e-Clippings (Learning As Art)

A Wealthy Cache of Great Ideas - Pop!Casts...

We are on the brink of the launch of the one conference I really want to go to but probably never will. This isn't to say that I want to go this conference more than any other but rather that I can't imagine ever using my own money or getting an employer to pay the $3500 registration fee. One of the great ironies is that the theme for this year's Pop!Tech is "Scarcity and Abundance."

Really? I need to know more about how this is put together...the site says "Since its earliest days more than ten years ago, Pop!Tech has grown almost entirely through the contributions of a community of volunteers who donate their time, expertise and energy to help convene this unique gathering. Pop!Tech is a true labor of love: the speakers and most of the organizers are unpaid, and the organization itself is a not-for-profit." Under the category of 'a little knowledge being a dangerous thing' ...I just have to ask...what in the world then costs $3500 per head?

I will say this....Pop!Tech is brilliantly free with its content. You can watch a huge range of Pop!Casts here. While watching is great, the site also extols the virtues of being there.."The breathtaking content, beautiful setting, intimate scale, and informal tone make Pop!Tech an experience like no other. At the end, you’ll leave with dozens of new ideas, a better sense of where the world is headed, a new network of relationships and a lasting inspiration to create a better world."

So in the end, I am left to my jealousy and to wonder...what must those 3 days be like in Camden?
 

TED Videos - Watch 'em all!! (via Boing Boing)

When Mark Frauenfelder from Boing Boing starts going on like this: " I went to TED2007 as a member of the press and was profoundly impressed by the quality of the events and the speakers. I drove home dumbfounded by the cascade of mind-boggling information in the presentations I saw there" ...call me crazy but I take that as a hint of where I need to look.

Turns out Mark is right...what he is talking about is the fact that TED is now posting videos of the talks for free - view them online or grab them for the desktop or the iPod. Don't know about TED? Try this on for a description "TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

 

 

The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives." Forget everything else...doesn't that just sound like how conferences should be?

This is awesome stuff folks, take some time and watch these videos.

Map of Online Communities (xkcd Rox!)

Map of Online Communities from xkcd - which is a comic you should be reading - I am so busy right now on something but I saw this and just had to post!

WikiMapia...OK this is just silly cool...

WikiMapia. This is just so cool. I promise later I'll think deeply about its implications for learning and yadda yadda..but I've just been playing around with this and if you haven't tried it, you must. Imagine a wiki mashed up with Google Earth. Now project forward when everyone in the world has contributed as much information to this map as they have to the wikipedia. Makes my head spin.

Meme-tagged..TWICE..Better Hurry......

I'm sorry people but I LOVE this stuff!! If you have not already (and shame on you if you haven't) you MUST read Vannevar Bush's 1945 essay, As We May Think. Read about the associative power of the trails that we leave and we share..as he says..it is awe-inspiring. Finally, if you do read that essay and ask 'what does all this have to do with my industry' - then stop - turn off the computer and go somewhere far away.

That being said.....thanks to both Wendy Wickham and Tony Karrer for tagging me with the Five Meme post that appears to have started somewhere back past the Purple Wren and Passion Meets Purpose. Honest to goodness people..I am going to have to break out MindManager and map this puppy out!

The idea of course is to tell people 5 things that they probably don't know about you and then tag 5 more people to do the same. I love knowing that if we ever have an edublogger beach volleyball tournament - Tony K is on my team! I can't believe that Wendy W used to work at Stone Mountain - my mother-in-law live about 3 miles away from there - and I've seen that laser show waaayyy too many times. I can't believe that now because of Karyn, I can say that I kind of know someone who knows how to speak even a little Zulu. Zulu...wow. I also think that Harold would still probably make a passable Frosty the Snowman but that I think he protests a bit too much about not harboring a secret love of armadillos (I'm going to start a new del.icio.us tag... jarche_armadillo). So enough about other people, what about me?

1. I've been married for 16 years and love my wife Greta (pronounced Greeta) and my 7 year old son Max very much.

2. I actually began this blog as an email newsletter that circulated within the Pentagon.

3. My favorite movie of all time is Highlander..or maybe Big Trouble in Little China...or maybe Office Space..or it could be Ocean's 11 (the remake)..or Full Metal Jacket..or the first Star Wars (A New Hope)..or the Day the Earth Stood Still but I'm pretty sure its one of those.

4. I was part of the team that did an archaeological survey of over 5,000 acres of the U.S. Army's Ft. Benning in Columbus, GA and we helped re-locate the twin capitals of the Lower Creek Indian Nation.

5. I have actually published a paper on PEZ in a peer-reviewed academic journal

So enough about me, who am I tagging?
Tom Crawford - You may know Tom from Root Learning or the Masie Center but Tom has started blogging and is already a force
Ron  Edwards - my mobile learning expert brother from across the Pond
Karl Kapp - my partner in our ongoing debate about who should fix ISD
Lee Kraus - Keep the faith with Learning Flow!!
Christopher Sessums - A guy I've never met but someone I read daily and with whom I've swapped some notes and who should be congratulated for winning the 2006 EduBlogger Award for Best Individual Blog.

The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online

Here.

Dude! Hurry up! I'm late for Chemistry 3B!

UC Berkeley has posted videos from lectures and classes to Google Video.

Two Papers from Downes and Siemens That I Need to Re-Read

Way back in December of '04, George Siemens wrote a great piece entitled "Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age" (his site indicates that he updated it in April of '05 and there is now a whole blog/community around this paper). Then in December of '05 (what is about winter, deep thinking and Canadians?) Stephen Downes published "An Introduction to Connective Knlowedge" (along with the 1.5 hour audi version).

I need to re-read these pieces again (and go through all the connectivism stuff on George's other site) and I thought I'd just take a minute to make sure that you knew of them as well. Be warned though - clear some time to go through these - not because of the writing - they're both fine writers - but this is long form and packed with ideas, thoughts and pieces that will surely send you off in other directions as well.

The Metaverse Roadmap: Doing Hiro Protagonist and Uncle Enzo's Pizza Proud!

I keep hearing this "R" word more and more - mark that down as one of my hot words of 2006 so far. I really like this definition that is up on the MVR site:

"A roadmap is the outcome of a collaborative foresight process that considers a broad set of factors and strategies important to reaching a future goal. Roadmaps can include vision statements, forecasts, scenarios, strategy and plans, but go beyond such tools in three ways:

1. They emerge in a collaboration network of multidisciplinary and competing experts,
2. They emphasize uncertainties and challenges as much as probable and preferred futures, and
3. They have long-term time horizons (five to fifteen years is common) by comparison to traditional forecasts and plans."

I love and grok the words but why roadmap? Seems limited to a 20th century technology (the car) and seems tied to a format that relatively shallow in terms of information and which is almost impossible to fold up. I do think that we'd be better off with more efforts like this - long-term thinking leads to long-term planning and long-term goals and so on. I think we are now witnessing in everything from the state of global politics to global warming the dangers of short-term thinking. Hurray MVR!

John Hagel and John Seely Brown - new book: "The Only Sustainable Edge"

"Our point of view is simply stated: the edge is becoming the core... 

 

What  do we mean by this? The edge is where the action is - in terms  of growth, innovation and value creation. Companies, workgroups and individuals that master the edge will  build a more sustainable core. While our primary focus will be  on business activity, our perspectives will also be relevant to  leaders of other kinds of institutions as well - educational,  governmental and social."

 

edgeperspectives.com (book site)
Edge Perspectives with John Hagel
Book Review by Tom Friedman
John Seely Brown site
John Hagel site