Start-Up Aspires to Make the World 'One Big Study Group' - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education #yam

Will take a long while to reach critical mass, but may work if one large class all joined and take care to 'match' each other.


September 8, 2010, 02:01 PM ET

Start-Up Aspires to Make the World 'One Big Study Group'

Thousands of students are enrolling in gigantic open online courses.

Would students go for vast open online study groups, too?

OpenStudy, a start-up company spun off by Georgia Tech and Emory University, is betting the answer to that question is yes. Its Web site is the latest effort to create a social platform for independent learners who want to help each other study the huge trove of educational materials published free online by universities like MIT.

“Our mission is to make the world one big study group,” says Phil Hill, chief executive of OpenStudy, whose founders include Ashwin Ram, a Georgia Tech professor, and Preetha Ram, an Emory University dean.

The free site opened to the public last week. It has 3,000 users so far, including a pilot project with MIT that suggests OpenStudy as an option from the Web sites of several open courses.

Social Media Blackout - Inside Higher Ed #yam

Eric Darr recently had a moment that a lot of modern parents can relate to. He was watching his 16-year-old daughter click around frenetically on Facebook while juggling several conversations on her iPhone.

“I was frankly amazed,” says Darr, the provost at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. “I thought, 'How do you live like this?' It struck me to think, 'What if all this wasn’t there?' ”

So Darr conceived an experiment designed to parse how one lives with social media -- precisely by examining how one lives without it. He decided to pull the plug on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and AOL Instant Messenger for one week. But rather than conduct the experiment within his own home, Darr decided to take advantage of his position as Harrisburg's provost to tap a much larger sample: his institution’s entire student body, faculty, and staff.

I fear for the safety of this guy! Hope our VC doesn't read this.

Kno Gets $46M For Tablet-Based Digital Textbook «

Kno Gets $46M For Tablet-Based Digital Textbook

Kno, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based startup that plans to launch a two-screen “digital textbook” later this year, today announced that it has raised a $46-million financing round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Silicon Valley Bank and TriplePoint Capital also participating in the debt and equity funding. The latest cash infusion brings the total raised by the company to $55 million, which the company says should provide enough resources to get its tablet to market by the end of this year.

This is Kno founder Osman Rashid’s second crack at revolutionizing the textbook market: He’s also the founder and former CEO of Chegg, a startup that rents access to university textbooks. Kno is a much more ambitious project, however, since it involves launching a new hardware device and a software platform at the same time. The Kno — which runs a version of Linux and uses the Chrome browser as its interface — is designed to replicate the printed textbook, but also allows users to write notes on the screen and search through the text. The company has a beta trial underway with several textbook publishers, including McGraw-Hill and Wiley.

Looks to be a hefty beast and likely too large.

Skype PABX for Your Business, Family, Groups and so on #yam

Put Skype Manager™ to work in your business

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Stealing a march on Google Voice which is only US-based?

Inkling - A Different Approach to E-books

Be curious.

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Textbooks. Now featuring features.

  • A real student union.
    Got a friend you trust? Want to see what the professor thinks? Follow their note streams and see their comments right alongside your own, right in the text. Social network, meet learning network. Watch Video
  • Less green, more green.
    Inkling titles are less expensive than the paper versions, and you can buy them by the chapter. So you’ll only pay for what you use, and you can buy stuff as you need it. No dead trees required. Watch Video
  • Outsmart yourself.
    Key terms are always tappable. So if you don’t know it, touch it. Highlights and notes are kept together in a notebook. And quizzes really help you learn. Look up “unfair advantage.” Watch Video
  • The search is on.
    Or maybe it’s over. You’ve never been able to search your textbook like this. It searches the text, of course, and it helps you find figures, quizzes, and even your own notes. Watch Video
  • Wrapped around your finger.
    Put an end to flipping back and forth to look stuff up. All the answers are right there: just tap. Want to explore something or take a quiz? Go for it. You’ll barely have to lift a finger. Watch Video
  • Eye-popping pulchritude.
    Inkling content is handcrafted for the iPad, with high resolution artwork and augmentations you won’t find in the paper book. Interactive figures and gorgeous design. Pulchritude indeed. Watch Video

Worth a look if you have an iPad

Wet & Salty Tweets: The Ocean on Twitter

Tweeting about stuff that is happening in and around oceans and shorelines can be a challenge. The reason? How do I tweet about a threatened dolphin pod in Japan, a sea lion rookery in California, an exploding oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, a fancy new marina in Dubai, a diving spot in the Philippines, or a a great surfing spot in Fiji? What is the URL of a place in or on the water?

