Learn a new language with Babbel (not babelfish)

I think this sounds like a really interesting way to learn a language — social networking & multimedia style! Mashable has a good overview & review here:

Babbel is the latest site to teach new languages through a social Web-based immersion program, where the majority of the content is packaged into lessons created by Babbel. So far, languages such as Spanish, French, Italian, English, and German are supported. Each lesson package contains material pertaining to a different theme, such as travel or business, so you can learn a series of words and phrases within context.

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Although I do like that the information is presented in multiple ways as it SHOUlD create a richer learning environment appealing to a variety of learning styles, I didn’t find a lot in the way supporting documentation, research, etc. on the site. It seems to be all about language and play… but hey if it works (but how will they know?)

I also wonder if they will expand to other languages — seems like kind of a short list, hmm?

Educational uses for social networking sites

First-of-Its-Kind Study at the University of Minnesota Uncovers the Educational Benefits of Social Networking Sites
University of Minnesota News (06/19/0 Badaracco, Luisa

University of Minnesota researchers have determined the educational benefits of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook and also found that low-income students are in many ways just as technologically proficient as their more advantaged counterparts. The researchers found that 94 percent of students in the study used the Internet, 82 percent used the Internet at home, and 77 percent have a profile on a social networking site. Students said social networking sites taught them technology skills, creativity, being open to new or diverse views, and communication skills. Data was collected over six months from students in 13 urban high schools in the Midwest. In addition to the initial surveyed students, a follow-up, randomly selected subset were asked questions on their Internet activity while they used MySpace. University of Minnesota learning technologies researcher Christine Greenhow says students that use social networking sites learn and practice the kinds of 21st century skills that educators say are needed to be successful. “Students are developing a positive attitude towards using technology systems, editing and customizing content, and thinking about online design and layout,” Greenhow says. The results show that social networking sites provide more than just social fulfillment or professional networking and have implications for educators, who have an opportunity to support what students are learning on the Web, Greenhow says. The study contradicts a 2005 study from Pew that suggests a digital divide is forming in which low-income students are technologically impoverished.

More at Univ. Minnesota News

Flickr pro account — is it worth it?

Just in case you didn’t know, Flickr now allows video upload for “pro” accounts.
At this point, running time is limited to 90 seconds. Hopefully, if they want to be a full media site, they will up the time limit, because 90 seconds, well, that is not very long. To be honest, I’m losing my love of flickr quickly anyhow. “Pro” does not really mean pro - it just means that you pay to have more storage a few richer features (video, more collections, stats, etc.)

I’m thinking maybe I will keep my flickr account but downgrade it to the free account, and then switch over to smugmug or something else, where I can actually sell photos. I’d also love a place to host both my videos and photos, a flickr + youtube place. Yeah, I have my domain to do that, but I’d like to use a social networking site for that stuff, too.

flickr tos (what not to do):
http://www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne

and what comes with the flickr pro account:
http://www.flickr.com/upgrade/

LinkedIn, what it is and how to use it

From the excellent commoncraft folks.

What is LinkedIn? from LinkedIn Marketing on Vimeo.

Librarian professional/networking site

From Libgig’s site
http://www.libgig.com

—————
LibGig is a new professional networking website dedicated to bringing together everyone who accesses, organizes, creates, manages, produces or distributes information for a living.

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Includes: Job listings, information about LS programs, blog posts, interviews of community leaders, etc.

Podcast about social networks and technical networks

Author, Here Comes Everybody … The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

Moira speaks with CLAY SHIRKY about the relationship between social networks and technical networks. Now with texting, and digital photos and cell phones, everything from politics to socializing will never be the same

http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3596.html

social networking, library services & web usage - a survey

Interesting survey of 330 students at the University of Michigan; the social networking question was just one question out of the survey. The rest of the survey is kind of interesting, too!

———————–
QUESTION: If you could contact a librarian via Facebook or MySpace for help with your research, would you? If not, why?

Data/Analysis

A total of 23% of respondents stated that *yes* or *maybe* they would be interested in contacting a librarian via these two social networking sites.

Undergrads had a slightly higher than average percentage of 34%.

Nearly half of the total respondents stated they would not be interested, but for various reasons - the biggest reason being that they
feel the current methods (in-person, email, IM) are more than sufficient. 14% said no because they felt it was inappropriate or that Facebook/MySpace is a social tool, not a research tool.

http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2008/01/data-students-
facebook-library-outreach.html

Entire survey:
http://www.lib.umich.edu/usability/projects/ProjectReports/
WebSurvey_Fall2007.pdf

new things for 2008… crystal ball gazing with opensource, social networking, digital identity, and more aka the predictions.

I was poking around trying to find a better video editor, when I stumbled across an opensource project called, Jahshaka. Jahshaka is positioning itself as being a fullbodied product that can compete with such software as finalcut pro (wow!). Not sure about that, because I could never (ever, ever) get the windows installer to work properly. Maybe if I had already switched to ubuntu ALREADY…

Anyhow, I started thinking about all of the new things out there that I probably don’t know about (and some that I do) and somehow I ended up crystal ball gazing (a very dangerous occupation).

