An excellent free resource that outlines how to set up your Skype account, how to use it, and how to use iti n your classroom.
If you’re interested in Skype at all, this is a great place to start.
NOTE: PDF
MIT researchers create super efficient ‘origami’ solar panels
Solar panels nowadays are flat, but folding them like origami could dramatically boost the amount of power they produce.
I love this Bloom’s Taxonomy Peacock! I want this on a poster.
Check out iLearn Technology Blog for a list of websites that correspond.
Thaaaaaaaaaaat is really cute.
Revkin @DotEarth: “the Senate voted overwhelmingly this afternoon to end the $5-billion-a-year incentive for ethanol production. The vote, according to Wall Street Journal coverage, also would end a 54-cents-a-gallon tariff on imports of the fuel.”
(via emergentfutures)
Digital China’s smart city strategy gaining an edge_Insight—China Economic Net
It is estimated that 70 percent of China’s population will be urbanized by the year 2017. It takes China 20 to 30 years to finish the urbanization process that has taken western industrialized countries 100 to 200 years. “Behind the rapid urbanization there lie many contractions and conflicts. Information technology is undisputedly the most effective means to resolve the contractions during the rapid development of cities.” said Qian Weilie.
(via emergentfutures)
BP’s 2011 Statistical Review of World Energy is out and the biggest news: China has become the biggest world energy producer.
BP, in its 60th annual Statistical Review of World Energy, said China accounted for 20.3 per cent of demand, compared with the United States’ 19 per cent.
The report said China’s consumption rose by 11.2 per cent last year. American demand increased 3.7 per cent.
But Futurepundit’s article continues with more interesting info about the relation between fossil fuel and renewable sources of power.
So are renewables gaining ground against fossil fuels? In a word: No. Fossil fuels gained market share overall.
The growth in fossil fuels was so strong that although non-fossil-fuel energy also had a record year, its share of the world total primary energy decreased a little.
Here’s what’s interesting. While wind grew by 24.6% and solar by 73% they are such a small fraction of total non-fossil fuels energy that their high percentage growth rates did not translate into a high percentage growth rate for non-fossil fuels overall. Solar still amounts to only 0.1% of total electric power and an even smaller percentage of overall energy production. Wind is now 1.6% of global electric power. It needs a few more doublings to become a major player.
(via emergentfutures)
Still skeptical about the value of using Twitter as a tool to engage introverted students in classroom lessons? You’re not alone. A recent survey of almost 2,000 teachers found that half think that using Twitter (and Facebook) in the classroom “is harmful to the learning experience.” But, Los Angeles history teacher Enrique Legaspi disagrees with the naysayers. Last year he went to a workshop that discussed ways to use Twitter in teaching and now his students—even the shy ones—at Hollenbeck Middle School in East L.A. are speaking up more
» via GOOD
I usually thinks it is wrong to talk about a technology or specific software in cases like this. The important here I think is the different social characteristics that different tools have - and that the new tools of communication is offering a new spectrum of tools with new or other characteristics that might support a learning situation.
(via emergentfutures)
