eLearning in Languages

We had a fantastic workshop the other day with Language teachers. They are all wonderful ladies and when they get together it's a blast! However, in many cases there is only one Language teacher per school. This makes having a Personal Learning Network (PLN) all the more important. The teachers were already connecting well. To take this to the next level we got them all onto Twitter and learning the ropes. In the process we set up a list and a hashtag #ceolanguage.

Importantly for a workshop we wanted them to generate ideas, share them and take them away so that the good work would be sustained. As such, we created a Google Doc 20 Interesting Ways to use Technology in Languages (in the style of Tom Barrett) where every teacher had to add at least one idea by the end of the day. (Please add your own ideas).


As ever, here is the Prezi from the workshop:

eLearning in Languages 2011 on Prezi

Electric Car Charge Points on Google Maps

Zap-Map - UKNext Greencar has released a Google Map of electric car charging points in the UK.Three types of charging point are currently used in the UK and the map shows all three. 'Slow', 'Fast' and 'Rapid' charging points are clearly displayed using a different coloured map marker for each type.The map includes a search option that lets you find charge points near a particular location.

Minecraft Beta 1.7 !!! Acaba de sair do forno !

É pessoal , acabei de ver , o minecraft acabou de atulizar , pra a beta 1.7 !!Confira o que teve de novo :+ Added pistons + Fire or redstone is now required to trigger TNT + Fences can be stacked + Added shears + Shears can be used to pick up leaf blocks + Shears can be used to shear sheep without hurting them * Sheep no longer drop wool from being punched - Removed Herobrine

Mapping the Detention of Migrants

The Global Detention Project is carrying out research into how countries around the world detain migrants. They examine how countries detain on administrative (as opposed to criminal) grounds asylum seekers and irregular immigrants until they can be deported, their identities established, or their claims adjudicated.As part of the project a number of Google Maps have been created that show the

Sortie de Minecraft 1.7

Ça y est, Minecraft 1.7 est enfin disponible ! Il ne vous reste plus qu'à faire mumuse non-stop avec les Pistons.

N'hésitez pas à nous remonter vos bugs ou autres découvertes ;)

Sortie de Minecraft 1.7

Ça y est, Minecraft 1.7 est enfin disponible ! Il ne vous reste plus qu'à faire mumuse non-stop avec les Pistons.N'hésitez pas à nous remonter vos bugs ou autres découvertes ;)

Minecraft 1.7 Piston Trailer

É pessoal , 1.7 está chegando !!!! Confira o trailer :

Create Your Own Animated Google Map

Animaps lets you create your own animated maps. You could use the application to create an animated map of a journey you have taken, or to show how a bike / yacht race progressed or even to show the progress of armies in a famous battle.With Animaps you can quickly animate, map markers, polylines or polygons. To get a true idea of what is possible with Animaps you should check out this showcase

Trailer : Minecraft 1.7 & Pistons

Pour vous faire patienter en attendant la sortie de Minecraft 1.7 (plus que quelques heures à tenir si tout va bien), Mojang nous offre un Trailer vous présentant les Pistons.

Trailer : Minecraft 1.7 & Pistons

Pour vous faire patienter en attendant la sortie de Minecraft 1.7 (plus que quelques heures à tenir si tout va bien), Mojang nous offre un Trailer vous présentant les Pistons.

Google+, Google's Facebook

The Google+ Project, is Google's new social networking project. It was recently tested by Sergey Brin, and in most of the tests, it failed. It is only available to a select group of people right now, so bloggers like me wont really be able to express our opinions on this. 

You can subscribe to their updates via E-mail by going to http://plus.google.com.

It has many new features that might be a 'fad' for some people or, the 'killer app' for the others. 

It will feature 'Circles', which seems like groups. You can share separate things with separate people. In my opinion, it is a pretty nice idea, and there are something things that I do not want to share with my family, or friends. That's a big problem on Facebook, as you might be 'spied' upon constantly by different people from your family.

"You share different things with different people. So sharing the right stuff with the right people shouldn’t be a hassle. Circles makes it easy to put your friends from Saturday night in one circle, your parents in another, and your boss in a circle by himself - just like real life."

You can take a tour of Google+ yourself, right here. It is currently under testing.

"Already invited? We've temporarily exceeded our capacity. Please try again soon."

The words suggest that they might be having 'technical difficulties'. 

Another feature is called 'Sparks', which is basically the copy of 'Likes' from Facebook. It tells your friends what are you interested in.

I'll keep you posted.

Suggestions and comments are appreciated !

Thanks.

More Birds Eye View

Dodger Stadium, LANot content with pushing out the biggest update to Street View Google Maps has today also received a lot more aerial view (or Bird's Eye view) imagery.The full list of the new additions to Google Maps' aerial view is; Anaheim, CA. Jacksonville, FL. Tampa, FL. North Las Vegas, NV. Los Angeles, CA. Downey, CA. La Chaux de Fonds, CH. Visalia, CA. Corona, CA. Meadowlake, NM.

Sonic in heels

This is my visual payback for the YEARS I use to play Sonic and die. Will get therapy and then try to finish Sonic 2 again.

Edit:

See the t-shirt in a better angle at Bamboota's Redbubble store.

