A. Kipta's Blog 03/30/2011 (a.m.)

• Before Changing DNS Servers to OpenDNS or Google DNS, Read this!

  A CDN uses your computer’s IP Address to determine your current location and then redirects you to the server that’s nearest to you. However, if you use a public DNS service, the CDN may not get to know your accurate location as your IP address is masked by the public DNS Service. The CDN could therefore serve content from a server that’s not closest to you and hence it will take more time to download files.

  tags: networks internet dns performance

• Internet plumbing: Think globally, route locally | The Economist

  Internet business thrives on excising inefficiencies, so users did not have to wait long for OpenDNS. By offering alternative DNS server numbers the company is able to reduce latency substantially. It can also redirect from, say, misspelled domain names to ones that do exist (.cm to .com, for instance), intercept Google queries made in a location field instead of a browser's search field, filter malicious sites and offer parental and business browsing controls.

  tags: networks dns content performance internet

• Take a Minute to Collect Your Thoughts With Evernote - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  Evernote often gets dismissed as yet another web-clipping or “notebooking” tool (like the ill-fated Google Notebook)—an application used for collecting interesting tidbits of information you may come across on the web. While most will find Evernote’s web-clipping abilities useful, Evernote can collect so much more. Once I started creating short text files, adding images or sound files from mobile devices, uploading PDFs and even scanning in documents, I started to see it less as a simple notebook and more as my personal database.

  tags: evernote notes

• Diigo’s Android Power Note App - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  Power Note is full-featured note-taking tool for Android, similar to EverNote or Catch (formerly known as 3Banana). Like these other apps, Power Note lets you save text notes, voice recordings, and snapshots. Where Power Note distinguishes itself is its integration with Diigo. Any notes, recordings, or snapshots you take will automatically sync with your Diigo account, so they’re accessible from any browser. You can also quickly view your saved Diigo bookmarks and annotations from within Power Note. And of course you can use Power Note to bookmark pages from within your Android browser.

  tags: android diigo app

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

A. Kipta's Blog 03/29/2011 (p.m.)

• IMPALA - Podcasts and Other Project Outputs

  The table contains 10 variables, and each variable offers multiple options, that practitioners need to consider before designing and developing their own podcast application.

  tags: podcast design development

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

A. Kipta's Blog 03/28/2011 (p.m.)

• Securing All Androids Proves Tricky - Technology Review

  On March 1, Google removed the Trojan applications; a total of 58 were found to contain the DroidDream malware. Google also said it had determined that approximately 260,000 Android phones had been infected, although no personal information was compromised. Google then used a feature built into Android that allowed it to remotely remove the rogue applications from infected devices.

  tags: android security malware

• Crisis Mapping Meets Check-in - Technology Review

  From Libya to Japan, a Web-reporting platform called Ushahidi has helped human rights workers and others document and make sense of fast-moving crises. The platform allows reports from cell phones and Web-connected devices to be collected and displayed on Web-based maps. Now Ushahidi is adding a concept borrowed from location-based social networking, as well as layers of private access—functionality that could make the service more efficient and useful in politically charged circumstances. It could allow groups like aid workers or election monitors to keep track of one another, note their progress in deploying resources, or enter notes that can be formalized later, without making that information public. The new feature is known as "check-in," also used by social sites like Foursquare—in that case as a way of alerting friends to your presence at a particular location.

  tags: mapping technology cell_phone

• New Protocol Turbocharges the Web - Technology Review

  Web developers have been hacking around HTTP's limitations for years with programming techniques such as Comet, which delays closing an HTTP connection in order to transmit more data. But what they really want is a connection between client and server that stays open indefinitely and allows both parties to send data back and forth as needed. The nearly-complete HTML5 standard for current and future Web software includes just such a solution, a new protocol called WebSockets. This protocol allows a Web client to create a connection, keep it open as long as it wants, and both send and receive data continuously.

  tags: technology protocol web

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A. Kipta's Blog 03/28/2011 (a.m.)

• High-Tech Flirting Turns Explicit, Altering Young Lives - NYTimes.com

  One day last winter Margarite posed naked before her bathroom mirror, held up her cellphone and took a picture. Then she sent the full-length frontal photo to Isaiah, her new boyfriend. Both were in eighth grade. They broke up soon after. A few weeks later, Isaiah forwarded the photo to another eighth-grade girl, once a friend of Margarite’s. Around 11 o’clock at night, that girl slapped a text message on it. “Ho Alert!” she typed. “If you think this girl is a whore, then text this to all your friends.” Then she clicked open the long list of contacts on her phone and pressed “send.” In less than 24 hours, the effect was as if Margarite, 14, had sauntered naked down the hallways of the four middle schools in this racially and economically diverse suburb of the state capital, Olympia. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of students had received her photo and forwarded it.

  tags: nytimes teens technology privacy

• Facebook and Twitter Valuations May Show a New Tech Bubble - NYTimes.com

  Banks pouring money into technology funds, wealthy clients and institutions clamoring to get pieces of start-ups, expectations of stock market debuts building — as Wall Street’s machinery kicks into second gear, some investors with memories of the Internet bust a decade earlier are wondering whether this sudden burst of activity spells danger for the industry once again. With all this exuberance, valuations are soaring. Investments in Facebook and Zynga have more than quintupled the implied worth of each company in the last two years. The social shopping site Groupon is said to be considering an initial public offering that would value the company at $25 billion. Less than a year ago, the company was valued at $1.4 billion.

