahhaha.

Recently, there’s been a lot of coverage on the topic of cyberbullying in the mainstream media. This article in USA Today gives a good overview of the problem, and the many ways in which technology (e.g., instant messengers, email, websites) can be used to harass, and alter “the social lives of children at an age when they are especially vulnerable to insults.”

Although I have read a lot regarding this issue, I think this is the first article that I have seen which identifies the exclusion of children from Instant Messenger Buddy Lists as a form of bullying.

“Sometimes, excluding a classmate from buddy lists and online communities can be as damaging. What used to happen with cliques, with kids making others feel they don’t belong, is part of the Internet experience …”. I think that this point is valuable to consider as it’s not an example of what most people would identify as bullying, however, few would argue with the damage that can be done through exclusionary practice.

I caught word of this disturbing U.N. landmine advertisement featured on Joi Ito’s Web (thanks Dan). I don’t want to spoil the experience for you so I won’t give explicit details, but take a glance at what CNN and other networks (reportedly) are reluctant to air.

I continue to be shocked and appalled by the government’s interference in the free flow of Internet content. And as Michael’s Geist’s recent story in The Toronto Star reveals, the future of free content on the Internet accessed in Canada is uncertain.

“The Minister of Industry, together with Liza Frulla, his Canadian Heritage counterpart, are also reportedly about to finalize new rules that may reshape the availability of Internet content to educational institutions. Acting on the recommendation of a parliamentary committee that was chaired by Toronto MP Sarmite Bulte, the government may soon unveil a new “extended license” that would require schools to pay millions of dollars for content that is currently freely available on the Internet.”

The outlook is pessimistic. There may not be a better time than NOW to advocate for open and free Internet content.

Wired News recently featured an article titled “Comfortably Numb Relationships” by Regina Lynn. The article is a review of Christine Rosen’s paper “The Age of Egocasting“. Basically, one of Rosen’s key idea is that we are entering a time in which “we are willfully withdrawing from public spaces to wallow in a shallow, self-centered existence where we consciously avoid ideas, sounds and images that we don’t agree with or don’t enjoy.” Both authors seem to agree that our exposure and use of technologies such as Tivo and the iPod cause many to regress to a significantly isolated form of existence.

“… iPod users are accused of a similar withdrawal from the world at large. They might be enjoying their unique life soundtrack, but they are also practicing ‘absent presence’ in public spaces,”

This is certainly an interesting hypothesis in a time where social software is so prevalent. I would certainly disagree that isolated existence will be the norm in this culture, but as with society in general, there are those individuals that will always find this more comfortable.

It does remind me of the old quote by Max Frish, however. “Technology, the knack of so arranging the world so we don’t have to experience it.”

I really need to pay attention to this information … so much to do, and so little time in the day. It seems simple to say these things, but it never seems to work out that way.

One of the recent topics on the school-discuss listserv has been the identification of unencumbered photo collections. For those not on the list, here is a compilation of some of the sites identified.

– FreeFoto.com
– Pics4Learning.com
– Geek Philosopher
– GIMP Savvy
– FreeNaturePictures.com
– Creative Commons Images
– OpenPhoto
– Flickr’s Creative Commons’ Pool
– Buzznet (similar to Flickr)
– The New York Public Library Digital Gallery
– BurningWell.org
– stock.xchng
– Blue Vertigo

If anyone knows of other good collections, please let me know.

Today, I was lucky enough to present to the staff at Campbell Collegiate in Regina on the topic of Internet Awareness. I think the presentation was well received, and I am hoping that the teachers will be better prepared to deal with questionable content and activities focused around Internet Access.

Click here for the full presentation.
Click here for a list of many of the websites mentioned in the presentation.

I’ve just come across an interesting article from Fernette and Brocke Eide titled “Brain of a Blogger.” The central thesis: blogging is good for the brain. Here are the five major assumptions of the paper:

1) Blogs can promote critical and analytical thinking.
2) Blogging can be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive, and associational thinking.
3) Blogs promote analogical thinking.
4) Blogging is a powerful medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information.
5) Blogging combines the best of solitary reflection and social interaction.

Interesting findings, and even without a medical degree, many bloggers would agree.

Well curiousity got the best of me and I had to go experience for myself what Stephen, Rick and Rob are talking about, and I am sure glad I did.

Robert Patterson’s post blog article ‘Our Reformation‘ is an incredible read which has helped me synthesize much of what I have been experiencing with my research of social software and the open source movement. I have been inspired and can’t wait to integrate some of these thoughts into my dissertation research.