Got my 'SuperWho' t-shirt from RipT today. Designed by the lovely Bamboota (I kind of know her on Twitter) of course. So inspired by her designs, originality and humor. T-shirt quality is quite good. Tardis blue. Nice fit. Very good quality print. Happy! Might have to order more from RipT one day.

World of Fourcraft on Google Maps

Why settle for being the Mayor of Macy's when you can be the King of New York?World of Fourcraft is a clever new Google Maps based game that turns your foursquare check-ins into a giant game of Risk. If you live in New York you can sign in with your foursquare account and then swear your allegiance to one of the city's boroughs.After you have chosen a team every time you check-in with foursquare

Street View Lands in the Isle of Man

Peel Castle, Isle of MapGoogle Street View has now been launched on the Isle of Man and Jersey. Updated imagery has also been added in thirteen countries; Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Romania, South Africa, Taiwan, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Google say that this is their biggest update to Street View yet.Mont Orgueil, JerseyHat-tip: Google

The World's Population on Google Maps

City Population is busy mapping the population sizes of all the world's major conurbations. City Population lists the populations of all countries and the major cities and agglomerations of each country. The site uses Google Maps to show the major cities and their populations. For each country you can select to view counties, states or administrative regions on a Google Map. The map shows the

Google Maps Redesigned & Google+

It has been a busy day of announcements from Google. As well as launching a new social network Google has unveiled a new design for Google Maps.The Google+ Project was launched today with a nice use of the Google Maps API to showcase whats on offer from the new social network.The demo page is a map created from a custom image with the addition of a number of map markers to showcase the many

Google Maps of the 2010 U.S. Census

The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The LA Times and The Texas Tribune have all been busy mapping the 2010 U.S. census. These newspapers have all provided great map based visualisations of the census on a regional basis. Now, however, the U.S. Census Bureau has released its own Google Map that lets you visualise the data for anywhere in the country.Or, at least, it

Professor Grizwald and the Redstone Keys is OUT NOW

It's finally done! :D Click the link above to get to the download page.

And check out this trailer:

Minecraft 1.8 : Ajout des PNJ

Pour que l’aspect "Aventure" de Minecraft 1.8 soit le plus réussi possible, Notch compte intégrer certaines nouveautés bien sympathiques :

- plus d'importance donnée à l'exploration, l'agriculture et aux combats
- nouvelle mécanique de combat
- nouvelle physique de la lumière
- Ajout des PNJ (personnages non-joueurs)

Minecraft 1.8 : Ajout des PNJ

Pour que l’aspect "Aventure" de Minecraft 1.8 soit le plus réussi possible, Notch compte intégrer certaines nouveautés bien sympathiques :- plus d'importance donnée à l'exploration, l'agriculture et aux combats- nouvelle mécanique de combat- nouvelle physique de la lumière- Ajout des PNJ (personnages non-joueurs)

How Far Can You Fly with Google Maps?

Hungarian Airline Malev has a nice flight finder tool that allows you to select an airport, the amount of money that you are willing to pay and then view on Google Maps destinations that you can afford on your budget.The travel finder is very easy to use. You can just click on any of the mapped airports to set them as the airport that you wish to fly from. You can set the amount of money you are

Stunning animation rendered with Octane Render

Just saw this very impressive video on the Octane forum today and thought it deserved its own post (the level of realism is otherworldly):

http://vimeo.com/25686881

The whole scene is 3D. Rendertime was two minutes per frame on average on a single GTX480, so eight of these GPUs rendering simultaneously would reduce the rendertime to just 15 seconds per frame (rendertimes in Octane scale almost linearly with the number of GPUs), which is just completely nuts considering the quality.

Update: there's a new video on youtube showing that Octane can produce a real-time rendered low resolution preview animation of an outdoor scene with a rendertime of only 55 milliseconds per frame!

Sortie de Minecraft 1.7 : Jeudi 30 Juin

Plus que 2 jours à attendre avant de tester les Pistons de Minecraft 1.7. On aurait aimé plus de nouveautés mais on saura se contenter de ça ;)

Sortie de Minecraft 1.7 : Jeudi 30 Juin

Plus que 2 jours à attendre avant de tester les Pistons de Minecraft 1.7. On aurait aimé plus de nouveautés mais on saura se contenter de ça ;)

Mornington Crescent on Google Maps

Mornington Crescent is a turn-based strategy game which, in its simplest form, can be picked up quite quickly but does take years to truly master. The rules of Mornington Crescent can appear very confusing when you first start playing the game. The almost infinite number of rule variations, such as "Trumpington's Variations" or "Tudor Court Rules", means that even seasoned players often get

YogBox Pack Minecraft 1.6.6 Mod

YogBox Pack Minecraft 1.6.6 Mod 2011

- More Health

- ModOptions API

- Mo' Creatures

- GUI API 

- Airship and sky pirates

and much more!!

                                                                Mirror download here:

                                                        

Squidy! and possible Ecards?

Proof of life post. Also proof I should draw randomly more.


After drawing 'Hug bear' and animating it, I was thinking of producing a line of funny Ecards. Similar to the above but with more videogame references, etc. Who knows.