  tags: technology nytimes future

• Let Kids Rule the School - NYTimes.com

  IN a speech last week, President Obama said it was unacceptable that “as many as a quarter of American students are not finishing high school.” But our current educational approach doesn’t just fail to prepare teenagers for graduation or for college academics; it fails to prepare them, in a profound way, for adult life. We want young people to become independent and capable, yet we structure their days to the minute and give them few opportunities to do anything but answer multiple-choice questions, follow instructions and memorize information. We cast social interaction as an impediment to learning, yet all evidence points to the huge role it plays in their psychological development. That’s why we need to rethink the very nature of high school itself.

  tags: traditional high_school

• Judith Scott-Clayton: The Dark Side of Choice in Higher Education - NYTimes.com

  Last week, writing on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times, Susan Engel described a small-scale experiment giving high school students greater choice and flexibility over their education. In what was christened the Independent Project, eight students in western Massachusetts designed their own “school within a school,” in which they wrote and then followed their own curriculum. The project was meant to counter the traditional, highly structured high school experience, which, Ms. Engel argued, “doesn’t just fail to prepare teenagers for graduation or for college academics; it fails to prepare them, in a profound way, for adult life.”

  tags: traditional high_school higher_education

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A. Kipta's Blog 03/27/2011 (a.m.)

• Development of Disruptive Open Access Journals | Anderson | Canadian Journal of Higher Education

  Open access (OA) publication has emerged, with disruptive effects, as a major outlet for scholarly publication. OA publication is usually associated with on-line distribution and provides access to scholarly publications to anyone, anywhere–regardless of their ability to pay subscription fees or their association with an educational institution. The article overviews the growth and impact of OA publication in Canada and elsewhere. The article also presents a case study of the evolution over its first nine years of the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Education (IRRODL). IRRODL has become the most widely read and widely cited journal in the distance education and open learning community, yet it continues to struggle for recognition by some academics, funding, and rating organizations.

  tags: open_access journals

• 5 Free Alternatives to Photoshop You Should Try

  With digital photography largely taking over traditional film photography’s place, it has become more and more important to have an image editing software. The king of kings is, of course, Photoshop, but with a price tag of $699 for the full version, many started to wonder if there aren’t free options around that could do the same things Photoshop does.

  tags: photoshop alternatives graphics photography

• Audacity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  "Audacity is a free software, cross-platform digital audio editor and recording application. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and BSD. Audacity was created by Dominic Mazzoni while he was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University. Mazzoni now works at Google, but is still the main developer and maintainer of Audacity, with help from many others around the world."

  tags: podcast mp3 audio editor

• LAME - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  "LAME is a free software application used to encode/compress audio into the lossy MP3 file format."

  tags: podcast mp3 encoder

• SPSS Tutorial

  "This tutorial was written as an introductory guide to SPSS for social scientists and social science students, including scholars performing quantitative research and undergraduates working on their senior theses."

  tags: spss statistics tutorials

• SPSS Tutorial

  "This is a beginner's tutorial covering simple aspects of data entry and manipulation. If this is your first time with SPSS, come here; we'll try to be gentle."

  tags: spss statistics tutorials

• Visual Statistics Table of Contents

  tags: statistics tutorials

• Texas A&M University Department of Statistics: SPSS Tutorials

  tags: spss statistics tutorials

• SPSS Textbook Examples

  "This page contains pages that describe how to perform common statistical analyses using examples from textbooks. The data files are all available over the web so you can replicate the results shown in these pages."

  tags: spss statistics tutorials

• SPSS Starter Kit

  "These materials have been collected from various places on our website and have been ordered so that you can, in step-by-step fashion, develop the skills needed to conduct common analyses in SPSS. Although SPSS has a very nice point-and-click interface, we suggest that you learn to use SPSS syntax. Almost all procedures and operations in SPSS can be done either via point-and-click or syntax. While using the point-and-click interface may seem easier at first, you will quickly find that it makes documenting what you are doing very difficult. Please see our seminar on SPSS syntax for some tips on ways to ease yourself into using SPSS syntax."

  tags: spss statistics tutorials

• Resources to help you learn and use SPSS

  tags: spss statistics tutorials

• SPSS Techniques Series: Statistics on Likert Scale Surveys | SPSS | Help & Support | Information Technology Services | University of Northern Iowa

  "This paper contains a description and example of how to run t-tests on individual Likert scale questions. Although this is often done in practice, it is NOT a statistically valid technique, since Likert scale questions do not possess a normal probability distribution. It is presented in this paper since it is commonly asked about. A Likert scale measures the extent to which a person agrees or disagrees with the question. The most common scale is 1 to 5. Often the scale will be 1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=not sure,4=agree, and 5=strongly agree. Since likert scale questions most often range from 1 to 5, optical mark scanning sheet can be used for data entry."