It is really amazing how fullbodied some of the opensource products are (openoffice, wordpress, drupal, anyone?) and perhaps, even more amazing, all of the online tools now available (thinkfree, etc.)

As for my thoughts on the near future on the ‘net: niche social networking, user centered aggregated content (perhaps, even some consolidation?), and digital identity. Web3.0 and semantic web? Maybe.

I think niche social networking will become even more popular (social networking sites tailored to the needs of visual artists have popped up recently). Considering how easy it is to get lost in the crowd at facebook or myspace, I can see how appealing a specialized site is. Plus, the one size fits all just does not really… well, fit. Visual artists have been advocating/begging/petitioning myspace for years to create a visual arts portal, as myspace has for musicians. Why bother with that, when there are several sites specifically for visual artists?

However, having a specialized site means another profile and spot on the web to maintain. Social networking and content aggregators are surely to be even stronger in ‘08. How else to manage all of the personal content bits floating out on the web? All of the stuff you want to read? Google reader can help, Pageflakes might be even be more useful (a variety of content, not just feeds or clipped websites), but then there is the other stuff: all of the various profiles, with logins and passwords. Social networking aggregators such as spokeo, profilactic and others, can be handy. Digital identity tools are certainly helpful, for logging in OpenID (one login for multiple sites) and in distinguishing what is yours and perhaps, more importantly, what is NOT yours (and is in no way affiliated.) Consolidation is bound to happen and a little is a good thing — unless google ends up owning EVERYTHING….

Among sites being touted as ‘hot’ for ‘08: PowerSearch (a semantic search engine) , Pownce (social networking & more), etsy (an online store similar to ebay focused on handmade and originally produced products… most of the art community that I know, do not seem overly enamored with etsy, thus far), Dopplr.com (a travel & meetup site), twitter (really? I thought we were all tired of twitter by now), children’s social networking such as moshimonsters and webkinz (if you know a tween or preteen, just ask them about webkinz), seesmic (video diaries)…

..and of course, Google opensocial, if it ever makes headway. I also like some of the projects which allow users to make a positive contribution to a body of knowledge in some way, like the steve museum project, where users assign keywords/tag artwork, identifying artists’ work, and more) and also recaptcha, which uses scanned images from books as captchas (a phrase or word typed in some sort of form, that the user must enter in a text box, which prevent spambots from automatically using the form).

..and then there is always wikipedia, citizendium, the new Google Knol, and those sorts of sites.

Other trends & technologies that have popped up in the onslaught of 2008 predictions posts/articles include:

Location based services (niche marketing of a sort), Mobile Social Networking (I keep reading about this as a big trend, but it just seems more like a means of access to me — be it a pda, iphone, laptop, desktop, psp or whatever… but freely available WIFI at most public buildings, that could definitely continue to change things), lots of chatter about Google taking on the cellphone/mobile industry with Android, Gaming, SecondLife/Virtual Worlds (OpenSL?), internet habits changing as the mobile industry & high demand downloads continue to increase, increase in usage of Linux and other opensource projects (evergreen, the opensource ILS?), and an increase in distrust in google (I love google products, but they are a corporation after all.)

Creating widgets and apps to work with much of this technology is usually (but not always, of course) fairly easy to do and can easily be done by someone with minimal coding experience. I see lots of places where libraries can be, if they want to be. I guess that is the question.

Facebook is so last year http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/dec/24/facebook.socialnetworking

2008 Predictions http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/2008_web_predictions.php

2008 Technology predictions http://latestgeeknews.blogspot.com/2007/12/2008-technology-prediction.html

The Economists Prediction for 2008 http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10410912

Top 10 Startups Worth Watching in 2008 http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/news/2007/12/YE_10_startups

30 Library Technology Predictions http://stephenslighthouse.sirsidynix.com/archives/2007/12/30_library_tech.html

..and of course, a generous sprinkling of my thoughts.

new things for ‘08… crystal ball gazing with opensource, social networking, digital identity, and more.

I was poking around trying to find a better video editor, when I stumbled across an opensource project called, Jahshaka. Jahshaka is positioning itself as being a fullbodied product that can compete with such software as finalcut pro (wow!). Not sure about that, because I could never (ever, ever) get the windows installer to work properly. Maybe if I had already switched to ubuntu ALREADY…

Anyhow, I started thinking about all of the new things out there that I probably don’t know about (and some that I do) and somehow I ended up crystal ball gazing (a very dangerous occupation).

It is really amazing how fullbodied some of the opensource products are (openoffice, wordpress, drupal, anyone?)  and perhaps, even more amazing, all of the online tools now available (thinkfree, etc.)

As for my thoughts on the near future on the ‘net: niche social networking, user centered aggregated content (perhaps, even some consolidation?), and digital identity.  Web3.0 and semantic web? Maybe.

I think niche social networking will become even more popular (social networking sites tailored to the needs of visual artists have popped up recently). Considering how easy it is to get lost in the crowd at facebook or myspace, I can see how appealing a specialized site is. Plus, the one size fits all just does not really… well, fit. Visual artists have been advocating/begging/petitioning myspace for years to create a visual arts portal, as myspace has for musicians. Why bother with that, when there are several sites specifically for visual artists?