Podcast à 2 PO's #5

Bonjour, le 5ème épisode de Podcast à 2 POs est sorti !

Au programme : Une intro délirante, le premier épisode de Minecraft Noire, les news, le classement des serveurs, une interview de Vexios hilarante, et le SAV des podcast a chier !

Enjoy !

Podcast à 2 PO's #5

Bonjour, le 5ème épisode de Podcast à 2 POs est sorti !Au programme : Une intro délirante, le premier épisode de Minecraft Noire, les news, le classement des serveurs, une interview de Vexios hilarante, et le SAV des podcast a chier !Enjoy !

Make Your Own History Map

Weaving History from the Open Knowledge Foundation lets you create your own history maps with a little help from the Simile Timeline and Google Maps.The Simile Timeline widget has long been a favourite tool for Google Maps developers who want to create maps about historic events. The programming skills required for both the timeline widget and the Google Maps API however does create a barrier for

Mapping Diabetes on Google Maps

TuAnalyze is an app for recording and sharing measures of diabetes. The app is jointly developed by Children's Hospital Boston and TuDiabetes.org.TuAnalyze uses Google Maps to map haemoglobin A1c, which is an indirect measure of diabetes management. The map shows user recordings of A1c in each U.S. state and in a number of other countries. Each state and country is shaded to reflect the average

Minecraft 1.8 : The adventure update

Initialement prévue pour la sortie de Minecraft 1.7, The adventure update devra attendre finalement que Minecraft 1.8 sorte. Cette très grosse évolution prend visiblement plus de temps que prévue...

Pour résumer :

Minecraft 1.7 = Pistons
Minecraft 1.8 = The adventure update

Minecraft 1.8 : The adventure update

Initialement prévue pour la sortie de Minecraft 1.7, The adventure update devra attendre finalement que Minecraft 1.8 sorte. Cette très grosse évolution prend visiblement plus de temps que prévue...Pour résumer :Minecraft 1.7 = PistonsMinecraft 1.8 = The adventure update

Minecraft 1.7 : les Pistons uniquement

Notch a annoncé sur son blog que Minecraft 1.7 verra le jour prochainement et n'incorporera comme grosse nouveauté uniquement l'ajout des Pistons. Quelques corrections de bugs seront également de la partie mais pas d'autres grosses évolutions.

Reste plus qu'à connaître la date !

Minecraft 1.7 : les Pistons uniquement

Notch a annoncé sur son blog que Minecraft 1.7 verra le jour prochainement et n'incorporera comme grosse nouveauté uniquement l'ajout des Pistons. Quelques corrections de bugs seront également de la partie mais pas d'autres grosses évolutions.Reste plus qu'à connaître la date !

Accelerating Path Tracing by Eye Path Reprojection

Just stumbled upon this upcoming paper about interactive GPU path tracing from Niklas Henrich. The abstract sounds very promising:

"Recently, path tracing has gained interest for real-time global illumination since it allows to simulate an unbiased result of the rendering equation. However, path tracing is still too slow for real-time applications and shows noise when displayed at interactive frame rates. The radiance of a pixel is computed by tracing a path, starting from the eye and connecting each point on the path with the light source. While conventional path tracing uses the information of a path for a single pixel only, we demonstrate how to distribute the intermediate results along the path to other pixels in the image. We show that this reprojection of an eye path can be implemented efficiently on graphics hardware with only a small overhead. This results in an overall improvement of the whole image since the number of paths per pixel increases. The method is especially useful for many indirections, which is often circumvented to save computation time. Furthermore, instead of improving the quality of the rendering, our method is able to increase the rendering speed by reusing the reprojected paths instead of tracing new paths while maintaining the same quality."

Hopefully, the results from "Accelerating path tracing by re-using paths" (a paper from 2002 by Bekaert et al. who reported a 9x speed-up for CPU path tracing) can be replicated on the GPU.

Sparse voxel octree with real-time global illumination and dynamic geometry

Cyril Crassin has posted a very nice video on his blog at http://blog.icare3d.org/2011/06/interactive-indirect-illumination-and.html showing the latest developments in his sparse voxel octree research which will be presented at Siggraph 2011 in Vancouver.

Major improvements on previously published results (http://artis.imag.fr/Membres/Cyril.Crassin/) include real-time indirect lighting (for diffuse and glossy materials) and support for fully dynamic voxel objects (by fast mesh voxelization and updating the voxel octree in real-time). There has been research in animated sparse voxel octrees before (using rasterization, see http://bautembach.de/wordpress/?page_id=7, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl6PE_n6zTk, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnvr0hxyDvk and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNZtx3ijjpo, which doesn't look as detailed as Jon Olick's raycasted static sparse voxel octree tech from Siggraph 08), but this is the first time it's being done with ray casting (cone tracing actually).

The global illumination algorithm resembles photon mapping: instead of photon tracing, the scene is rasterized from the perspective of the light source and radiance is stored in the octree, followed by filtering in screen-space and a final gathering step using approximate cone tracing. More details: http://artis.imag.fr/Publications/2011/CNSGE11a/GIVoxels_Siggraph_Talk.pdf

Planes, Trams & Automobiles

NextBus's real-time transit map of San Francisco lets you view the live position of the city's historic cable cars.You can select to view any of the cable car lines in San Francisco and view the cable cars moving on a Google Map in real-time. Each of the cable cars is represented by it's own map marker. Each marker displays the unique livery of the selected cable car.From the map sidebar you can

Whats going on ?