  tags: spss likert_scale survey statistics tutorials

• Survey Research Training Materials

  "This page includes various project publications and training materials on social and survey research methods, levels of data, policy relevant research and data processing for time series and cross-sectional analysis with SPSS for Windows, links to other sources and graduate course materials on survey research methods."

  tags: statistics spss training tutorials

• Pitfalls of Data Analysis

  "There seems to be a pervasive notion that "you can prove anything with statistics." This is only true if you use them improperly. In this workshop we'll discuss things that people often overlook in their data analysis, and ways people sometimes "bend the rules" of statistics to support their viewpoint. We will also discuss ways you can make sure your own statistics are clear and accurate. I will include examples from medicine, education, and industry. This paper presents material covered in a workshop at the Third International Applied Statistics in Industry Conference in Dallas, TX, June 5-7, 1995."

  tags: statistics data analysis

• Raynald's SPSS Tools

  "The main purpose is to present useful code and techniques to increase productivity of all level of SPSS users."

  tags: spss statistics reference tutorials DEPM650

• SPSSVideoTutor.com – Free SPSS Video Tutorials

  "At SPSSVideoTutor.com you can… * Watch video tutorials on performing various analyses in SPSS * Ask questions related to your SPSS and/or research projects * Request 1-on-1 tutorials via phone or web conferencing * Get your assignments checked before you submit them"

  tags: statistics tutorials

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A. Kipta's Blog 03/26/2011 (p.m.)

• Music in the Classroom: Distraction or Study Tool?

  "According to the study "Effects of Background Music on Phonological Short-term Memory" by Salame and Baddeley, listening to lyrical music while studying creates a huge distraction. And that means people don't remember certain tasks and bits of knowledge they need the most for learning. According to Current Psychology and the study of Salame and Baddeley, “Music as well as speech is highly structured, and one may therefore expect to find the same disruption with music as is apparent with speech.” This means that distractions from bothersome surrounding discussions are equivalent to listening to music. "

  tags: music concentration study research

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A. Kipta's Blog 03/26/2011 (a.m.)

• Handbook of Biological Statistics: Introduction

  "Welcome to the Handbook of Biological Statistics! This online textbook evolved from a set of notes for my Biological Data Analysis class at the University of Delaware. My main goal in that class is to teach biology students how to choose the appropriate statistical test for a particular experiment, then apply that test and interpret the results. I spend relatively little time on the mathematical basis of the tests; for most biologists, statistics is just a useful tool, like a microscope, and knowing the detailed mathematical basis of a statistical test is as unimportant to most biologists as knowing which kinds of glass were used to make a microscope lens. Biologists in very statistics-intensive fields, such as ecology, epidemiology, and systematics, may find this handbook to be a bit superficial for their needs, just as a microscopist using the latest techniques in 4-D, 3-photon confocal microscopy needs to know more about their microscope than someone who's just counting the hairs on a fly's back. "

  tags: statistics mathematics

• RANDOM.ORG - True Random Number Service

  "Perhaps you have wondered how predictable machines like computers can generate randomness. In reality, most random numbers used in computer programs are pseudo-random, which means they are a generated in a predictable fashion using a mathematical formula. This is fine for many purposes, but it may not be random in the way you expect if you're used to dice rolls and lottery drawings. RANDOM.ORG offers true random numbers to anyone on the Internet. The randomness comes from atmospheric noise, which for many purposes is better than the pseudo-random number algorithms typically used in computer programs. People use RANDOM.ORG for holding drawings, lotteries and sweepstakes, to drive games and gambling sites, for scientific applications and for art and music. The service has existed since 1998 and was built and is being operated by Mads Haahr of the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland."

  tags: statistics mathematics

• The cost of online learning: $12.50 an hour?

  "There are several ways to arrive at this figure, but the simplest is to divide the cost of the course per student by the number of hours they spend studying. In my particular case, the breakeven cost per student (in essence, the full tuition fee) of $12,500 divided by 1,000 hours of study. ... A graduate online program of 30 credits (10 courses each of three credits) using for nearly all courses a standard LMS, with discussion forums, a small amount of group project work on some courses, and two or three assignments per course, plus a good deal of reading, either online or in print. Courses lasted 13 weeks and students studies in cohorts. In terms of design, pretty standard (all right, boring), but students seemed to like it. Course completion rates were high (85%+)."

  tags: online_learning costing bates.tony

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A. Kipta's Blog 03/25/2011 (p.m.)