However, having a specialized site means another profile and spot on the web to maintain. Social networking and content aggregators are surely to be even stronger in ‘08. How else to manage all of the personal content bits floating out on the web? All of the stuff you want to read? Google reader can help, Pageflakes might be even be more useful (a variety of content, not just feeds or clipped websites), but then there is the other stuff: all of the various profiles, with logins and passwords. Social networking aggregators such as spokeo, profilactic and others, can be handy. Digital identity tools are certainly helpful, for logging in OpenID (one login for multiple sites) and in distinguishing what is yours and perhaps, more importantly, what is NOT yours (and is in no way affiliated.) Consolidation is bound to happen and a little is a good thing — unless google ends up owning EVERYTHING….

Among sites being touted as ‘hot’ for ‘08: PowerSearch (a semantic search engine) , Pownce (social networking & more), etsy (an online store similar to ebay focused on handmade and originally produced products… most of the art community that I know, do not seem overly enamored with etsy, thus far), Dopplr.com (a travel & meetup site), twitter (really? I thought we were all tired of twitter by now), children’s social networking such as moshimonsters and webkinz (if you know a tween or preteen, just ask them about webkinz), seesmic (video diaries)…

..and of course, Google opensocial, if it ever makes headway. I also like some of the projects which allow users to make a positive contribution to a body of knowledge in some way, like the steve museum project, where users assign keywords/tag artwork,  identifying artists’ work, and more) and also recaptcha, which uses scanned images from books as captchas (a phrase or word typed in some sort of form, that the user must enter in a text box, which prevent spambots from automatically using the form).

..and then there is always wikipedia, citizendium, the new Google Knol, and those sorts of sites.

Other trends & technologies that have popped up in the onslaught of 2008 predictions posts/articles include:

Location based services (niche marketing of a sort), Mobile Social Networking (I don’t really see so much as a trend, just a means of access whether a pda,  iphone laptop, or psp or whatever… but freely available WIFI at most public buildings, that could definitely continue to change things), lots of chatter about Google taking on the cellphone/mobile industry with Android, Gaming, SecondLife/Virtual Worlds (OpenSL?), internet habits changing as the mobile industry & high demand downloads continue to increase, increase in usage of Linux and other opensource projects (evergreen, the opensource ILS?), and an increase in distrust in google (I love google products, but they are a corporation after all.)

Creating widgets and apps to work with much of this technology is usually (but not always, of course) fairly easy to do and can easily be done by someone with minimal coding experience. I see lots of places where libraries can be, if they want to be. I guess that is the question.

Facebook is so last year http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/dec/24/facebook.socialnetworking

2008 Predictions http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/2008_web_predictions.php

2008 Technology predictions               http://latestgeeknews.blogspot.com/2007/12/2008-technology-prediction.html

The Economists Prediction for 2008                            http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10410912

Top 10 Startups Worth Watching in 2008 http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/news/2007/12/YE_10_startups

30 Library Technology Predictions http://stephenslighthouse.sirsidynix.com/archives/2007/12/30_library_tech.html

..and of course, a generous sprinkling of my thoughts.

Virtually vague - secondlife, opensim, and other stuff

It’s certainly easier to pretend to make art or to speak the truth than to actually do either.

–NPR, Are we not gamers?

Although my computer more than meets the requirements for secondlife, it’s very jerky. Graphics card, maybe?

I’ve tried secondlife a few times now, the first time was when it was kind of the shiny new thing on the web. This latest time, I wandered around orientation island for a while, got really lost (I think I was standing in the middle of the ocean?) , got bored and gave up. Maybe it is that I didn’t understand exactly how to interact with the software (needed an instruction session, I suppose) or perhaps, it is just that this format doesn’t appeal to me.

In spite of all of the web stuff I do and have participated in, I don’t consider myself a gamer. It really doesn’t appeal to me (although I have played some games online or via a standalone machine -xbox, etc.). NPR has an interesting article about the diminishing distinction between gamer and non-gamer.

SecondLife feels very ‘gamerly’ to me. I also dislike the ‘real’ money involved. I don’t fault SL for trying to make money - hey, it’s their product! I am interested in the educational applications of secondlife. How are educational institutions using secondlife and other sim environments? Are these successful projects?

Are their implications to teaching, conducting research, or otherwise engaging students in SecondLife? Yes, says Michael Bugeja of the Chronicle.

When it comes to Second Life, we’re not only talking about money. We’re talking about whether you as a professor or administrator will be held accountable for introducing your students and/or employees to a virtual world that accepts little responsibility for anything that happens among avatars, including online harassment and assault.

Enter into the mix the opensource virtualworld product, OpenSim, aka OpenSL. Will educational institutions and organizations embrace opensource virtual worlds?

Will one day in the future, instead of typing into a search engine, I will virtually walk up to an information desk and ask for help? Will I be able to do that, or will I be stuck in search engine city?