newly ancient

Over the past couple of weeks, everything has been a flurry. Tons has been going on in school, including the beginning of a redesign of my school’s site. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to actually write down some intelligent, thought out posts. Fortunately, I have been keeping track of everything in my del.icio.us. Instead of writing out all my ideas, here are some of the highlights and summaries:

1. OpenDNS - I recently switched my home network to using OpenDNS for dns. The speed improvement has been very noticeable. This service would be a very viable solution for schools to filter sites - particularly in small schools where filtering software is expensive and hard to maintain.
2. Snipr - Quite simply, this is yet another url shortening service. However, unlike TinyURL the interface is usable and attractive. In addition, there’s an api. Most importantly of all, it isn’t yet blocked in schools!
3. Sing Song - Let them sing it for you. Simple as typing in lyrics and hitting play. Words are tagged in songs and used to piece together your song.
4. Speak Up about education and our schools. Very nice use of the internet to give people a voice.
5. What the Web Is For - This is a great article about the web, togetherness and humanity. Have anyone skeptical of the power of the web to anybody skeptical of the power of the web. Every administrator, teacher, student, developer, and citizen should listen to this. Very powerful without being technical!
6. Dylan - Share your message in a custom homesick blues music video.
7. VirtualBox - An open source virtualizer for the rest of us.
8. Disqus - A free comment and conversation tracker which integrates very well with all kinds of blog platforms. Supports threaded commenting and all that jazz without being intrusive to your design.
9. Pibb - A powerful and free conversation/communication tool. I’ll probably be using it to track the backchannel at my presentation.
10. The Superest - Give the kid in all of us a pencil (and an RSS feed).
11. Outsourcing Tutoring - Yet another article about the outsourcing of education, this time from the New York Times.
12. ICT Across the Pond - A nice article summarizing a variety of great education technology projects which have been happening in the United Kingdom. I love the idea of designing a learning center like a coffee shop - what a way to encourage informal discussion and interactivity!
13. OpenSocial - Google has unveiled a decentralized social networking plan. I’d love to see how this could be used to pull social networking into school’s systems, bring the good parts from the outside but keep the bad out while maintaining control.
14. Ning ad-free for ed - Confirmed K12 student networks will get an ad-free version of Ning for free. This helped to save the flat classroom project. Even better, Ning will be supporting OpenSocial so there’s no reason not to give it a spin.

*phew* Hopefully that should keep you satisfied while I defy gravity for a couple of days by dropping off the face of the Earth. Oh wait, I’ve still got an article about how awesome Leopard is to write. *purrs* (In addition to posts about social technology and building a WordPress MU install for my school)

-Your Loyal Astronaut