All of you guys who follow me on YouTube might've realized that I hadn't posted a video on my channel since almost a month. I uploaded the ArticleConr Episode 4 yesterday and I'm sorry for the decline in the frequency of the videos.

There's only one main reason behind this, and that is that school has started ! I am now in 9th grade, and I gotta do a lot of work ! I am generally free only on Saturdays and Sundays and on weekday (also weekend)  evenings, I'm generally chilling with my friends from school.

So you guys can expect videos on Saturday afternoon, India time (+5:30 GMT).

Thanks for reading, and most important, understanding :)

Thanks !

F.E.A.R. 3 v16.20.0992 + 10 Trainer

F.E.A.R. 3 v16.20.0992 + 10 Trainer

It's a new trainer to Fear 3 Game.

                                                                   Mirror download here:

Map "Villa" de COD Black Ops dans Minecraft

Certains joueurs de Call of Duty adorent également Minecraft et le prouvent en s'amusant à y reproduire les Maps de leur jeu préféré. Le résultat est parfois très réussi, comme cette reproduction de la map "Villa" de COD Black Ops.

Télécharger la Map Villa : http://www.mediafire.com/?u5sfw105p6nfi58

Map "Villa" de COD Black Ops dans Minecraft

Certains joueurs de Call of Duty adorent également Minecraft et le prouvent en s'amusant à y reproduire les Maps de leur jeu préféré. Le résultat est parfois très réussi, comme cette reproduction de la map "Villa" de COD Black Ops.Télécharger la Map Villa : http://www.mediafire.com/?u5sfw105p6nfi58

Podcast a 2 PO's #4

Podcast à 2 PO's ont sorti leurs 4ème épisode il y a quelques jours !

Au programme, une petite bande annonce, des news, un classement des serveurs qui a subi quelques changements, l'interview d'Elarcis, et d'autres petites choses toujours aussi marrantes !

Bon épisode à tous !

Podcast a 2 PO's #4

Podcast à 2 PO's ont sorti leurs 4ème épisode il y a quelques jours !Au programme, une petite bande annonce, des news, un classement des serveurs qui a subi quelques changements, l'interview d'Elarcis, et d'autres petites choses toujours aussi marrantes !Bon épisode à tous !

Village elfique en Timelapse

Encore une vidéo en Timelapse nous présentant cette fois-ci la création d'une ville elfique dans Minecraft. Ça donne le vertige !

Village elfique en Timelapse

Encore une vidéo en Timelapse nous présentant cette fois-ci la création d'une ville elfique dans Minecraft. Ça donne le vertige !

The Google Maps Apps of the Week

Hurtigruten: Minute by MinuteNorwegian Public Service broadcaster NRK this week live broadcasted the voyage of the cruise liner Hurtigruten around the Norway coastline for 134 hours. As well as amazing live footage you could follow the position of the cruise liner on a real-time Google Map.The cruise is now over but you can still view video of the event. If you click on any of the red dots on

Back to the Future Game Episode 5 Keygen

Back to the Future Game Episode 5 Keygen

Here is a new keygen to new released game Back to the Future Episode 5!

Instructions:

- Run Keygen

- Click Generate button

- Copy your key to game options during installation.

- Enjoy full game :)

                                                                  Mirror download here:

                                                                   

An Asian in New York

The latest U.S. census has revealed that for the first time the number of Asians in New York has topped one million. This means that now nearly 1 in 8 New Yorkers are Asian.This Google Map from the New York Times shows the distribution of the Asian population in New York by country of origin. You can refine the data shown on the map by country and you can also view the New York Times' summary of

Virtua Tennis 4 Crack by SKIDROW New!!!

Virtua Tennis 4 Crack by SKIDROW

Copy crack to game files and enjoy full game.

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A Seasonally Adjusted Google Map

Ottawa Pastoral has created a very nice looking Google Map to quickly find outdoor spaces of play based on your current location in Ottawa and the time of the year.The map shows the location of outdoor spaces where you can play various sports, however, the locations shown vary according to the time of year. In the summer baseball, basketball, lawn bowling, soccer, tennis and volleyball locations

HTML5 Elevation with Google Maps

Vizzuality, the Spanish developers of some of the coolest Google Maps apps, has created a Google Map that allows you to view all the world's mountain ranges.The map uses an HTML5 canvas overlay to visualise elevation data worldwide. The map includes a slider that allows you to adjust the elevation above sea level that is shown on the map. If you set the slider to 0 metres then most of the world's

Scrolling Backgrounds with Google Map

Tourism New Zealand has implemented a very clever and striking website using Google Maps in conjunction with a series of related background images.As you use scroll through the New Zealand 100% Pure website the background images change to create some impressive effects. The scrolling images are used to create animated clouds moving across still landscape images or to provide a narrative, for

A Google Maps Trading Game

A Map of the Floating City is an interesting looking new game that has created its own game world with the help of Google Maps.You can sign up for the game with Twitter or Facebook and you are then given your own ship, which will magically appear on the Google Map. The main objective of the the game is to trade with other players in order to move your ship forward on the map.When you have a trade

Friday Fun with Google Maps

Bill Guffey's Street View PaintingsArtist Bill Guffey paints scenes captured by the Google Maps Street View car. This scene from Jonesport, Maine has already been sold but if you like the look of his work Bill's website has many more of his paintings available for sale.Street View by Tim MincinIn this song comedian Tim Minchin takes a more negative look at Google Maps Street View.Stealth

[Minecraft] Xray Mod Jar file v1.6.6

Yes, you read it well, this jar file allows you to see through walls, finding your resources easier.



