Amazing photos from Mars are released...is anyone watching?

A bouncing boulder comes to a stop...on mars!

A (false color) detail
of sand dunes (above) and the actual photo (right).

Gully channels show evidence of water activity.

I remember how the whole world stopped and held its breath when the first men stepped out onto the lunar surface. It seems surreal that the headline for ice on Mars came and went and these other-worldly photos are being missed.

They're talking about Web 3.0

Experts ask if the future web I see will be the same one you see. They wonder if we will continue surfing or have machines do it for us. Google has one vision of our future (based on their ubiquitous apps) while the inventor of the web,Tim Berners-Lee explains how the semantic web is evolving, where information brings multiple connections linking databases together.

Digital Inspiration brings together several different presentations to explore this debate on where the web is going.

Google Wonder Wheel

Does everybody already know about the options Google has for searches? (They went live last May, but I missed it then.) Do a Google search, then, on the top left side, click on "more options." You can see your results in a whole lot of different ways, but to see them visually in a concept/mind map kind of way, click on "Wonder Wheel." Click and play, or get instructions at Google's site.

Muzorama animation --- nonlinear storytelling

Reposted from NPR:
"You’re not losing your mind. You’re just spending a few minutes in Muzorama.

When we hear the word “animation” many of us think of the narrative storytelling of The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Pinocchio, or Shrek, but when you enter the universe of Muzorama all the laws of physics and logic surrender to the unpredictable imagination of French illustrator Muzo and the Muzorama team.

Produced in 2008, Muzorama is not merely a 3D animation, but a Jungian, psychedelic freefall of visual irony, extremely inventive situations and unending surprises."

Muzorama from Muzorama Team on Vimeo.

"Did You Know" + Creative Commons = Powerful New Media

Exploring what happens to a good idea online by looking at "Did You Know? 2.0," Creative Commons, how people have riffed on the material, and the latest version just released, "Did You Know 4.0). It's a great example of how Creative Commons allows a good idea to be adapted, developed, updated, and transformed.

SOUR '日々の音色 (Hibi no neiro)'

Multichannel's been around for awhile, but this is the first webcam version I've seen! What creative fun!

As always, guru Alan November shows us what's on the horizon, as seen in this youtube video about MIT and Patti Maes called The Sixth Sense Tech of the Future, another TED presentation. This is just too cool!

The Hirshhorn Museum in Washington is inspirational in so many ways.
Here's something I'll use in my media literacy classes. No music or movement is intentional to reduce how much I have an effect on the viewer. Sorry for misspelling the name in the credits : (

Michael Jackson and the Twitter Effect

Andy Warhol gave people 15 minutes to be famous. Today, Twitter gives fame in waves. Here's a record of reaction to the news of Michael Jackson's death.

skrbl collaborative whiteboard

This is in beta and I haven't tried it yet, but want to put the link here where I'll find it. You can create an Internet whiteboard, give the URL to others who can then come and collaborate real time with you. Sounds like it's anticipating "the wave."

Taft High School Graduation 2009

I made this video for my graduating seniors, to try to capture the energy of this rite of passage.

Thanks to Josh J. for telling me about Jamin Winans. Definitely one to watch!

Spin
by Fredy_K

Kaki King

I thought I bought a guitar for my program, but just realized I must have accidentally got it for myself as well, as I found Kaki King and realize I want to learn how to play like she does --- amazing!

Here's an interesting lecture on how social use of the Internet is changing our world.
Clay Sharky's talk is called "How Twitter can make history" but it's about a lot more as well.
Another TED (Ideas Worth Sharing) presentation. (Keep tabs on this site.)

A Common Creative Space in Film Design

An interesting blog about creative design in films.

Google Wave on the horizon

Goggle really DOES want to take over the world!
It will happen with a willing world creating millions of "Google waves," which will take the place of or at least dominate other providers offering blogs, wikis, chats, shared media, and social networking hubs. Yikes! It can do it all INSTANTLY! so why would anyone go anywhere else to do anything?

Due to roll out in the fall, this video shows the Wave creators pitching their product to developers so that there will be a whole world of apps to add on and make the wave immediately imbedded in everything we do online. See for yourself.





I keep thinking about how she said, "the more we used it the more we realized it was changing the way we think," and how he said, "we're trying to come up with a happy medium between instant communication and having enough time to write/create without interruptions. This product really is going to change our lives.

Welcome to Web 3.0, brought to you by Google.

And I can't help but worry about those who don't have the Internet, or don't have the skills, or who don't have a social network. The Digital Divide is widening exponentially.

Tag Galaxy

Tag Galaxy as a way of searching Google images makes me feel like I live in the future!

Diversity in Action: Welcome to Taft!

I put this piece together quickly to promote my high school to middle schools here in LA. Our diversity is our strength --- I see, on a daily basis, people of all types working, playing, and learning together, and I have faith in our globalized future!

Enchanted by vacation

For two days I sat by the beach in Montecito and ignored my computer. I didn't know how much I needed to be away from technology, which I love, until I replaced it with "The Enchantress of Florence," by Salman Rushdie, conversations with my husband, and lots and lots of sea breezes and sandy walks that cleared out the cobwebs and refreshed the soul.

I'm discussing the dystopic futuristic novel "Feed," by M.T. Anderson, with teenagers and thinking about how technology could go wrong, then I come across this song, which is such a beautiful example of how it can be used to bring us together.

Shanghai graffiti video as cultural ambassador

Graffiti in China from a teen cultural ambassador

The 21st Century Learner

Watch this video to see what connectivism and the 21st century learner look like.

Copyright And Fair Use

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Copyright And Fair Use

View more presentations from Spiro Bolos.

Searching for Thelma or Ormond Beach

At my favorite flea market this past weekend I bought a painting of the ocean signed by Thelma V. Howell. I went online to see if I could find out anything about her and found an obituary that might have been hers, but no connection to artistry.

On the back of the canvas it said "Rt A1A, Ormond Beach, Florida, 1977." Adding this information to a search engine didn't help me find out anything else about Thelma, but it made me curious to see what the place looked like.

On Google Maps I found a video of someone driving down Rt A1A through Ormond Beach and thought I might see what Thelma's beach looked like now. Apparently the driver had put his or her video camera, recording, on the dashboard and let one long shot play out, then edited it to soothing music. Three small pictures that could have been selling something popped up on the bottom, but the whole thing was playing in so small a window (courtesy of youtube) that I basically ignored the pictures and just went along for the virtual video drive in the upper part of the frame.

I kept looking for an opening in the buildings to catch a glimpse of the ocean. Then the drive began to mesmerize me just like when I've been a tourist and driven down unknown roads just because I was there.

My virtual driver came to a stop at a traffic light behind a car. Another car pulled up on our left, then a motorcycle. We waited. The light changed, the music surged, the other cars took off and we fell behind. Was the driver trying to give me a better view, or to make me feel relaxed to better enjoy the drive? An ambulance appeared in the lane next to us now, and it seemed to wake me up and I wondered why I was still watching this, still driving down an unknown highway watching traffic, looking at buildings, and not seeing even a glimpse of ocean.

Five hundred fifty people had already taken this virtual drive before me. How many thousands of hours of footage are flooding the Internet? How many thousands of hours are being spent watching, for so little reason, whiling away hours looking for a glimpse of something that was there once and might still be there, somewhere, maybe around the next corner?

"Svengali"

It feels like we're all just waking up to how we've been controlled.