Bottom line: Student earns $5000 (and a tee-shirt!) for a successful summer project contributing to one of many open source activities. Read the FAQ at http://www.google-melange.com/
Student application deadline is 8 April.
From the FAQ, Google Summer of Code has several goals:
- Create and release open source code for the benefit of all
- Inspire young developers to begin participating in open source development
- Help open source projects identify and bring in new developers and committers
- Provide students the opportunity to do work related to their academic pursuits during the summer (think "flip bits, not burgers")
- Give students more exposure to real-world software development scenarios (e.g., distributed development, software licensing questions, mailing-list etiquette)
- If you are a student with a "geekier" nature, please consider applying.
- If you are a professor and have a student who shows talent for making the stuff behind the stuff work, please encourage that student to consider applying.
Safari Books Online: Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax: From Novice to Professional
Overview
Until recently, building interactive web-based mapping applications has been a cumbersome affair. This changed when Google released its powerful Maps API. Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax was written to help you take advantage of this technology in your own endeavorswhether you're an enthusiast playing for fun or a professional building for profit. This book covers version 2 of the API, including Google's new Geocoding service.
Authors Jeffrey Sambells, Cameron Turner, and Michael Purvis get rolling with examples that require hardly any code at all, but you'll quickly become acquainted with many facets of the Maps API. They demonstrate powerful methods for simultaneously plotting large data sets, creating your own map overlays, and harvesting and geocoding sets of addresses. You'll see how to set up alternative tile sets and where to access imagery to use for them. The authors even show you how to build your own geocoder from scratch, for those high-volume batch jobs.
As well as providing hands-on examples of real mapping projects, this book supplies a complete reference for the Maps API, along with the relevant aspects of JavaScript, CSS, PHP, and SQL. Visit the authors' website for additional tips and advice.
ZDNet reports, "Google opens Knol website, a wiki with bylines"
In response to the wide-open and "the author who has more time wins" model of current wikis (i.e., Wikipedia), we've seen different models come out trying to address fairness and accuracy. Citizendium is one of them, and Google has just opened Knol to the public as of Wednesday of this week.
Essentially, the topic page has an author who can grant access to other contributors. In a way, I like the idea because it's definitely more "authoritative," but I also dislike it because it's still a gatekeeper and entryway issue. What if it becomes a political issue ... and the gatekeeper doesn't want to allow access (or debate) on the page? Does turning the authority over to an author really any better than turning it over to someone with too much time on their hands?
Although I'm a huge fan of wikis, I think it is safe to say that wikis do not inately mean fairness or balance. It means collaboration, but either by proxy or through force.
Read ZDNet's article at http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-212067.html
Virtual Worlds: 20 Tools for 3D Creation
Earlier this week Google launched Lively, a new social network where anyone can create an avatar and virtual room that can be embedded anywhere on the Web. 3D services such as Lively are popping up more and more online thanks to the popularity of virtual worlds like Second Life, Meez
Of extreme interest today is the fact that Google has finally come out with MS Outlook syncronization--for FREE. It only supports you main Google Calendar, but it will sync one way or two ways if you want it to.
Other useful tidbits:
Microsoft Outlook Tip: Access Google Calendar Directly From Outlook
Very useful if you're looking to integrate the Google Calendar directly into the Outlook suite. It's not a sync, but it's an additional page or item in your list.
OggSync
A yearly pay-for service (~$30) will literally do all of the syncronization between MS Outlook 2003 and 2007 and any/all of your Google Calendars as you like. The setup is easy, and the service is worth shelling out the measly $30 for, although the free version will sync up to 3 days back and 3 days ahead. You can choose to sync one-way (either Google-->Outlook or Outlook-->Google) or two-ways. You can also select how often it will happen. There are only two drawbacks: Outlook will need to be open and running OggSync to complete the sync tasks, and if your Google Account password happens to have an ampersand (&) in it, the OggSync login screen in the configuration screens WILL FAIL. (Be sure that your Google Account password does not have an ampersand (&) in it and everything will go smoothly.) Truly a great product for those of us who have to coordinate multiple calendaring accounts and devices.
video collaboration, e-meeting and web conferencing on the Internet
Google bought this company back in April of 2007. I wonder if/when it will be going somewhere ...
UPDATE: Newsmap is back and as good as new! Hooray!
- - -
http://newsmap.blogspot.com/
A catastrophe happened! I went to check the news at my favorite news site: Newsmap and discovered that it was no longer there! Nooooooooooo!
I visited the blog listed in it's stead and learned that something Google has done has disabled Newsmap from being the fantastic resource that it was.