NOTICE : To use this mod, you need to start minecraft from the launcher!


Download xraymod.zip

Instructions:
X - Xray on/off toggle
C - Lighting system toggles (1x - mobs/players highlighted, 2x everything highlighted, 3x lighting back to normal)
V - view caves on/off toggle

NOTICE : SOME SERVERS DO NOT CONDONE OF THIS MOD! USING IT MIGHT GET YOU BANNED! I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE IN CASE IT HAPPENS!

Grizwald 2 map release VERY soon

It's been a while since I've posted here. I've been busy with life ect. But it's finally done. Professor Grizwald and the Redstone Keys is almost ready for release! I'm just fixing up some odds and ends and waiting on a few select play testers.

Shooting for a release some time this weekend, maybe even tomorrow!

HOORAY!

Hunting Nazi Gold with Google Maps

German hacking group No Name Crew earlier this month managed to hack the website of the far-right German political party the NPD. Someone has used the data to create a Google Map that lists the full names and addresses of 400 donors to the NPD.The map contains a legend that says that it "might contain some errors..", which obviously does raise concerns that someone completely unrelated to the NPD

London Bus Planners on Google Maps

There are around 7,000 red buses in London transporting passengers on over 700 different routes. BusIt London is a bus route planner that can help you navigate London's extensive bus network.To plan a route just click on the Google Map to select your start and end points, or use the search box to find locations. BusIt London will then display your route on the map. If more than one route is

Wave Height & Direction with Google Maps

Meteo Mari e VentiI think this is the first real-time wave height map that has been featured on Google Maps Mania. Meteo Mari e Venti is a Google Map that shows wave and wind height and direction predictions for the Mediterranean Sea. There are four map views available on Meteo Mari e Venti, wave height and direction, period and wave direction, wind at 10m and wind gusts. Each of the maps show

GTA IV ULTRA RIP Compressed!! 30MB INSTALLER!

GTA IV ULTRA RIP Compressed!! 30MB INSTALLER!

There is a new system! I compressed 14GB GTA IV to 30MB File System!

Download this GTA IV system here:

                                                                        Mirror here:

                                                                

Garena Hack 2010 (Updated 21 June 2011)

Garena Hack 2010

 New functions in updated Garena Hack!

- Auto Joiner

- Icon Hack

- Map Hack and Map FOG

- Spam Bot v.2

                                                                   Mirror download:

Deaths in Afghanistan by U.S. State

Afghanistan Casualties and Deaths by U.S. StateThe Guardian has used Fusion Tables to create a map to show the number of casualties and deaths suffered by each U.S. state in the ten years of the war in Afghanistan.The map lets you click on the map to view the details of deaths and casualties for the selected state. It is also possible to view a heat map for a number of different data sets. The

The Angling Trust's Google Map Campaign

Cormorant WatchThe UK's Angling Trust, has launched a new web site for anglers to record sightings of cormorants, goosanders and mergansers throughout the UK. The new site uses Google Maps to record user sightings of the birds in the UK.The birds are having a major affect on UK fish stocks and the aim of the map is to gather data to help persuade the UK government of the need for action to

Custom Satellite View with Google Maps

Cartagen Warping ToolThe Google Maps API v3 has a great feature that lets you take and add your own Custom Street Views to Google Maps. Unfortunately it doesn't have a similar feature to add your own aerial imagery.Step forward then Cartagen Warping Tool.This tool allows you to upload your own aerial imagery and place it on top of Google Maps. The application includes tools that allow you to

The World's Architecture on Google Maps

ArchMapsArchMaps is a Spanish language site that uses Google Maps and Street View to show the locations of great works of architecture.ArchMaps has a very useful tagging system so that you can search for buildings by the name of the architect, by location, by date and by architectural style. Each building listed on ArchMaps can be viewed on Google Maps and, where available, can also be viewed in

600 Free Google Map Markers

Map Icons CollectionI rarely make a Google Map without using map markers from the Map Icons Collection. The collection has more than 600 free icons which you can use as map markers with the Google Maps API, which means you can nearly always find a marker that fits the purpose and design of your map.The collection has previously been hosted on Google Projects but now has its very own website. With

Global Warming on Google Maps

Climate Hot MapThe Union of Concerned Scientists has created this Google Map to show the probable effects of global warming around the world. The map is accompanied by a Climate Hot Map Scavenger Hunt, which if you complete successfully gives you a chance to win a trip for two to the Rio Cachoeira Natural Reserve in Brazil.The map explores the effect of climate change on people, the environment,

Human 2.0

Some dialog about the evolution of the Human Digerati. #SecondLife



“Pay attention!”