• Improving PowerPoint-style Presentations - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  "Many people have developed a quasi-instinctive shudder at the mention of PowerPoint. It only takes a few badly designed slide decks, read more or less verbatim, and in a droning, flat tone, to put you off the format forever. Students’ relationship with PowerPoint is more ambivalent: some students love badly-designed, text-heavy slides, because, when the professor makes them available, they don’t have to take notes! Other students rely on PowerPoint’s ease-of-use as a crutch to get through presentations. For every student who appreciates having something to look at besides the instructor, there’s another who’s grateful to be able to sit back and passively absorb information–or nap. As is so often the case, however, the problem isn’t necessarily the tool, it’s how you use it. "

  tags: powerpoint presentations

• Judge Rejects Settlement in Google Books Case, Saying It Goes Too Far - Publishing - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  "The proposed settlement in the long-standing class-action lawsuit over Google's vast book-scanning project is dead, at least in its current form. In a ruling on Tuesday, the federal judge overseeing the case rejected the settlement, saying that it "would simply go too far," even though "the digitization of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many." But he also urged the parties to consider revising the settlement, and suggested an approach that would deal with his major concerns. The case goes back to 2005, when the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild sued Google, asserting that its book-digitizing violated copyright law. The parties to the case reached a settlement agreement in 2008, a revised version of which was filed in late 2009. That "Amended Settlement Agreement" is what was rejected today in a ruling from the U.S. District Court in Manhattan by Judge Denny Chin. (Judge Chin was a member of the district court when the case came before him in 2005; he is now a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.)"

  tags: google legal education copyright

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A. Kipta's Blog 03/25/2011 (a.m.)

• Working Smarter Glossary - Internet Time Alliance

  Unpredictability, volatility, and information glut are the new normal for twenty-first century CLOs. Grappling with blazing-fast change requires a new vocabulary. Here are a few phrases from a CLO survival guide you may find useful.

  tags: clo glossary education training

• Education Week: Studies Find Cheaters Overinflate Academic Ability

  Emerging evidence suggests students who cheat on a test are more likely to deceive themselves into thinking they earned a high grade on their own merits, setting themselves up for future academic failure. In four experiments detailed in the March Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the Harvard Business School and Duke University found that cheaters pay for the short-term benefits of higher scores with inflated expectations for future performance.

  tags: cheating education failure

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A. Kipta's Blog 03/23/2011 (p.m.)

• LastPass - LastPass Security Challenge

  "Have you ever wondered how secure your passwords are? The LastPass Security Challenge lets you know how secure your online life is. It analyzes your passwords for weaknesses and tells you how you can maximize protection against identity theft. It will also pit you against all other LastPass Security Challenge Participants so you have an idea of how secure you are relative to other security conscious users. As always with LastPass, all encryption and decryption is done 100% locally on your machine. All unencrypted passwords are tested with local checks only."

  tags: security passwords

• The Future of Education

  "Welcome to the Future of Education interview series and discussion community. Thanks for being here! This interview series and the community are devoted to providing an opportunity for those who care about education to share their voices and ideas with others. It's a place for thoughtful discussion on an incredibly important topic. By joining this site, you'll automatically receive notification of events. Because of spammers, we have to approve all memberships here (it makes it easier if you fill out your profile). While your membership is pending you are still welcome to peruse the site or attend any events!"

  tags: education future

• Dropbox Forms: Receive files from your web site to your dropbox!

  "Whether you use Frontpage or Facebook, we've got you covered regardless of skill level. Every platform is just one copy/paste away from your Dropbox. Customize your form to suit your needs. You can add or remove fields, choose a pre-made template for your form or even create your own style. Click on the button above and let us do all of the work for you. If you are already a JotForm user, scroll below for instructions to get your hands dirty. Create a dropbox form and we will create a folder named Jotform in your Dropbox. When you get a new upload, it will be there instantly. No mess, no BS. "

  tags: dropbox forms file_sharing

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A. Kipta's Blog 03/22/2011 (p.m.)

• Image Citation and Reverse Search with TinEye - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  "Austin Kleon, author of Newspaper Blackout and curator of one of the most interesting tags on Tumblr, recently posted a link to this helpful chart, designed by Pia Jane Bijkerk and Erin Loechner, on whether or not to post an image to the internet. The chart suggests Evernote as a way to manage images you’ve found online, which is obviously advice we can get behind."

  tags: image search

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• Policies Online - CIP - UMUC

  "Collected Plagiarism Policies"

  tags: policy plagiarism

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A. Kipta's Blog 03/22/2011 (a.m.)

• Podcast: The New York Times Joins Colleges to Create Online Courses - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  "Felice Nudelman, executive director of education for the New York Times Company, says the publisher has developed its own digital-learning platform and is beginning to collaborate with colleges. “We did a course with Ball State University, and it just took off,” she said at the 2011 Higher Ed Tech Summit in Las Vegas. Students get a long-term collaborative experience, she says, involving faculty members and reporters from the New York Times newsroom."

  tags: nytimes online_learning podcast

• Annotating the Web with Diigo on the iPad - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  Diigo offers the only means to highlight passages and add annotations to websites from within the iPad’s native Safari browser. Diigo does this through the Web Highlighter bookmarklet, which opens up a toolbar...

  tags: ipad diigo

• Plagiarism: An Administrator’s Perspective - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  If your university has a procedure for handling plagiarism cases, follow it. I have seen problems arise when faculty wait too long past the timeline set in my university’s policy to raise the issue, and I have seen students wait too long, too. It is probably a good idea to go over the university’s policy in every course you teach at least once to ensure that everyone knows it because saying “I didn’t know” is not an excuse for faculty or students.

