WorldCat.org is the world’s largest network of library content and services. WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information.
It lets you search the collections of libraries in your community and thousands more around the world. WorldCat grows every day thanks to the efforts of librarians and other information professionals.
The site allows you to:
Search many libraries at once for an item and then locate it in a library nearby
Find books, music, and videos that you can pick up at your library
Find research articles and digital books and audiobooks that can be directly viewed or downloaded
Quickly link to “Ask a Librarian” and other online services at your library
Create a personal profile that tells others about your interests
Build lists of library materials you can share with others
Post your review of an item, or contribute factual information about it such as historical context
Non-profits dedicated to preventing harmful activity via the Internet can now benefit from CDNetworks Net Plus program. Many non-profit educational groups utilize bandwidth intensive interactive media, resulting in bounced visitors due to long loading times. CDNetworks hopes to improve the performance of educational sites by offering free access to one-terabyte per month on the company’s content delivery network. The CDN enhances the transfer speed and quality of rich media as demonstrated in the diagram below.
The Net Plus program is an extension of the Global Public Service program already operating throughout Asia. Free infrastructure is apparently only available to non-governmental organizations.
Posted on June 2nd, 2008 in Education | Comments Off
As a single twenty-something male, the “Cyber Bully” phenomena is not highly visible in my world view. However, studies of abuse online suggest lasting consequences ranging from depression and anxiety to suicide. So how can today’s children prepare for the following online problems?
Cyber Bullies do not always understand the severity of actions since the Internet lacks the feedback of face-to-face interaction
The inherent distance imposed by the Internet promotes altered behavior
Cyber Bully victims do not know whom to tell
Virtual behavior and real-world consequences are disconnected
Adina’s Deck addresses these concerns through an interactive, short-film educating parents, teachers, and children on harassment via digital technologies. Project creator Debbie Heimowitz noticed the “social web” is not always a friendly place and responded with the project as part of her Master’s Thesis at Stanford. Future shorts will delve deeper into specific issues faced by teens online.
Futurist David Holmgren recently released an e-book entitled “Future Scenarios: Mapping the cultural implications of peak oil and climate change.” Aside from discussing the challenges posed by Peak Oil and Climate Change, Holmgren also uses an interesting micro-format for his project. Unfortunately, comments are centralized and not allowed on individual sections like other micro-formats such as CommentPress.
A large portion of the composition focuses on possible scenarios of oil decline and climate change over the next 10-30 years. The four “Descent Scenarios” include:
Brown Tech (slow oil decline, fast climate change)
Green Tech (slow oil decline, slow climate change)
Holmgren’s work is another warning of problems caused by “Business As Usual” mentality in our consumptive lifestyles. Although somewhat depressing, writings like this can provide an idea playground for the entrepreneurial mind.
Posted on May 27th, 2008 in Education | Comments Off
Look in any history book - social norms shifting with generations is common. Children rebel against their parents, create a conflict, and eventually transform cultural norms. However, the societal shift for children in developing countries, like India and China, is different than the experience of youth in the Western world.
Specifically, the newly industrialized population of India is comprised of over 35% children under the age of 15. Through the Web, these children are connected to an unfathomable amount of information and opportunity compared to previous generations. The increased opportunities, however, also produce an influx of online traps (see Wikipedia as an example of this idea: the more value, the more clutter). Child pornography, gambling, identity theft, etc inevitably leech to the valuable assets of the Web.
As a response, Google’s Indian headquarter launched “Be NetSmart” to educate parents, teachers, and students on how to safely incorporate the Web into daily life. Google India and the Mumbai police initiated the campaign with an interactive presentation on topics such as downloading content, posting pictures, chatting, and web identity. Lets hope this has better success than the DARE campaign in the United States.
A recent move by many universities is to have open courses and to make them available via the web. Two of the early adapters of this were UC Berkeley and MIT among others. This further expands the public access to these great universities intellectual riches which is the function of public universities.
These tools provide a great environment in which students and lifelong learners alike can discover, watch and share education.
Some of the more noted online courses are those of UC Berkley’s Professor Marian Diamond.
Crowdsourcing, a term coined by Jeff Howe in a June 2006 issue of Wired magazine, is a model of labor that has been fully embraced on the Internet over the past couple of years. Crowdsourcing takes tasks traditionally done by a single person or small groups of people, and farms them out to a global workforce. The large-scale committee approach is powerful because it leans on the concept of the “wisdom of crowds” (to a certain extent) which says basically that the more input, the better the output.
The term has become popular with business authors and journalists as shorthand for the trend of leveraging the mass collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 technologies to achieve business goals. However, both the term and its underlying business models have attracted controversy and criticism.
Here is a look at some of the tools used to help you crowdsource.
The League of Technical Voters is a nonprofit 501(c)3, nonpartisan organization dedicated to motivating and assisting technical experts to improve lawmaking and governmental process.
Their goal is to involve more technical people in the political process, especially in relation to the use of technology by government.
We are in a position to provide a priceless resource to our country by helping to improve governmental policies and use of technical resources. We believe that many of the current problems have more to do with a lack of education than with partisan issues.
DonorsChoose.org can be summed up by their tag line “Teachers ask. You choose. Students learn.” It is an organization dedicated to addressing the scarcity and inequitable distribution of learning materials and experiences in our public schools. We believe this inequity is rooted in the following factors:
1. Shortages of learning materials prevent thorough, engaging instruction;
2. Top-down distribution of materials stifles our best teachers and discourages them from developing targeted solutions for their students; and
3. Small, directed contributions have gone un-tapped as a source of funding.
DonorsChoose.org will improve public education by engaging citizens in an online marketplace where teachers describe and individuals can fund specific student projects. We envision a nation where students in every community have the resources they need to learn.
WorldCat.org is the world’s largest network of library content and services. WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information.
Adina’s Deck addresses these concerns through an interactive, short-film educating parents, teachers, and children on harassment via digital technologies. Project creator Debbie Heimowitz noticed the “social web” is not always a friendly place and responded with the project as part of her Master’s Thesis at Stanford. Future shorts will delve deeper into specific issues faced by teens online.
As a response, Google’s Indian headquarter launched “Be NetSmart” to educate parents, teachers, and students on how to safely incorporate the Web into daily life. Google India and the Mumbai police initiated the campaign with an interactive presentation on topics such as downloading content, posting pictures, chatting, and web identity. Lets hope this has better success than the DARE campaign in the United States.