I can remember those words being repeated time and again in the classroom by a teacher at the end of their wits with the students. In the age of computers and ubiquitous technology, our students, and likely many of us born around or after the 1980s, exhibit strange behavior when compared to the prior generations. For one, we simply can’t be bothered to pay attention; our minds wandering from thought to idea in a seemingly chaotic manner.

From the viewpoint of “legacy” teachers, to borrow a term from computer lingo, these digital natives have the attention span of a gnat, and often times are simply impossible to teach. I beg to differ with that analysis, mainly because we’re assuming that these students (many who are now full grown adults) are somehow deficient, and that is a dangerous path to entertain. Down that path, we simply label children and adults as being Attention Deficit Disorder and prescribe some drug to “normalize” them.

Personally, I’m against the whole idea of A.D.D. and ADHD being considered a disorder or diagnosis at all, because of the implication that these children and adults are somehow broken and need to be fixed. In reality, they are Digital Natives and their very minds have been altered through rapid and long-term exposure to technological ubiquity. These children and adults aren’t suffering from poor attention span and focus, but quite the opposite; They’ve become exceedingly proficient at parallel thinking and multitasking, and as a result, anything linear is ignored.

I recently had a conversation with a friend in #SecondLife where she was explaining to me that she was told her son had A.D.D and required medication in order to correct the “problem”. Of course, she refused to have her son drugged up and instead chose a more hands-on approach to handle the situation, which included actually figuring out what was going on (to the best of her abilities). She had asked me what I had thought about the situation, and I essentially told her that she had done the right thing, because I didn’t think the boy needed medication for A.D.D. nor did I think there was anything wrong with him. In short, her son is the product of being a Digital Native, and should be celebrated instead of shunned for it. As far as I am concerned, it is a gift and not a curse.

It’s not a matter of not being able to pay attention or focus, but a matter of lightning quick prioritization of importance, meaning, and weighted analysis of attention. Unfortunately, the results are that anything linear is given a much lesser importance and thus marginalized at best in the minds of Digital Natives as “not important”.

I can say with certainty that I fall into the category of Digital Native very clearly, in that I personally disliked school, and while that isn’t exactly enough to justify the point there lies within it a deeper reasoning below the surface. It wasn’t that I disliked school, but instead the courses were bland and not interesting to me. At first I believed it was because I was somehow failing to grasp what was being taught, but later I realized a bigger truth; The teachers were failing to grasp the attention of the students or understand how they truly learned things.

There are two paths to consider when dealing with whether this apparent lack of attention has deeper meaning, and most of the time we immediately insist there is something wrong with the students. I’d like to venture out and say that the problem is not with the students but with the teachers as well as the legacy society that is trying to interact with these Digerati kids, in that they are Digital Immigrants (Legacy Thinkers in a Digital Native environment), and speak a very different language than that of the Digital Natives. Schools teach in very linear fashions, where text comes first and then maybe pictures afterward. Boring lectures that carry on far longer than required, dry material, and absolutely no immersion or hypermedia context. On the other side of the desk are the students, who are digital natives, carelessly engaged in multitasking and parallel thinking requirements, listening to teachers demanding that they devote 100% of their focus to what they are saying instead.

It’s just not going to work like that, and we know it. Growing up, I was told constantly how listening to music or watching television was counter-productive to studying or work, because (as the theory goes) you can’t do two things at once without sacrifice to the overall performance of both. For some things I’ll buy that line, like when driving you shouldn’t be texting people, but clearly we have radios installed in our cars and listening to music while driving isn’t cited as a number one cause of accidents – even when we’re constantly seeing reports of drivers in accidents when using their cell-phones. It really depends what we’re doing and whether we’re properly thinking in parallel – clearly the radio isn’t causing accidents but the cell phones are, unless you’re using a Bluetooth headset to talk.

The point is, the idea that we’re somehow lesser able simply because we’re multitasking is absolutely bunk, at least if we’re testing against Digital Natives and not Digital Immigrants.

At some point, research was done for Sesame Street revealing that children do not actually watch television continuously, but “in bursts.” They tune in just enough to get the gist and be sure it makes sense.  In one key experiment, half the children were shown the program in a room filled with toys.  As expected, the group with toys was distracted and watched the show only about 47 percent of the time as opposed to 87 percent in the group without toys.  However, when the children were tested for how much of the show they remembered and understood, the scores were exactly the same.  “We were led to the conclusion that the 5-year-olds in the toys group were attending quite strategically, distributing their attention between toy play and viewing so that they looked at what was for them the most informative part of the program.  The strategy was so effective that the children could gain no more from increased attention.” [1]

If a 5 year old can think in parallel effectively, so can you. They’re more aware of their surroundings than we give them credit for.

Heck, whenever I’m working on a project I am most often listening to music or multitasking across multiple tabs on my web browser simultaneously while answering messages. How do you think I wrote my book chapter? By nature I’m an “Immersive Learner” which is a fancy way of saying that all methods of learning interaction are the best manner for me at the same time and fall exceedingly short individually – Visual, Kinesthetic, and Auditory. In a hyper-media frame of mind that is thinking in parallel, the problem may be that we’re not being taught in a manner that is immersive or takes into account what type of learner we are. How better to address this problem than to teach in an Immersive Learning environment that caters to all types at the same time?

