Saturday, January 29, 2005

Answers.com - Online Dictionary, Encyclopedia and much more

Answers.com - Online Dictionary, Encyclopedia and much more

Saw an article about by Walter Mossberg in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. I though it related to our discussions on smarter search engines. The idea is to create a search engine that provides more than just links. The ideal goal is for a user to be able to interact with virtually every word or phrase that appears on the screen.

I tried a few sample searches. While it had relatively little to say on "digitality," it had a ton of information on "Boston." Neat. It still has links to google on the left margin in addition to a few other tools.

Santos

Thursday, January 27, 2005

New Media Pedagogy?

Overheard in the student union this afternoon:

One student complains to another student about needing to get to class on time. "My professor takes pictures of the class with his digital camera. A few minutes after class begins, he says 'Time for attendance' and snaps the picture. Sometimes he also takes it a few minutes before class ends...you know, just in case anyone slips out early. I guess it's so if anyone challenges an absence, he can say, 'well, you weren't in the picture.'"

I love it. Digital pictures for attendance. Could you put these on Flickr? Students (and parents? friends?) could keep track of when they miss class. Students could even find out who to call for the homework.

Is this new media pedagogy???

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Google Video Search

So, we've seen Google News and Google Scholar. Now comes Google Video Search. What do you all think are the implications of this new search tool?

learning to speak "blog"

Thinking of starting a blog? Blogging already? While spooning my way through the mountain of info on blogging, I came across a terrific survey/comparison chart of weblog platform software. Thanks to Owen Winkler for his work on gathering the information and compiling the detailed list of defined terms. …lots of help for me! …worth the look/see if you’re facing off with a blog challenge of your own.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Richard Florida and creativity

This came up in class today, so I thought I should provide my source:

Florida

This selection by Richard Florida concerns the "creative" or information-based social class. Florida implies that this section of society is in a kind of ascention akin to that of the mechanical/technical middle-class during the industrial revolution up through the period after WWII.

I don't think this selection really goes into it, but there are implications of how notions of time are reformed in the creative class. The lines between work and leisure are somewhat blurred, in that the digital world becomes a pervasive milieu. You can see how in an industrial society, time becomes a variable to control, in that the means of production are skill-based and thereby linked to the number of times they can be performed. Flordia alludes to the fact that "creativity," as he calls it, is not dictated by time. It is not a skill, and thus cannot be measured through its number of daily repetitions.

Interestingly, however, the creative professional, according to Florida, is deeply invested in geography and the culture of his or her enviroment. As such, Florida proposes that cities of import will no longer grow around the industrial resources of old, such as waterways, mineral deposits, raillines, etc. Cities will grow according to the culture they cultivate which can attract the creative professional. This is interesting, because it establishes that the creative professional doesn't "exist" solely inside the digital, but seems to expect the same kind of on-demand services in the physical world.

Manovich links courtesy of my del.icio.us

Here are most of the links referenced in Manovich: http://del.icio.us/rhubarb/manovich

Monday, January 24, 2005

What do you read first thing in the morning?

Most of us have a few favorite websites that we always visit each day. For instance, after reading email, it's almost second nature for me to check out the weather forecast, Google news, the Chronicle, and Metafilter. But really, these are more general information sites (unless there's an interesting discussion on mefi). I don't get excited about reading them because I'm (mostly) just looking for information. So, who (or what) do I look forward to reading? I usually enjoy reading dooce, wonkette, 11D, Aaron Swartz, and a few others. Of course, I subscribe ton of sites on bloglines, but these are just a few sites that immediately come to mind.

So, what about you? What do you read?

Web Design Handout

Our former Purdue faculty member Johndan posts this nice looking Web Design Handout for people to use in their classes. Some of you might find it useful in 106 and others might find it useful for projects in our class.

My email has been down for a while, so sorry if you've tried to contact me this weekend. They're forcing us to change passwords every ninety days, and if you are a mac user, it means that they have to change it for you. So, you can figure out the rest of the story. Some more later.