  tags: plagiarism

• Ebooks for Scholarly Work - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  Whether or not they’re problematic to cite, ebooks (in a variety of formats) are becoming increasingly common, and are sometimes easier to acquire than paper copies of a book, especially when one needs to acquire the book in a hurry. Even university presses are getting into the act, sometimes giving buyers the option of buying the book at full price or buying a month’s access to the book for a lesser fee (see, for example, the University of Chicago Press’s Chicago Digital Editions).

  tags: ebooks education

• U. of Pennsylvania Students Build Course-Management Software - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  "Joseph Cohen says he’s fed up with Blackboard. The leading course-management software is overloaded with features and dreadfully designed, making simple tasks difficult, says Mr. Cohen, a student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. ... Mr. Cohen and a classmate, Dan Getelman, have launched Coursekit, a stripped-down online learning-management system that offers a discussion board, a calendar, a syllabus, and related resources for courses at Penn."

  tags: cms blackboard

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A. Kipta's Blog 03/20/2011 (p.m.)

• Keep Calm and Carry On - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  "Keep Calm and Carry On was a poster produced by the British government in 1939 during the beginning of the Second World War, intended to raise the morale of the British public under the threat of impending invasion. It was little known and never used. The poster was rediscovered in 2000 and has been re-issued by a number of private sector companies, and used as the decorative theme for a range of other products. There are only two known surviving examples of the poster outside of government archives."

  tags: history

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• Super Full Moon - NASA Science

  "On March 19th, a full Moon of rare size and beauty will rise in the east at sunset. It's a super "perigee moon"--the biggest in almost 20 years. "The last full Moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March of 1993," says Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC. "I'd say it's worth a look." Full Moons vary in size because of the oval shape of the Moon's orbit. It is an ellipse with one side (perigee) about 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other (apogee): diagram. Nearby perigee moons are about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser moons that occur on the apogee side of the Moon's orbit. "

  tags: astronomy moon education

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A. Kipta's Blog 03/18/2011 (p.m.)

• Five Reasons to Keep a Journal - by Dumb Little Man

  "If you're heading towards any sort of long-term goal, a simple journal can be a very powerful tool. In it, you can track your progress day by day and week by week. It might not seem like much at first – but pretty quickly, you'll find that you can flip back to previous weeks and see how you've improved."

  tags: journal education

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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

A. Kipta's Blog 03/18/2011 (a.m.)

• Google Apps Marketplace Adds an Education Aisle - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  "Google ... unveiled an education-focused section of its Google Apps Marketplace, a directory of Web-based services, which could expand options for colleges and universities that have adopted Google’s free e-mail and application suite. The marketplace itself is just nine months old, and showcases applications built by other software companies that work with Google’s free applications, such as Gmail and Google Docs. Early vendors in the marketplace are mostly focused on elementary and secondary education, and include the bibliography generator EasyBib and the social-networking test-prep company Grockit. Google said future apps are anticipated from Blackboard, the leading provider of course-management systems to colleges, and Knewton, a test-preparation software company. The marketplace, which now features about 250 third-party apps, had previously been more business-focused, says Scott McMullan, partner lead for Google Apps."

  tags: google apps education

• NFB - Google Accessibility Demonstration Videos

  tags: google disability 508-compliance accessibility

• The Campus Computing Project

  "Begun in 1990, The Campus Computing Project® is the largest continuing study of the role of eLearning and information technology in American higher education. The project's national studies – the Campus Computing Survey, Managing Online Education Survey, and Community Colleges and the Economy Survey - draw on qualitative and quantitative data to help inform faculty, campus administrators, and others interested eLearning and information technology issues and related topics that affect American colleges and universities. "

  tags: technology education research

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• Blind Students Demand Access to Online Course Materials - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  "More than 19,000 people have visited a new student union that Arizona State University put up last year to build a better sense of campus community. Darrell Shandrow, a blind senior studying journalism, can't get through the front door. He's stuck because the new social hub is built of bits, not bricks-a private Facebook application for Arizona State students. And, like so much technology used by colleges, the software doesn't work with the programs that blind people depend on to navigate the Web. "Basically, I'm locked out," Mr. Shandrow, 37, says. So are many others. Colleges that wouldn't dare put up a new building without wheelchair access now routinely roll out digital services that, for blind people, are the Internet equivalent of impassable stairs."

  tags: facebook disability 508-compliance accessibility

• Colleges Discriminate Against the Blind With Google Apps, Advocates Say - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  "Many colleges find Google's free e-mail and word-processing services irresistible. Blind professors and students find them to be something else: inaccessible. That's the accusation of a civil-rights complaint filed today against New York University and Northwestern, two institutions that recently adopted the suite of free software services known as Google Apps for Education. The National Federation of the Blind wants the Justice Department to investigate both universities for discriminatory behavior that allegedly violates the Americans With Disabilities Act."

  tags: google disability 508-compliance accessibility

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A. Kipta's Blog 03/16/2011 (a.m.)

