Things I learned this week – #7

Happy Valentine’s Day!

On a personal note, I learned that Ben isn’t over his febrile convulsions and that, if a child isn’t ill then don’t make him so by taking him to have a Swine Flu vaccine.

Apologies for the late posting this morning. We were in hospital from 4am with Ben. 🙁

He’s OK now.

Top 3

1. Always needing to prompt people and follow-up emails? Try this!
2. Ofsted believes that children who are given more internet freedom are less vulnerable in the long-term to internet dangers. About time! I wonder if it will make any difference in practice?(via @dughall via @teachexpertise)
3. Can words really account for only 7 percent of the meaning of a spoken message? Hint: no. (via @lindiop)

Tech.

• Totally NSFW but awesome idea: ChatRoulette (Review here). The creator is 17. Wow.
• Twitter Reactions is a great Google Chrome extension for finding out what people have been saying about a particular web page.
• Google Buzz launched. Some people didn’t like it (NSFW). All was explained by Lifehacker. Google changed some stuff.
• This is a cool painting thing (via @simfin)
• 5 insightful TED talks on social media. Don’t miss Clay Shirky!

• Coolest, most portable printer. Ever:
• The British Library is to offer free eBook downloads (via OLDaily)
• Amazon Kindles will have touchscreens and colour by the end of 2010.
• Facebook plans to build an email system. I still won’t use it. :-p
• Ah… so that’s how Google’s ranking algorithm works! (via Scott McLeod)

• 21 things that became obsolete this decade. Ah… remember when we used to use public pay phones?
• Need an iPhone app made? Swissmiss suggests you try TheyMakeApps.com
• Wired reckons there’s a ‘good enough’ revolution. Some people having preferences does not a revolution make – even if I can understand the sentiment. (via @jamesclay)
• This Lifehacker post about turning a netbook into a feature-rich ebook reader is on the money given my blog post a few days ago!
• Unsure where Micro$oft’s profits come from? Now you know! (via @chartoftheday)

• Oh great. The UK finally get around to using Chip-and-PIN and now you tell me it’s no longer secure? 😮
• Fav4.org is a really nice, minimalistic start page. Unless you use Google Chrome, whereupon it forgets what CSS is…
• This is cool in a I’ll-never-actually-need-to-do-this kind of way. Play Xbox 360 or PS3 anywhere.
• Opensource.com is a Red Hat community service and a great news feed for OSS stuff (via @Curriki)
• YouTube now has a safety mode (via @creativetallis)
• These are the 15 best apps for jailbroken iPhones. Possibly. I can vouch for SBSettings as it’s pretty much the only reason I keep my iPhone jailbroken! (via @jezlyn) 🙂

Productivity & Inspiration

• Here’s some advice on how to filter better. Handy! (via @hjarche)
• Confused about the difference between simplicity and minimalism? Let Leo Babauta (kind-of) help you out.
• You should set aside 10% of your work for retirement, not just your income. Apparently.
• The Small Man Builds Cages For Everyone. Be big!
• I’ve been working on putting the finishing touches to #uppingyourgame: an educator’s guide to productivity (big hint!)

Education & Academic

• Wondering how much your institution/district/authority can save using Google Apps? Read this.
• An Ofsted report (referenced above) on the safe use of new technologies is out. Summary here.
• IBM Academic Cloud is a way to teach technology skills to students. In the US, that is. (via @liamgh)
• Some ways social gaming is improving education (very true about ‘contextual learning’!)
• This take-off of Beyoncé made me laugh: Scholar Ladies (via @michellegallen)

• A handy guide to netiquette for students (not so sure that referencing the 90’s sounding ‘netiquette’ is helpful though)
• The Free Technology Academy uses Open Educational Resources in a virtual campus (via @cogdog)
• I’m a big believer in the importance of tinkering. That’s why I found this post about tinkering with technology especially interesting!
• Trends in E-Learning practices. U-Learning FTW! :-p
• It’s been quite the week for education-related parody videos: ‘The Class’ is a parody of ‘The Office’ (via OLDaily)

• Remember California is moving to digital textbooks because it’s got no money? It’s collating Open Education Resources here. Helpful for everyone! (via @akipta)
• George Siemens reckons/hopes/is-indifferent-about the end will come to peer-review of journals. I’m not too sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
• This MindSight is worth a look if you’re wondering how some schools apply research in neuroscience to everyday life (via @jamiebillingham)

Data, Design & Infographics

• Need some free, legal art for your open source game project? Try here!
• What to track what you do to form a data set? Try Daytum, mycrocosm, nebul.us, eyebrowse, or Personas
• Learn basic colour theory to make better designs.
• The online image editor Aviary is now completely free.
• Track mouse activity on your computer (Mac/PC):

• This Crayola colour chart shows how they’ve expanded their range over the history of the company. Colourful!
• Nathan at FlowingData has another great tutorial on an easy way to make a treemap. I’ll be trying this next week! 😀
• Use the Processing app? It’s now got a framework available for iPhone.
• Need a Winter Olympics venue map? This one’s good.
• Best. Barcodes. Ever.

• Fullscreenweather.com does, well, what you’d expect really. But really, really, well.
• Tableau Public allows you to create interactive visualizations for free (via @BFChirpy)

Misc.

• Seth Godin on change management. He divides us all into ‘frightened’, ‘clueless’ and ‘uninformed’. He has a point. 😉
• People use words to get you to do things. Of course they do.
• Dorodango are balls of mud that shine.
• Henry Jenkins on 5 ways to read the film Avatar.
• No blog post would be complete without a YouTube video of muppets going all Web 2.0 (Beaker’s Ballad):

[Beaker’s Ballad]

• This must have been awful: Twins discover brother’s death on Facebook.
• Angry Norwegians in scuba gear chase Google Street View car.
• How to levitate. Kind-of.
• A low IQ is the second-highest predictor of heart disease (after smoking): http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/10/low-iq-second-highes.html
• Cold? Dont’ want to get your hands out of your gloves to use your iPhone? You need a meat stylus!

• Britain isn’t really ‘broken’. Oh good, I was wondering! (via @ewanmcintosh)
• Google have teamed up with Russian Railways to create a Virtual tour of the Trans-Siberian Railway (via OLDaily)
• Be careful out there. Boredom can actually kill you! (via @gsiemens)

Quotations

A nickel will get you on the subway, but garlic will get you a seat. (New York proverb)

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him. (Leo Aikman)

It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts. (Earl Weaver)

Imagination is more important than knowledge. (Albert Einstein)

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me. (Benjamin Disraeli)