Museum of Old and New Art (MONA)

Museum of Old and New Art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hands down the most impressive museum and art collection I have ever seen. Enjoyed every step I took through that place!

Lack of empathy

Why Good Classes Fail

I agree. In my 10 years experience inside institutions of education, teachers lack of empathy, bordering on outright hostility toward students, is the probably the biggest source of failure in formal education settings.

Search Vimeo for Creative Commons videos

CC News: Vimeo adds CC browse and search capabilities

USA public gets access to publicly funded research

Act now to support public access to federally funded research

The USA has past legislation that mandates all publicly funded research ($60 billion worth) be made accessible within 6 months of formal publication.

Brewster for boss hog. Archive.org has a great idea

Want to help build a distributed web?

Thumbs up for Brewster's distributed P2P with Server file sharing idea.

All media files have a unique hashcode that a browser looks up when directed to fetch that file. The browser seeks that file both from the server as well as P2P, bringing it down faster, and adding download records to the original published location.

Wikipedia Education Programs

Wikipedia Education Program kicks off another term

As always, Australia is conspicuously absent from the education with Wikipedia project space. That's not to say Australians are not engaging (although that is partly true), there is for example University of Canberra work going into Wikiversity. It seems the Wikimedia Foundation is has a litle blind spot when it comes to Australia, and work going on outside the Wikipedia project.

Peak Oil Jacket

Prototype 001

These past few months, I've been designing a jacket, working with Julio Valdes in Sydney to develop a pattern, and get a prototype made up, ready for on-demand making. Here's photos of prototype 001. Its made of black oilskin, lined with ventile, and then kangaroo leather on the hood brim and cuffs. There are a few things not shown, such as the RiRi and splash resistant zippers I plan to use, as well as the flaps with press studs to shield the main body zipper.

Julio Valdes

Once I get the design, pattern and materials right, I plan to sell the jacket, made to order, in a variety of materials, from all Kanga leather, to recycled canvas. Although this particular version is pretty heavy weight, it is designed for outdoor activity like skiing. For those who are more worried about weight than they are about durability, there will be a light weight version made from single layer ventile.

Max

I'm working on pants, bib and brace over alls, shirts, feather down jackets and wool mid layer jackets. The designs will be open source and simplified to support DIY makers. The materials are natural, and the cuts for active wear. I hope to start marketing the first jacket by the end of the year, after I've finished fully testing the designs and materials in the field, through an Australian winter scrub.

Reading on a screen

Reading on screen

Back in 2001 I was shown a paper on a Microsoft funded research project that found that people's reading comprehension was reduced by as much as 70% when reading from a screen. Admittedly screen resolutions have improved slightly since then, and more people today would be used to reading text on a screen, but I'd dearly live to find that research finding, to counter the obvious bias in publications linked above.

New book: Learning, Freedom and the Web.

Learning, Freedom and the Web

Nice mobile display for the html5 version of the book. Haven't started reading yet, but the process for the writing alone is note worthy. Similar to how a few of us wrote Future of Learning in a Networked World - available as a not for profit print book or free pdf at Lulu.com looking fwd to reading Learning, Freedom and the Web.

Work is not social?

“you simply can’t train people to be social!”

Harold and Jane are reflecting on the difficulty of changing workplaces into socially networked, collaborative spaces. I get to thinking if they are confronting Deschooling?

Jean Lave has a new book out

Apprenticeship in critical ethnographical practice - Jean Lave's new book

UBC does a wiki right

UBC Wiki Content – To Go

While I wish UBC had of joined the Wikiversity project and built social capital and influence there, their decision to be their own 'control freaks' is giving them the space to innovate. They're making their developments available to other MediaWiki developers. I really hope Wikiversity will notice their embed code feature.

Comics alphabetically

Comics alphabetically | Polish'd Silence

Janet Google+ this amazing list of small, zine style comics. I used to draw up comics when I was younger, something I'd love to get back to doing.

Solar cycle 24 predict temperature decline

Quantifying the Solar Cycle 24 Temperature Decline

Paper predicting a significant temperature decline from Solar Cycle 24.

Editing Wikipedia for language and culture learning

Wikipedia as a foreign “culture”

The story of a teacher of English as a second language in Mexico, using the Spanish and English Wikipedias for advanced language practice, and cultural awareness.

Wikimedia software winners

October 2011 Coding Challenge winners

Some nice software has been developed to compliment Wikimedia Foundation projects. Definately my favourite is the Android based Wikimedia Commons Uploader.

