EduGeek Journal

Even though social networking is not new, new social networking services seems to going in all kinds of new directions this year. Blogs and discussion boards seem to have been the prototype social networks. Then MySpace and Facebook made networking an official force on the Internet. Facebook had one feature that gave users the ability [...]

Massachusetts Institute of Technology has launched MIT OpenCourseWare, “a free and open educational resource (OER) for educators, students, and self-learners around the world”” (MIT website). That’s right, anyone with an internet connection can access materials from MIT courses. I’m not talking about just a couple of canned PowerPoint presentations either, these are robust courses that have a [...]

As Matt and I are trying to figure out this whole “twitter thing”, today I decided to go out and see what big names I could find who are also twittering away. Besides your favorite Edugeek Journalists (or should we call ourselves “Edugeekers”? Or just “Edugeeks”?…), below is a list of Twitterers of note (in [...]

Like it or hate it, social networking is one of the new EdTech buzz terms. Yeah – I know – there are more buzzwords now than anyone can seem to keep track of. But social networking is gaining the attention of many universities and institutions. And we’re not talking about your friendly neighborhood super teenie-bopper [...]

I knew this would happen. In fact. I predicted it on my old blog. Google announced this week that they will be soon releasing “Presentations” – an online alternative to PowerPoint. But, they aren’t competing with Microsoft. Oh, no. They are bringing presentations to a “new level.” Whatever. It’s free, it’s from Google, and it’s [...]

Today’s news about the tragedy at Virginia Tech is just gut-wrenchingly horrific. A memorial has been set up in Second Life in honor of those we lost today. To visit the memorial, while in Second Life, go to Info Island 90, 116, 33. (NOTE: You must have Second Life installed on your computer to visit [...]

Over the weekend, I took a last minuter trip to El Paso, to be with a family member in the hospital. On the plane ride over, I did the usual – leafed through the in flight magazine, hoping for a vaguely entertaining article on something. Anything. I actually found several – one on the official [...]

(Warning: Major rant in progress.) What in the world is wrong with Blackboard/WebCT? As you all know, last year Bb bought out WebCT and promised to maintain both products and eventually merge the two into one super-duper-LMS. We WebCT users didn’t really know what to expect — we’d just upgraded to CE 6 (long, frustrating [...]

On the way in to work today, I was listening to a Metaverse Session podcast (which is excellent, by the way), and they were talking about a screensaver called Twingly that shows a 3D globe and maps out in real time as blogs are posted from around the world. As soon as I got to [...]

I post this for a few reasons: We get a sneak peek at Global Kids island on the Teen Grid in Second Life. (The Teen Grid is only accessible to players under 18 and to educators who have had a criminal background check.) One of the avatars in the video looks a *lot* like my [...]