• Constructivist Approaches Literature Database: Search

  tags: constructivism database

• Constructivist Foundations

  "Constructivist Foundations (CF) is an international peer-reviewed academic e-journal dedicated to constructivist issues raised by philosophy a well as the natural, human, and applied sciences. The journal publishes original scholarly work in all areas of constructivist approaches, especially radical constructivism, enactive cognitive science, second order cybernetics, biology of cognition and the theory of autopoietic systems, and non-dualizing philosophy, among others. The readers of the journal will be kept up-to-date with the central issues and problems of contemporary constructivist approaches. Constructivist Foundations appears three times a year and is available for free to its subscribers. Papers are published in an attractive format ready to be printed by the reader. Their physical appearance is permanently fixed (“permanent links”) to allow for reliable citations in terms of volume, number, and page."

  tags: journal open_access

• Placeholder name - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  "Placeholder names are words that can refer to objects or people whose names are either temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown in the context in which it is being discussed. "Whatchamacallit" (for objects) and "Whatshisname" or "Whatshername" (for men and women, respectively) are defining examples."

  tags: wikipedia places

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A. Kipta's Blog 03/14/2011 (p.m.)

• A cool paint drip concept table

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• VirusTotal - Free Online Virus, Malware and URL Scanner

  "Virustotal is a service that analyzes suspicious files and URLs and facilitates the quick detection of viruses, worms, trojans, and all kinds of malware detected by antivirus engines."

  tags: antivirus

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

A. Kipta's Blog 03/14/2011 (a.m.)

• Journal of Learning Spaces

  "The Journal of Learning Spaces provides a scholarly, multidisciplinary forum for research articles, case studies, book reviews, and position pieces that examine higher education learning spaces in the context of space design, use, and management, as well as assessment, evaluation, and pedagogical practices."

  tags: journal open_access

• Free ESET Online Antivirus Scanner

  "ESET Online Scanner a fast and and free tool that detects and removes threats on your PC. Utilizing only your browser, it scans your computer with ESET's award-winning ThreatSense engine."

  tags: antivirus

• Panorama Photographs Collection :::

  "This database showcases over 90 panoramic photographs from the Special Collections Visual Materials Collection. Displayed with the ability to zoom into the smallest details of the photograph, this digital collection features such exemplary images such as Front St. in Dawson City around the time of the Klondike Gold Rush, sweeping city views of Seattle after the turn of the century and the memorable Mississippi flood of 1927. Other photographs feature group portraits, city scenes, and landscapes covering such topics as Pacific Northwest labor and political history, University of Washington campus scenes, and ethnic groups especially Japanese American organizations."

  tags: panorama photographs collection history

• DOWNLOAD Five-Star Guide For Your iPad [PDF]

  "Want to get more out of your iPad? Check out “iPad: a Magical and Revolutionary Guide”, the latest manual from MakeUseOf. Featuring the 40 best free apps for the iPad, this easy-to-follow guide contains a treasure trove of information that will make using your tablet that much easier. Learn the ins and outs of the market’s premier tablet, for free!"

  tags: ipad ebook

• Moneytrackin' - The free online tool to regain control of your financial life

  "moneytrackin' is a free online webapp that allows you to track all your expenses and income easily and without effort, thus allowing you to have a clear view of your financial situation. It intends to be a simple yet powerful online budget management tool."

  tags: finance budget

• dsBudget

  "What is it? dsBudget is a free, open source budgeting program for everyone. What can I do with it? You can save money by understanding where you spend your money. How does it work? You will begin by allocating your income into "categories", such as Mortgage, Entertainment, etc. As you spend money throughout the month, you will enter the expenses into each category. dsBudget will then let you see how much money you have left in each category and how you are spending it. You can save money and regain control of your expenses by understanding your spending habits and making smarter purchasing decisions."

  tags: finance budget software

• US NSF - News - Special Reports - Voices From the Future

  "In honor of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) 60th anniversary, the National Science Board (NSB) initiated "Voices From the Future," a lecture series where distinguished speakers make presentations at NSB meetings in 2010."

  tags: science technology nsf

• Podcasts - Evolving English: British Library

  "Listen to and download audio associated with the 'Evolving English' exhibition."

  tags: british english podcast

• missingmanuals.com

  "Instead, after paying $300 or more for the software, you're expected to learn these complex programs by reading electronic help screens. But online help is no substitute for a real manual. Ever try to flip between help topics? Or try to read them over breakfast? Wish you could underline, or at least bookmark what you found? Ah. We thought so. That's why David Pogue--award-winning how-to author and computer columnist for the New York Times--teamed with O'Reilly Media to launch Pogue Press. We're dedicated to producing sterling, beautifully written manuals for popular consumer software and hardware products."

  tags: manuals

• Google to Zap Malware from Android Handsets (Phone Scoop)

  "Google on Saturday announced that it plans to take action to protect end-users from malware applications that were recently discovered and removed from the Android Market. First, Google is going to remotely remove the malicious applications from affected devices. Second, it is going to push a security update to the Android Market to all the affected devices that will un-do the exploits caused by the malware to prevent any more user data from being compromised."

  tags: google malware android

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

A. Kipta's Blog 03/10/2011 (p.m.)

• Social Statistics Briefing Room (SSBR): Gender Differences in Postsecondary Education

