buridan's blog

CALL FOR PAPERS

special issue of Learning, Media and Technology

issue theme: Learning in Virtual Worlds

Edited by Jeremy Hunsinger and Aleks Krotoski

Virtual worlds are learning worlds.

There is substantial evidence that people learn in virtual worlds. While most learning in these spaces is informal, existing outside the school curriculum, formalised learning environments have also been developed in textual worlds, MOOs, MUSHes, MUDs and multi-media spaces like ActiveWorlds(R), Second Life(R), World of Warcraft (R) to support educational goals in primary, secondary, higher and lifelong learning contexts.

You can't fully understand how hemoglobin molecules interact until you've seen them depicted through a classical pas de deux.

[From Dance Your Way to a Ph.D. - The Daily Beast ]

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pretty funny:) dance your ph.d.

http://websurvey.sfu.ca/survey/28872637

Please do this for my colleague Richard

I've been working on our annual report. Here are some interesting stats:

The CDDC has been referenced in over 250 books, over 500 scholarly publications total. We've appeared in numerous textbooks, academic papers, etc. Last year we had over 2 million unique addresses visiting our servers and we transferred over 4terabytes of information. We have around 65000 links to our site, many are duplicates, but around we do have links from at least one university on every continent that has a university, and usually we have many links from many universities. We have links from corporations, and many links in the international non-profit sphere. Our materials have been used by millions of people and in hundreds courses and likely will continue to be used for some time.

The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education

[From The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education -- Publications -- Center for Social Media at American University]

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This looks like a good starter resource for those interested in how to use Fair Use in the United States' copyright regime.

Therefore, although invited to do so by several amici, we decline to adopt a broad exclusion over software or any other such category of subject matter beyond the exclusion of claims drawn to fundamental principles set forth by the Supreme Court. See, e.g., Br. of Amicus Curiae End Software Patents; Br. of Amicus Curiae Red Hat, Inc. at 4-7. We also note that the process claim at issue in this appeal is not, in any event, a software claim. Thus, the facts here would be largely unhelpful in illuminating the distinction between those software claims that are patent-eligible and those that are not not.

[From Groklaw - The Bilski Decision Is In: Buh-Bye [Most] Business Methods Patents - As text & updated 3Xs]

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the courts finally said.... 'no, you have to apply the supreme court guidelines and law' and when that happens, common sense prevails and any patent that can soley be performed in the mind of a person was voided.

“We helped create a highly educated part of the working poor, and it’s starting to get attention from outsiders,” he said, noting that unions are trying to organize part-timers, and lawmakers in nearly a dozen states are examining the issue. [From Official Offers Harsh Critique of Policies Toward Adjuncts]

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i hope that this makes it clearer to people who want to be a professor that it isn't really the best thing to be, nor quite so profitable as one would think.

Designing for learning in Virtual Worlds

Seminar at Roskilde University

I edit the transdisciplinary studies book series with Jason Nolan

Towards Humane Technologies: Biotechnology, New Media and Ethics (Paperback)

Jamie's Ministry of Food, the celebrity chef's new TV series, is a powerful portrait of the socially excluded. It also reveals an enduring truth, says Felicity Lawrence: our diet today is as much about class as it always has been - and it will take more than a one-man mission to change that

[From Felicity Lawrence on Jamie Oliver's TV series Jamie's Ministry of Food | Life and style | The Guardian ]

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Given that we face the same sort of issues in the United States, with students coming into classes with various nutrition related illnesses, I think it might be worth considering some of the points made in this article about the issues about food in the U.K.

It is a bit off-topic, and it is nominally about a tv series, but I think it points toward some distressing issues that translate into computing behaviours also.

For a long time I was working on a dissertation looking at Open Source technologies. Today, I did not turn that dissertation in. That project has been shelved. Today I turned in the first draft of a dissertation on the Critical Political Economy of New Knowledge Technologies. I have a ton of research on Open Source things, but in the end, I looked at all that has been done in the last few years and decided descriptive sts work on open source technologies didn't really interest me so much as much as cyberinfrastructures, e-social science, and virtual worlds. Which, I've been writing a good bit about in the last few years. So That's what the dissertation is about and its in draft.

How a professor spends time

[From 水鳥君: How a professor spends time]

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How Umberto Eco spends the working hours of an average year....

September 19th (every year)

is International Talk Like A Pirate Day

[From The Official site for International Talk Like A Pirate Day - September 19]

Thwarting the Copycats

When it comes to today’s kids and their use of technology, a new report sponsored by the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee reveals some very interesting results. The biggest shock to many will be one that is actually quite obvious to those who work in education.

[From Student Shortcomings - Anything but Masters of Technology - OpenEducation.net ]

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open education has a nice revealing report about student's skills with technology.