Learning Aloud

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that Internet Filtering may be required in libraries (Washington Post) and that it does not violate the rights of adults wishing to use the same computers.

ALA continues to disagree.

MacWorld (July) offers a nice article of blog tools and services (mostly for Macs).

Here is a new multimedia authoring tool for you to explore (if you both operate a recent Windows system and own a recent version of Microsoft Office). Producer is an intuitive and FREE product allowing the integration of many media types. My understanding that it is primarily a way to connect PowerPoint slides with other things (audio, video) using wizards and then publish (CD, web, etc.). Lots of options. Did I mention free?

Here is a demo I created – Demo. (Windows users only)

Only downside – both production and viewing (I think) must be on the Windows platform.

If you cannot examine the demo, here is a screen capture of the demo to give you some insight into what one display format looks like (a small video running in the upper left corner is keyed to changing PowerPoint slides on the right).

A CNN news item contends that young learners are perhaps limiting their development of cursive skills because of a preference for the keyboard. This seems a classic case of unintended consequences of technology (someone should add this to the list) and also an example of the reality of activities competing for the limited time available in our lives.

I am going to spend most of the summer in Grand Forks by myself. Cindy is in Japan and Kim (youngest daughter) is biking cross country through a program called Bike and Build (Habitat for Humanity).

Both called last night (Father’s Day is today). Kim was staying a church basement somewhere in New Hampshire and Cindy was in Tokyo (her room has full internet access, but she has trouble manipulating the computer because of limited language skills). Both have phone cards – Cindy says her 1260 minute card is worth a little over 100.

Both also have blogs. Cindy’s blog is pretty elaborate – I see this morning that she has incorporated short videos – one of a jellyfish (image below is a jpg). She is using the blog as an open diary of her adventures. This will be pretty cool if she can keep at it.

Bike and Build team members take turns generating the entries for their blog. Uploading the entries is a challenge.

Microsoft announced on Friday that it will release no new versions of Internet Explorer for the Macintosh. So, it is time for you Mac fans to download and become familiar with Apple’s Safari or Mozilla or Netscape Naviator.

The May 29 issue of Nature contains an article claiming that playing video games (shooters) can improve certain cognitive skills. We are talking “the brain changes as the result of experience” type claims. The position that such experiences have some very real redeeming qualities (beyond being fun) is in stark contrast to those who see the dark side of such games (see CNN news article). While I am not ready to assign Doom as homework quite yet, the development of these contrasting claims will be interesting to follow.