  "Between 1980 and 2001, the number of women enrolled in degree-granting institutions increased by 41 percent (from roughly 5.5 million in 1980 to 7.7 million in 2001), while the number of men enrolled increased by 20 percent (from about 5 million to 6 million) (figure 1). Over this time period, the percentage of all undergraduates who were women increased from 52 percent to 56 percent. The attainment trend of women followed a similar pattern. Women experienced greater gains than men in the number of degrees awarded between 1980 and 2001. Over the last two decades, there was a 57 percent increase in the associate’s degrees awarded to women, and a 26 percent increase in the associate’s degrees awarded to men. In other words, women went from earning 55 percent of associate’s degrees awarded in 1980–81 to 60 percent in 2001–02. As with associate’s degrees, the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded to both men and women increased between the 1980 and 2001 school years, but the increase for women was greater. Women experienced a 59 percent increase in the degrees awarded over the two decades, compared with a 17 percent increase in degrees awarded to men. The percentage of 25- to 29-year-olds with a bachelor’s degree or higher increased from 23 percent in 1980 to 28 percent in 2003 (figure 2)."

  tags: education statistics gender

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• Free, User-Friendly File Conversion - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  "This is a free, online service that takes a wide variety of file formats and converts them into an equally wide variety of other file formats. Got a *.wps file? No problem. Just upload it to Zamzar and convert it to a *.doc or *.rtf file instead."

  tags: conversion

• Library Rights Are at Stake in New Supreme Court Copyright Case - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  "Does Congress have the right to restore copyright protection to foreign works that have fallen into the public domain? That issue is at the heart of a major copyright case that the Supreme Court agreed to hear yesterday. Its resolution could have implications for libraries’ ability to share works online, advocates say. In dispute are decades-old foreign works that slipped into the public domain in the United States while still copyrighted abroad. Congress in 1994 adopted a bill to place those works back under the shield of copyright protection, in an effort to align U.S. policy with an international copyright treaty called the Berne Convention. The aim of that convention was to ensure that works copyrighted in one country get comparable protection elsewhere, “since there is no such thing as international copyright,” according to SCOTUSblog, which tracks the Supreme Court."

  tags: copyright public_domain libraries

• Webspiration Classroom From Bloom’s Perspective | Thinkspiration™ The Inspiration® Software Blog

  "Pete MacKay featured an infographic recommended by educator Linda Hyler on The Teacher List, a weekday newsletter highlighting interesting sites around education.1 This infographic places digital, Web 2.0 tools into Bloom’s Taxonomy, making it Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy. While reviewing the diagram, I was thrilled to see our newest online writing, visual thinking and collaboration tool, Webspiration Classroom™ service under the “Understanding” category.2 While Webspiration Classroom helps improve students’ understanding of new knowledge and information through its proven visual learning techniques, it’s a digital tool that can truly uphold the entire theory of Bloom’s Taxonomy."

  tags: bloom web visualization

• The eLearning Guild : 2011 Global e-Learning Salary & Compensation Report : Research Library

  "E-Learning salaries worldwide grew 2.0% this past year with an overall average global e-Learning salary of $76,852. Compensation is also climbing in the United States (U.S.). The average e-Learning salary in the U.S. grew by 0.8% to $79,890."

  tags: elearning.guild salary

• To Encourage Faculty to Retire, Consider Offering Social Support, Presidents Say - Administration - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  "What keeps faculty members in their 60s and 70s from retiring isn't just finances, said several college leaders who spoke at a session during the American Council on Education conference here on Monday. Emotional and social considerations also come into play, and colleges that want to encourage more retirements should seek ways to offer faculty support in those areas."

  tags: faculty

• University Professional & Continuing Education Association

  "In today's fast-paced, rapidly changing environment, the University Professional & Continuing Education Association serves as an important resource to the profession. Its members rely on the Association for timely, cross-disciplinary perspectives on pressing concerns as well as for strategies that can help them respond to the growing population of adults and non-traditional students seeking continuous learning opportunities. The University Professional & Continuing Education Association attaches high priority to meeting the professional development needs of its members. Through its programs, publications, conferences, institutes, seminars, and public advocacy, the Association seeks to advance university professional and continuing education."

  tags: continuing_education association

• DEHub - Innovation in Distance Education

  "Welcome to the website for the Distance Education Hub (DEHub). DEHub was established in 2009 as a research consortium between the University of New England (UNE), Charles Sturt University (CSU), Central Queensland University (CQUniversity), the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), and Massey University. This site serves as a central hub to facilitate and support the research and dissemination of best practices in distance education in the Australian higher education sector. "

  tags: distance_education

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

A. Kipta's Blog 03/10/2011 (a.m.)

• DEHub - Innovation in Distance Education

  "Welcome to the website for the Distance Education Hub (DEHub). DEHub was established in 2009 as a research consortium between the University of New England (UNE), Charles Sturt University (CSU), Central Queensland University (CQUniversity), the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), and Massey University. This site serves as a central hub to facilitate and support the research and dissemination of best practices in distance education in the Australian higher education sector. "

  tags: distance_education

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

A. Kipta's Blog 03/07/2011 (p.m.)

• U.S. Air Force Social Media Guide | Public Intelligence

  "This guide provides Air Force Public Affairs professionals with basic social media knowledge needed to maneuver in the online information space and the basic-level tactics explained here should be used to compliment the traditional forms of Public Affairs, to include internal communication, community relations and media relations."