I mean, the most effective forms of education are turning out to be not from real teachers but from fictional characters in video games, television, or unrestricted access to hyper-media.

Maybe Animaniacs should have been required television?

It isn’t a matter of whether or not children or adults are having trouble focusing or paying attention, but quite the contrary – in that they are devoting no more than is required for multiple tasks, with a weighted importance (more attention) to things that they can actually take something away from having given more attention to. If you’re speaking their language (Immersive Learning), then you’re likely to have their full attention.

There is also rising evidence that technology actually does rewire the brain, changing the way we think, which leads me to believe that we’re not actually deficient but instead at a higher advancement than the prior generations of legacy thinkers. Digital Natives are the human equivalent to multi-core processors versus Digital Immigrants (Legacy Thinkers) who are single core processing.

That’s not to say that Digital Natives are overall better than Digital Immigrants. Oh yes, we have our drawbacks as well as advancements. We’re literally wired to think in non-linear and random order, a hypermedia frame of mind, where we are free to explore every notion and idea we have instantaneously and often times in multiplicity. Of course, the problem here is that it may be literally impossible for us to go backwards to the prior way of thinking (at least not without a lot of time, effort, or drugs). The question, though, is why would we actually want to impede our advancement?

Which brings me to the point I raised earlier about this whole A.D.D. and ADHD diagnosis. I don’t think it’s a diagnosis that actually addresses the root of the problem, which to me is that the  legacy thinkers are unable to interface with these new technorati children, and thus instead of learning how to better do so, they drug the ever loving hell out of these kids and bring them back down to their level, intentionally retarding their ability to reach maximum potential.

That should be a global crime against humanity.


"They were always hanging cores on me to adjust my behavior" – GladOS


We live in a world where children can readily memorize hundreds of Pokemon, their stats and characteristics, but teachers can’t seem to convince them to memorize the nations of the world and the statistics that go with it.  Clearly it isn’t because the children are somehow deficient or incapable, quite the opposite in that I’d venture to say Digital Natives are not only capable they are hyper-capable with an astounding ability to parse mountains of information in seconds if it suits them. The only way it will suit them, however, happens to be in a manner that gets them to warrant using 100% of their attention on it – which is Immersive Education.

I can admit that I’ve learned more playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (and watching the subsequent cartoon Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?) than all of my Geography classes combined. I also learned my World History from teachers who knew better than to toss a book in front of me and tell me to read – no, they engaged us in thought experiments and non-linear methods of exploration. To that point, I will always thank Mr. George Gelderman for giving me a keen interest in Social Studies and World History. He is, and was, a brilliant example of non-linear education at its best and I can’t thank that man enough.

Let’s face it, we all had a really good reason to find Carmen Sandiego… *ahem*

I didn’t have an interest in the fine arts or theatre until I actually watched Hamlet as a movie and started going to the theatre in person. Before that, classics like Hamlet, Beowulf as well as Romeo & Juliet really meant nothing to me. To a Digital Native, the text only versions often times simply do not parse. You simply fail to visualize what is going on or the relevance inherent with the text. It’s almost like your mind marks it as unimportant and ignores it until it can be explained in a hyper-media manner suited for parallel thinking. Going to those theatre performances, I immediately took in all that was going on and loved the premise, story, and plots immensely. When I was in school, there was a time when such experiences were made to be fun and engaging, later on to be offered as dry text and some lectures. It was no wonder I lost lost interest!

There comes a point in education where we realize it is no longer fun or engaging. Prior to that moment, we are sponges, soaking up vast amounts of academic stimuli in short periods of time. We end up with issues in the learning chain when we forget the reason children (and adults) continue to learn; Because it was fun.

The problem isn’t the children or adults that are Digital Natives, it’s simply a legacy communication problem. The reason they can memorize hundreds of Pokemon is because it’s a non-linear, immersive learning experience, coupled with a learning environment that suits them best – Gameification or Hyper-media. It’s entirely about immersive experiential learning.

A frequent objection I hear from Digital Immigrant educators is "this approach is great for facts, but it wouldn’t work for 'my subject.'" Nonsense. This is just rationalization and lack of imagination.  In my talks I now include "thought experiments" where I invite professors and teachers to suggest a subject or topic, and I attempt - on the spot - to invent a game or other Digital Native method for learning it.  Classical philosophy?  Create a game in which the philosophers debate and the learners have to pick out what each would say.  The Holocaust?  Create a simulation where students role-play the meeting at Wannsee, or one where they can experience the true horror of the camps, as opposed to the films like Schindler's List.  It's just dumb (and lazy) of educators - not to mention ineffective - to presume that (despite their traditions) the Digital Immigrant way is the only way to teach, and that the Digital Natives' "language" is not as capable as their own of encompassing any and every idea. [2]

This is why I love the idea of using virtual world environments for education. It’s not a magic bullet, any more than slapping a cartoon character on the textbook is going to suddenly show results. It’s a tool that should be used effectively, but can just as quickly be used ineffectively if not disastrously.