Research into Wikipedia

Wikimedia Research Newsletter, January 2012

Includes a linguistic study that thinks the general politics in Wikipedia is shifting from left to right

Guide to finding works in the public domain

Guide to Finding Interesting Public Domain Works Online by the Open Knowledge Foundation

Very good, concise, quick and easy to follow

Should education reform be led by PhDs

Should Education Reform be Led by Ph.D.'s?

Stan asks a cheeky question about the legitimacy and even value-of-contribution fron PhD formed thinking and practice. Most in academia will probably dismiss Stan as anti-intellectual, showing their ignorance in doing so, because Stan is anything but.

I certainly agree, the title of PhD is ultimately meaningless, because anyone or any job that relies on that title clearly isn't capable of demonstrating much else.

Wara and computer assisted education in remote Central Australia

some possible uses of information technology on the APY Lands

Bill offers more valuable notes on a plan to test various software and hardware resources in schools, to assist indigenous language learning in Central Australia. Tests include a language dictionary for Open Office, sound recording, and the XO computers (which I have doubts about after my experiences using early models in Tuvalu).

How to produce media for mobile

MVC in 3-tier architecture course on Wikiversity

Peter Rawsthorne is developing a how-to produce for mobile, on Wikiversity. The first stream is a nice and simple approach to working HTML5 for mobile. This is a very nice addition to Wikiversity, nice and simple approach too.

Online deliberation systems

New Research Paper Presents 30 General Design Considerations for Online Deliberation Systems
Steve Downs is finding it for me more these days. A more useful summary of an inaccessible article about online deliberation systems, with comment on what works and what doesn't. Along side the pie chart of disruptions to education it should be clear that the real value and challenge for educational developers, is the successful creation of a deliberative community of practice that is useful to people at the level of knowledge that they are at.

Disruption leads to innovation

Unbundling Education, A Simple Framework

I rarely find infographics very useful, but this one I do. It breaks formal education practice up into a pie chart, then orders them from dark to light based on what is most easily disrupted or replaced by current technologies and perspectives. I find this layout good in simplifying an overly complicated system, and helpful for prioritising educational development projects in the formal setting.

Making ideas happen

[Image]: Decision Tree for Vision Manifestion

Really interesting flow chart, starting at a troublsome point however, "are you living your dream Yes / No?"

None-the-less helpful quick reference for forming and actioning ideas. Love the "make art" end point for the question "do people get your idea - no?"

Review of a 1979 book on Knowledge

Summary: The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge | emergent by design

If its 1970s, I'm interested it seems.

This is a book review/summary of Jean-François Lyotard’s 1979 book The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge

..
How do we define ‘knowledge’ in a postindustrial society equipped with new media, instantaneous communication technologies and universal access to information? Who controls its transmission? How can scientific knowledge be legitimated?

Elements of leadership

9 Personal Capacities of Authentic Leaders

Interesting graphic of 9 agreeable elements or personal capacities for good leadership. A teacher is a leader right?

Notes on Michael Wesch's perspectives on new media.

Michael Wesch: It’s a Pull, Pull World.

Good notes and great quotes from Michael Wesch's perspectives on new media.

Open for Learning

Open for Learning

Nice post from Keith outlining some principles and ideas for open learning, toward a cheaper and more adaptable education.

Bill's notes on the instruction of indigenous children in Far North Queensland

ending the groundhog day of educational reform

As always, Bill Kerr offers very useful notes on Noel Pearson and what is being talked about and done for education in Australian indigenous communities.

Melbourne Free University

Special Seminar:Contagious Strikes – Workers’ Struggles in China

The Melbourne Free University keeps rolling out the intetesting seminars. I wish they'd post the recordings on the same chanels I would pick it up, ie the RSS feed. Their posters are just lovely though, and if I can find a way into Melbourne I'd like to try and associate with them, and see if I can extend their seminars into study guides on Wikiversity or Something.

Wikimedia: Accessible and reusable educational resources

Wikimedia: accessible (new) media for (almost) all

Teemu Leinonen gives a nice summary of the Wikimedia approach to open educational resources and reference materials.

Pro censorship

Communist TV 7, Capitalist TV 0

Fascinating perspective on Chinese Government regulation of media and entertainment.

Speed dating to start an unconference?

Speed Dating at the 2012 Learning Technologies

Stephen points to an interesting idea, to bring the speed dating format into the conference, even the online conference. I'm thinking it might go well as an activity prior to the agenda building at an unconference.