Please, if you're familiar with Newsmap, contact Google or show support for its continuation. I'd hate the easy-to-see-and-use world news of our lives go away.
What am I going to use and survey in class? Some--but not likely all--of the below.
"Pre-Homework"
- Description: Using the Web 2.0 write up in Wikipedia this video is to help teach educators about Web 2.0 tools
- Description: "Web 2.0" in just under 5 minutes. http://mediatedcultures.net. This is a slightly revised and cleaned up version of the video that was featured on YouTube in February 2007 [...]
- Wikipedia's List of "Social Software"
- WebWare 100 Awards
- Flick'r: Web 2.0 Logos & Links
- Communities of Practice (CoPs)
- My Google Library
- Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity
by Etienne Wenger - Business & Economics - 1999 - 336 pages - Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge
by Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, William Snyder - Philosophy - 2002 - 284 pages. - Wikipedia: Community of Practice
- Communication --> Community Collaboration
- Email, IRC, IM (Web 1.0)
- IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
- AIM (AOL instant messenger)
- Yahoo! (Yahoo! instant messenger)
- MSN (Microsoft Live messenger)
- GoogleTalk / Jabber (Open-source instant messenger)
- ICQ (I-Seek-You instant messenger)
- P2P (Peer-to-Peer)
- RSS 2.0 (Really Simple Syndication)
- Blogs (contraction for "web log")
- Wikis (quick website collaboration)
- Twitter
- Productivity Tools
- Creative Commons
Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved." - Daylert
Combines Facebook's social presence with Blackboard's online classroom. - Google Apps
Variety of free, collaborative, online office-like applications (and more). - MS Office Live Workspace
MS Office applications online, shareable, and allows for collaboration. - My Yahoo! Widgets
Brings updated, at-a-glance view of your favorite Internet services to your desktop. - Yahoo! Pipes
Pipes is a composition tool to aggregate, manipulate, and mashup content from around the web. - Visual Search Engines
- KartOO
A metasearch engine with visual display interfaces. - Quintura
Another visual search engine with one built specifically for kids. - searchCrystal
A search visualization tool that enables you to compare, remix and share results from the best web, image, video, blog, tagging, news engines, Flickr images or RSS feeds to compare multiple engines in one place. - SearchMash
Google's foray into a search "mashup." - TouchGraph
A free Java application to explore the visual connections between related websites. - Social Bookmarking/Clipping/News
- Photo/Slide/Video/Audio Sharing
- Social Networking/MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online [Role Playing] Game)
This week, I'm presenting a workshop for FDI at Virginia Tech called, "A Survey of Emerging Web 2.0 Technologies: Engaging Students with Technology to Build a Community of Practice". (Twelve academics are enrolled.)
What gets me is that no matter how many of the Web 2.0 technologies I actually use (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Google Apps, etc.), I cannot believe how much more 2.0 stuff there is out there in the world. How does one cover the daily new ones (like Daylert and Microsoft Office Live), let alone existing ones? At best, I can only present a smattering of them ... thank goodness for the Go2Web20.net page.Of interest, the K12 Online Conference 2007 starts tomorrow. I suggest you check it out.
YOUR TASK:
YOU tell ME what Web 2.0 technologies are out there.
(Click on "Post a Comment" below!)
- Use Google or a search visualization tool. If stumped, try Go2Web20.net.
- Which ones do you currently use? Why? How do you use them?
- Which ones would you like to use? Why? How would you use them?
Gapminder World 2006 is what everyone at TED was talking about. It's not the actual talk about "3rd world countries" that got everyone excited, it was the use of animated, visual data that got all the attention. To be clear, the software in question is not called Gapminder; Gapminder Foundation is the Swedish company that started this. What powers this kind of data mashup is the Trendalyzer software (acquired by Google in March 2007) that enables Gapminder to do what it's doing with the data, but really, you're not interested in all of that. You just want to see it working for yourself to understand that you want it.
About this Talk
You've never seen data presented like this. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called "developing world" using extraordinary animation software developed by his Gapminder Foundation. The Trendalyzer software (recently acquired by Google) turns complex global trends into lively animations, making decades of data pop. Asian countries, as colorful bubbles, float across the grid -- toward better national health and wealth. Animated bell curves representing national income distribution squish and flatten. In Rosling's hands, global trends -- life expectancy, child mortality, poverty rates -- become clear, intuitive and even playful. NEW: Download this talk in full SD resolution >>
Is there anyplace that Google isn't at or involved in? I have to say, you'll want to download the latest version of Google Earth. Google now has a new feature called Google Sky which allows you to venture and visit into the heavens. I see this as being quite useful for the science and astronomy classes and lectures out there. Check out YouTube for Google's mini tour and enjoy!