  tags: social_media guide military

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• Army of Fake Social Media Friends to Promote... | Gather

  "It's recently been revealed that the U.S. government contracted HBGary Federal for the development of software which could create multiple fake social media profiles to manipulate and sway public opinion on controversial issues by promoting propaganda. It could also be used as surveillance to find public opinions with points of view the powers-that-be didn't like. It could then potentially have their "fake" people run smear campaigns against those "real" people. As disturbing as this is, it's not really new for U.S. intelligence or private intelligence firms to do the dirty work behind closed doors."

  tags: social_media government exploit

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• Research Methodology - Key Concepts of the Scientific Method

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• The Scientific Method, Science, Research and Experiments

  "Conducting research involves using the scientific method at its core. Therefore, before any research is undertaken, it is important to be aware of the steps. The research methodology has not come up overnight, but has evolved through hundreds of years of science. The history of science is interesting and intriguing, giving an insight into the developments of modern day science."

  tags: science research method

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

A. Kipta's Blog 03/05/2011 (a.m.)

• Can Any Student Learn to Draw the Figure? - Brainstorm - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  "Betty Edwards, in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (first published in 1979), famously argued that almost anyone can achieve naturalistic effects in drawing. I’m not convinced, but her book offers astonishing examples of “before and after” student work that back up her claim. Her methods—some of which I’ve adopted—are based on a simple principle: If you can decontextualize perception, especially by inventing assignments that make drawers forget the name for what it is they’re perceiving, and replace words with abstract visual connections (“From my point of view, the shape between the legs of that person looks like an equilateral triangle”), students studying drawing will advance by leaps and bounds."

  tags: art teaching

• Actually Going to Class? How 20th-Century. - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  "Why even have a traditional college course? Learning outside of this structure engages students more deeply, recent data indicate. Professors talking for 16 weeks or so, assigning readings, and then testing students often appears to yield a bunch of quickly memorized facts that are soon forgotten. In an era when students can easily grab material online, including lectures by gifted speakers in every field, a learning environment that avoids courses completely—or seriously reshapes them—might produce a very effective new form of college."

  tags: technology higher_education

• Reading Devices - Electronic reading devices are transforming the concept of a book - Los Angeles Times

  "Emma Teitgen, 12, thought the chemistry book her teacher recommended would make perfect bedside reading. Perfect because it might help her fall asleep. Then she downloaded "The Elements: A Visual Exploration" to her iPad. Instead of making her drowsy, it blossomed in her hands. The 118 chemical elements, from hydrogen to ununoctium, came alive in vivid images that could be rotated with a swipe of the finger."

  tags: technology reading ipad

• Big History: An Introduction to Everything

  "Everything has a history: each person, plant, animal and object, our planet, and the entire universe. Each history offers valuable insights. Together, they reveal even more. Big history weaves evidence and insights from many scientific and historical disciplines into a single, accessible origin story – one that explores who we are, how we got here, how we are connected to everything around us, and where we may be heading. The Big History Project is dedicated to fostering a greater love and capacity for learning among high school students. Started by Bill Gates and David Christian our goal is to get big history taught to as many students around the world as possible. Find out more and see how you can join the Project."

  tags: history open_courseware oer ocw

• Patient Griselda's Guide to Grammar

  "Welcome to Patient Griselda's Grammar Guide. All members of the Meredith community are welcome to browse this site for assistance with grammar and usage rules. Feel free to click on any of the topics listed above. We suggest that you begin with Parts and Elements, because it presents the building blocks of sentences. You can browse this site at your own pace. The tutorials will allow you to apply your knowledge and receive feedback. If you find yourself lost, scroll to the top of the page and click on the Griselda's Guide button. You will then find yourself back at this page, which offers other topics to browse. When you are finished using the site, exit with the File/Close command at the top of the screen."

  tags: grammar

• Slide Sharing - Share PowerPoint Slides Online on authorSTREAM

  "authorSTREAM is an online slide sharing platform, which provides multiple options for sharing PowerPoint presentations both online and offline. authorSTREAM makes it easier to share PPT slideshows through blogs, websites, on YouTube and even via iPods. What's best is that it's all Free! Just sign-up, upload presentations and start sharing."

  tags: powerpoint presentation

• Free PowerPoint to Flash Converter | PPS, PPT to SWF | authorPOINT Lite

  "You can share your presentations online on the web through authorPOINT Lite, by uploading to authorSTREAM (see how), a free online presentation sharing platform, and to WiZiQ (see how), a free online education platform. authorPOINT Lite is Microsoft® Windows® Vista® compatible and Microsoft Office® 2007 compatible. You can also directly share your PowerPoint's on these servers, using aP Lite's PowerPoint plug-in, for which the conversion to flash outputs is done on these servers. authorPOINT Lite provides the option to share presentations either as "Public" or "Private". The private option lets you share presentations securely with only registered users that you invite. Registration is free."

  tags: powerpoint presentation

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.