Keep?

Google taketh....and Google giveth....

We said goodbye to Reader and now Google's introduced Keep.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/22/technology/mobile/google-keep/index.html

A note taking app on the Android platform that syncs with Google Drive, etc. Maybe not a big deal if you're an iPhone person, but pretty cool for anyone on Android. Do you use note apps on your smartphone? Some folks like Evernote since it includes more functionality, but it's possible that as Keep evolves it'll match Evernote.

Awesome Street Signs Commemorating Iconic Rap Lyrics

After schooling New Yorkers on etiquette via numerous unsanctioned interventions, artist Jay Shells channeled his love of hip hop music and his uncanny sign-making skills towards a brand new project: “Rap Quotes.”

For this ongoing project, Shells created official-looking street signs quoting famous rap lyrics that shout out specific street corners and locations. He then installed them at those specific street corners and locations.

Shells went all city and posted over 30 signs quoting the likes of Jeru tha Damaja, Mos Def, Nas, Kanye West, CL Smooth, GZA, and RA the Rugged Man.
http://animalnewyork.com/2013/jay-shells-rap-quotes/

Interviewing for podcasts at the MCA!

This past week, graduate students set out on the digital-audio frontier of collecting data and interviews at the museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

These soon-to-be educators took to the museum with a curious and inquisitive ear.
Cant to hear the thoughtful resulting podcasts!

Stephanie and Ellen deeply engaging a couple of museum goers

RIP Google Reader

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/14/the-end-of-google-reader-sends-internet-into-an-uproar/

Google Reader, Google's RSS aggregation feed (the thing that pulls together lots of various blog posts that are new into one place for you to read) is scheduled to shut down July 1, as a result of 'declining usage'

Lots of folks use reader and there's been a notable web backlash. Thoughts?

Where the Clouds Live!

As I have been working on my thesis research, and constantly uploading images, documents, and all kinds of scholarly things to cloud spaces like Google drive, or Dropbox (I'm sure you can relate) I wondered where do these documents go? How are they saved?
 Where do the clouds live? What do they look like? Do they have a space, or are all my documents stored in some incorporeal invisible space?

Turns out they do live somewhere.

Kind of like here.


It took me a short search of googling Google to find this wired.com article.
One of the most shocking things I learned is all the energy that is being used to save all my precious Google Docs in data centers consume up to 1.5 percent of all the world's electricity.

It's definitely worth taking a look!

Google Throws Open Doors to Its Top-Secret Data Center

Technology and E-Waste.

How many computers have you gone through since you were younger? How many cellphones? Have you ever wondered what happens to all of your outdated technology?

The amount of electronic waste is skyrocketing in the United States. This is due in large part to advances in technology. For example, as technology improves, the lifespan for electronic tools and devices—such as computers and cell phones—becomes shorter, resulting in more waste. Technological advances also have resulted in decreasing the demand for repair of electronic devices. Compared to the 1960s and1970s, it is nearly always less expensive to buy new than to have a defective product fixed.

Poducate me!

Podcasting has taken the educational world by storm, and is being used in K-12 schools, universities, colleges and around the world.

What are the benefits of bringing podcasting into the classroom?

Check out this website Poducate me!

Gooru!

Education startups seem to be everywhere. Search engines too. What happens when you try to combine them? Maybe it looks something like Gooru! I'm intrigues but not sure how effective it'll be yet. thoughts?

Connected Learning: 'Creative'

The interview subject is DePaul University associate professor Nichole Pinkard, founder of Chicago's pioneering Digital Youth Network (http://digitalyouthnetwork.org),

The transformation of technology urges us as a culture to develop our creativity for a wide-range of problem-solving, through multiple modes of communication. 
How can we teach these new forms of literacies to students growing up in the digital age?

This film examines how creativity, shunned in the industrial age approach to schooling, is essential to learners in a networked society and a critical element of connected learning.

Guided by six learning principles and three core values, connected learning is the outcome of a six-year research effort supported by the MacArthur Foundation into how learning, education, and schooling could be re imagined for a networked world.

The film asks:
- 'In this rapidly changing world might creativity need to sit at the heart of an education for all?'
- 'Might education now need to embrace these new forms of literacy for all students?'
- 'Might our future call for creative, literate, self expressive and resourceful students?'