- Seven Foundational Visualization Papers — seven classics in the field that are cited and useful again and again.
- Git Immersion — a “walking tour” of Git inspired by the premise that to know a thing is to do it. Cf Learn Python the Hard Way or even NASA’s Planet Makeover. We’ll see more and more tutorials that require participation because you don’t get muscle memory by reading. (NASA link via BoingBoing
- Readability — strips out ads and sends money to the publishers you like. I’d never thought of a business model as something that’s imposed from the outside quite like this, but there you go.
- Quora’s Technology Examined (Phil Whelan) — In this blog post I will delve into the snippets of information available on Quora and look at Quora from a technical perspective. What technical decisions have they made? What does their architecture look like? What languages and frameworks do they use? How do they make that search bar respond so quickly? Lots of Python. (via Joshua Schachter on Delicious)
"learning" entries
Distributed resilience with functional programming
Steve Vinoski on when to make the leap to functional programming.
Functional programming has a long and distinguished heritage of great work — that was only used by a small group of programmers. In a world dominated by individual computers running single processors, the extra cost of thinking functionally limited its appeal. Lately, as more projects require distributed systems that must always be available, functional programming approaches suddenly look a lot more appealing.
Steve Vinoski, an architect at Basho Technologies, has been working with distributed systems and complex projects for a long time, first as a tentative explorer and then leaping across to Erlang when it seemed right. Seventeen years as a columnist on C, C++, and functional languages have given him a unique viewpoint on how developers and companies are deciding whether and how to take the plunge.
Highlights from our recent interview include:
In defense of frivolities and open-ended experiments
Our children will improve upon the things we're building in ways we can't conceive.
Before you scoff at the pointlessness of yet another social network, web app, or project, remember that we don't always do the research or build the company that is immediately useful or profitable.
DIY learning: Schoolers, Edupunks, and Makers challenge education as we know it
We're on a path toward personalized learning.
Schoolers, Edupunks and Makers are showing us what's possible when learners, not institutions, own the education that will define their lives.
Master a new skill? Here's your badge
The Open Badges Project shows off skills with a reworked version of an old idea.
The Mozilla Foundation's Erin Knight talks about how the badges and open framework of the Open Badge Project could change what "counts" as learning.
Does digital text create a cognitive gap?
A study finds electronic text may disrupt learning techniques.
Students and professors have anxiously anticipated the replacement of analog textbooks with digital options. As it turns out, however, current technology might actually hinder learning.
Four Short Links: 2 February 2011
Visualization Papers, Immersive Learning, Readability, and Quora's Technology
Education's real superheroes assemble
What is global education? A free online conference addresses that question.
The free 2010 Global Education Conference will examine various definitions of "global education" and how global awareness can become part of learning's fabric.
Four short links: 23 June 2010
Being Wrong, Science Malfunding, Touch-screen Libraries, Mining Flickr Photos
- Ira Glass on Being Wrong (Slate) — fascinating interview with Ira Glass on the fundamental act of learning: being wrong. I had this experience a couple of years ago where I got to sit in on the editorial meeting at the Onion. Every Monday they have to come up with like 17 or 18 headlines, and to do that, they generate 600 headlines per week. I feel like that’s why it’s good: because they are willing to be wrong 583 times to be right 17. (via Hacker News)
- Real Lives and White Lies in the Funding of Scientific Research (PLoSBiology) — very clear presentation of the problems with the current funding models of scientific research, where the acknowledged best scientists spend most of their time writing funding proposals. K.’s plight (an authentic one) illustrates how the present funding system in science eats its own seed corn. To expect a young scientist to recruit and train students and postdocs as well as producing and publishing new and original work within two years (in order to fuel the next grant application) is preposterous.
- jQTouch Roadmap — interesting to me is the primary distinction between Sencha and jQTouch, namely that jQT is for small devices (phones) only, while Sencha handles small and large (tablet) touch-screen devices. (via Simon St Laurent)
- Travel Itineraries from Flickr Photo Trails (Greg Linden) — clever idea, to use metadata extracted from Flickr photos (location, time, etc.) to construct itineraries for travellers, saying where to go, how long to spend there, and how long to expect to spend getting from place to place. Another story of the surprise value that can be extracted from overlooked data.
TOC Preview: The Future of Digital Textbooks
Technology is driving change in the way people teach, learn, and create. The impact of technology on teaching and learning in K-12, higher education, and professional learning has been profound, and, while no one can predict the future, it's safe to say this transformation has only just begun. At next week's Tools of Change for Publishing conference, a session titled…
Augmented reality and the ultimate user manual
The ARMAR project shows how augmented reality can revolutionize learning
The ARMAR augmented reality project out of Columbia University offers an intriguing glimpse into how AR and education may soon intersect. Instead of rifling through a manual or looking up information, an AR layer could guide you through a task. The creators of ARMAR talk about their work and its implications in this Q&A.