Bits of Honey

While the weather this week in the physical world made me want to hibernate, a counter feeling was felt in the online world. There was a blizzard of activity going on during the first full week of the new year. Here's what people were all atwitter about this week.

Gaming and Virtual Worlds

• 2008 education highlights from Second Life.
• Microsoft's Kodu: "We want to give them total mastery of the domain and yet unlimited expressive power." http://tinyurl.com/72nm5l
• "Electronic Gaming Monthly is going Web-only, and 30 of its staffers have been laid off." http://tinyurl.com/72hcdt
• Arlington County's Second Life office has a vending machine that sells virtual Cheez-Its and digital Pop-Tarts. http://tinyurl.com/7fufol
• "As Net-generation teachers reach out to gamers, classrooms across the country are becoming portals to elaborate virtual worlds." http://tinyurl.com/9c6cmj

Gender

• "Barbie reps. a confident and independent woman with an amazing ability to have fun while remaining glamorous." http://tinyurl.com/9b2mpb
• Women = ~ 1/2 of new physicians, but there is new concern about a "leaking pipeline." Will pt work/flextime help? http://tinyurl.com/856nsa

EdTech, Education, and Online Learning

• Online student dropouts: "40% failed to seek any help or resources before abandoning their programs." http://tinyurl.com/axzput
• “For the first time, [schools] are seeing students choose another college for its online program." http://tinyurl.com/76n9nc
• Laptops in the law school classroom = "higher levels of student engagement and other positive outcomes." http://tinyurl.com/9ngfvz
• iStanford: "College kids across the country will be demanding this." http://tinyurl.com/7jk3he
• Coastline CC is creating "an entire classroom that can live on a mobile phone." http://tinyurl.com/axcg73
• Online campuses-"They don't do a thorough market analysis...they just want to expand their enrollment/revenue." http://tinyurl.com/7vknzd
• Early data suggest "a combination of peer instruction and professor-led discussion produces the best performance." http://tinyurl.com/7f7zyx

Journalism

• Wired proposes 5 options to Google that might bailout newspaper. But should Google do anything? http://tinyurl.com/779bpl
• Newspapers are dying. Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, wants to save them...he just doesn't want to buy them. The answer? http://tinyurl.com/7n7qf2

Predictions and Trends

• EDUCAUSE's top 5 educational challenges for 2009.
• "No one can guarantee that these [5] emerging technologies will become widely accepted but the trends are clear." http://tinyurl.com/7bsldw

Social Networking

• "By becoming entangled in ever more social networks online, people are building up their own piles of revealing data." http://tinyurl.com/8npflk. A copy of the full report, written by Google researchers, is available here.
• YAs may have time for Facebook but "35% of males & 42% of females reported lacking time to sit down & eat a meal." http://tinyurl.com/98ucsp
• "Facebook announced that 150 million people across the globe are actively using Facebook—half of them every day." http://tinyurl.com/7zc5as
• A negative review posted to a social networking site like Yelp could lead to a lawsuit. http://tinyurl.com/9vxvx9
• SNS LiveJournal has laid off (no severance) 12 of its 28 US employees. So far, no layoffs at Facebook & MySpace. http://tinyurl.com/8927d9
• Get to know your kids thru MySpace & Facebook, and learn about the risky behaviors they discuss. http://tinyurl.com/a2un2d. The full report is available in the January 2009 issue of The Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. [NOTE: Check your local library for free online access.]
• Celebrities who twitter "are being forced to pick a spot on the Gulbis-O’Neal scale of openness." http://tinyurl.com/9jrjx6

Technology

• Google cut some of its famously free cafeterias & canceled a big company ski trip. Oh, and there were layoff too. http://tinyurl.com/9a2u4p
• Due to the tough economic times, the One Laptop Per Child project is restructuring and cutting staff. http://tinyurl.com/8njz2a
• The Pre - it's a "killer Palm product" not an iPhone killer. But will it get Palm back in the smart phone game? http://tinyurl.com/72nnst
• Are desktop computers headed for the junkyard? Some analysts speculate that laptops are today's alpha computer. http://tinyurl.com/7pl9ms
• Best Buy is now selling refurbished iPhones for $149 and $249 (deps. on memory). Original price $199 and $299. http://tinyurl.com/axwtfq
• Hulu: "It was hazed as just another slick effort to upstage the fun, do-it-yourself YouTube" but not anymore. http://tinyurl.com/7u3r67
• On Jan. 15, 2009, 15,000 Microsoft employees (~17% of its total work force) may be without a job. http://tinyurl.com/9wqq4v

Writing and Publishing

• Of the 312 stories in the New Yorker from 2003-2008, 119 or 38.1% were penned by women--up from 37.4% last year. http://tinyurl.com/7ay8k2
• Secondhand books - "Away with 'Best Novels of 2009', farewell to 'the new faces of the new year': http://tinyurl.com/8t5qsg
• "There are only ten writers that you can be compared to in blurbs or publicity materials." http://tinyurl.com/6tkf37
• Reflecting on fiction that appeared in the New Yorker in 2008: http://tinyurl.com/8s7kf2
• "It is not just publishing’s flashy customs that are getting a tough look. Other sacred cows..are being examined." http://tinyurl.com/a8btbb
• "It brings the literature...back into a form that the students of the 21st century will be able to find it.” http://tinyurl.com/7kg8l8
• After 73 years, Librairie de France in NY's Rockefeller Center will close its doors in Sept. 2009. http://tinyurl.com/89mdm6