I wouldn’t say that trying to cram legacy, linear teaching methods into a virtual world space is a good idea. If anything, it’s a colossal waste of time. If you want to know how to make effective learning experiences, talk to companies like MadPea Games in SecondLife. I learned quite a lot in a fun and intuitive game atmosphere that was non-linear because of them, and as a result, I played The Kaaos Effect many times over simply because I enjoyed it.

The Kaaos Effect–1943 German U-Boat Level: MadPea Games, SecondLife

This is the future of education, though I am quick to point out that legacy thinking need not apply. I’m pretty sure that if you were to take those same children diagnosed with ADD or ADHD and sat them down to play this game, they would probably learn it inside and out in no time. As it turns out, this is the type of language they (we) speak. It is an immersive, hyper-media learning experience that is non-linear.

Digital Natives aren’t broken. They don’t need to be fixed with drugs. We’re just really bored with linear and legacy interactions. We’re wired differently in the head, and that’s not a bad thing, to the contrary it’s actually the best thing for humanity that we are. The question is, whether or not the legacy teachers and methods will learn to speak our language or if they’ll continue to find excuses to dumb us down.

I was playing Portal 2 recently and a line in the game from GladOS really hit home. The A.I. GladOS was remembering that when she started becoming “too intelligent”, “too quick” and “too powerful” the scientists tried everything to slow her down. Eventually they resorted to attaching defective units to her that were spewing gibberish into her head, and constantly distracting her on purpose. The sole point of this was to mentally weigh her down and try to restrict her any way that they could in order to keep her manageable and under control.

In a world where our kids can blow through Portal 2 with ridiculous complexity and problem solving skills, we’re trying to convince them (and ourselves) that these Digital Natives must be drugged up and slowed down in order to “function” in society.

I don’t buy that, and neither should you.  Welcome to Human 2.0

References:

[1] Elizabeth Lorch, psychologist, Amherst College, quoted in Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Little Brown & Company, 2000, p. 101.

[2] Marc Prensky, Digital Natives. Digital Immigrants, From  On the Horizon (NCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001)

Some Solstice Sun with Google Maps

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HPG paper and video of "Improving SIMD Efficiency for Parallel Monte Carlo Light Transport on the GPU"!

Another post on the work of Dietger van Antwerpen, but that's because his research efforts for GPU path tracing are so damn amazing and groundbreaking. I can't stop imagining what the possibilities could be when implemented in a real-time path tracer for games. His HPG2011 paper "Improving SIMD Efficiency for Parallel Monte Carlo Light Transport on the GPU" and an accompanying video are available here: http://graphics.tudelft.nl/~dietger/HPG2011/index.html.



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An often recurring criticism of using the GPU for rendering is that for scenes with complex lighting and materials, the CPU outperforms the GPU because the CPU is able to use smarter and more efficient algorithms (like MLT and BDPT) while the GPU is only efficient at regular, "dumb" path tracing. This is no longer true as proven by this paper: not only can GPUs use more efficient rendering algorithms like BDPT and MLT, they can also do it an order of magnitude faster than the CPU! The table comparing performance between GPU rendering and CPU rendering (GTX 480 vs Core i7 920) demonstrates that, depending on the scene, PT is 10-18x, BDPT 8-15x and MLT 9-15x faster on the GPU than on the CPU!!

It's amazing to see that the still very young field of physically based GPU rendering has made such tremendous advancements in just a couple of months (thanks to guys like Dietger among others). I can't wait to see where this field is going to head during the next year with better hardware (Nvidia Kepler, AMD Graphics Core Next) and even more optimized and efficient algorithms. It really is mind-boggling...

Australian Ash Cloud on Google Maps

Planefinder.netThe ash cloud created by the eruption of the Puyehue volcano in Chile continues to cause huge disruption to plane flights in Australia. Real-time flight tracking website planefinder.net is using Google Maps to show the location of the ash cloud as it drifts around the southern hemisphere. The ash cloud is predicted to linger over south-east Australia for some time, causing

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Google I/O App for AndroidFor the Google I/O conference this year Google created a pretty cool Android App that included a number of features, including a schedule, details about the sessions, buzz about I/O via a real-time search stream and a conference map.Google has now open-sourced the code for the app. If you want to create a similar app for a conference you can download the code and adapt

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Why Twitter? A Guide for School Principals

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Jewish Chicago on Google Maps

Stories of Jewish ChicagoThe Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies is holding an eight-part exhibit that explores the Chicago Jewish experience. As part of the exhibit the Institute is creating the Greater Chicago Jewish Memory Map.Visitors are being asked to contribute their own personal stories of Chicago Jewish life to a Google Map of the Chicago area. You can read the submitted stories on the

The Mapping Event of the Month

Hurtigruten: Minute by MinuteThis is incredible and pretty mesmerising!Norwegian Public Service broadcaster NRK are live broadcasting the voyage of the cruise liner Hurtigruten around the Norway coastline for 134 hours. As well as amazing live footage you can follow the position of the cruise liner on a real-time Google Map.No money seems to have been spared for this live broadcast from the

The Sophisticutted Guide to Punning Cuts

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