BlooSee is a Twitter-friendly ocean mapping site that allows any ocean lover to find and/or create points of interest in the ocean and shorelines in a matter of seconds. These points are given a unique URL that anyone can tweet, either directly from the “Share /Twitter” button on BlooSee or by grabbing the URL (Via the Share/URL button) and shortening and tweeting it as usual. Here are some examples:

BlooSee also allows anyone to tweet maps of the ocean centered and zoomed in a certain way. For instance:

So, BlooSee + Twitter allows anyone to bring the oceans into the online conversation, for a better enjoyment and stewardship of the world’s oceans.

Highly useful around the Australian coastline

Commercialisation workshop

The Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) Fellowship

and

Bond University’s Office of Business and Community Engagement

 presents


Inaugural Commercialisation Seminar - Commercialisation Process and Intellectual Property Protection with Case Studies

Venue: Gregor Heiner Auditorium, Health Science Building, Bond University

Date: September 8, 2010

Time: 11:30 am to 3:30 pm

 

Invited Speakers:

Michael Buck, MichaelBuckIP Patent Attorney, http://www.patentsandtrademarks.com.au/

Peter Hone, InventionPathways, http://www.inventionpathways.com.au/

Chris Lane, Founder of Coastalwatch/Coastalcoms, http://www.coastalcoms.com/

Bruce Satchwell, Founder of Alive Technologies http://www.alivetec.com/

Stewart Williams, Biobike http://www.biobike.us/

 Pls RSVP to confirm your free personal invitation by email to Clarence Tan, ctan@bond.edu.au or David Thornton, dthornto@bond.edu.au

 

This is the first of a series of commercialization seminars to be held on the Gold Coast to strengthen the collaboration between academia and the ICT industry, raise awareness of the commercialization process, prepare early stage companies to be investment ready and export savvy. This seminar is jointly held with Bond University’s Office of Commercialisation and the Queensland government EIR Smart State Fellowship Program which is sponsored by the Queensland Government, Bond University School of Information Technology, Gold Coast Innovation Centre and the Gold Coast City Council.

 

Program

 

11:30 am              Welcome and introduction by Dr Clarence Tan, EIR Fellow

11:35 am              The challenges of commercialization by Prof Iain Morrison, Head of Bond University School of Information Technology

11:50 am              How Gold Coast Innovation Centre can help in the commercialization process by Andrew Loch, CEO, Gold Coast Innovation Centre

12:05 pm              Launch of Office of Business and Community Engagement, Bond University by General Manager of Commercialisation of Bond University

12:20 pm              Protecting Intellectual Property and the Patenting Process by Michael Buck, MichaelBuck IP

1:00 pm                     Lunch Break, Networking

1:20 pm                From idea to commercialization by Peter Hone, InventionPathways

1:50 pm                A case study of industry/academia collaboration, The Coastalcoms Story by Chris Lan, Coastalwatch/Coastalcoms

2:05 pm                Ideas to products, an E-Health case study, Bruce Satchwell, Alive Technologies

2:20pm                 Challenges of commercialization by Stewart Williams, Biobike

2:35 pm                    Coffee Break/Networking

2:50 pm                Questions for Panel of Speakers

3:15 pm                Next Steps by David Thornton and Dr Clarence Tan

Regards

Denise Agnew

Human Resources and Quality Manager

Faculty of Business, Technology and Sustainable Development

www.bond.edu.au   Gold Coast, Queensland  4229  Australia

 

Telephone No :   (+61) 7 5595 3334

Facsimile No :     (+61) 7 5595 1160

Email :   dagnew@bond.edu.au

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This message is intended only for the use of the individual (s) or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and/or proprietary to Bond University. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, forwarding, or copying of this communication is prohibited without the express permission of the sender. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the original message.

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Click here to download:
Commercialisation Workshop invitation.pdf (398 KB)
(download)

Here They Come: The Android Tablet Invasion

The tablet in the spotlight for several months now has been, of course, the Apple iPad, which starts at $499 and comes with a 9.7-inch screen, weighs 1.5 pounds and offers up to 10 hours of Wi-Fi Web surfing, video watching and music playing. While it seems that the iPad has certainly been a success, there are a number of features we've hoped to see from competitors. From more accessible pricing to a camera to something as simple as a USB port, the Android alternatives are quickly coming to market to fulfill our wishes.


(For a full view, go to Google Docs.)

According to the collaborative comparison of Android tablets, which is constantly evolving as thousands of users add to it, there are Android tablets ranging from as little as $99 to as much as $550, if not more. There are tablets with cameras, tablets that can provide up to 36 hours of video, and tablets with as much as 11.2 inches of screen real estate.

According to the document, the creators are considering anything with a screen larger than five inches that does not require a cellular contract a "tablet". There seems to be some leeway, however, as evidenced by the presence of the Archos "palm-sized tablets", which looks like the Android equivalent of an iPod Touch.

If you're looking to keep up to date on Android alternatives to the Apple iPad, this collaborative effort may be a good place to keep an eye on. As we've watched along this morning, more than 2,000 people have been viewing the spreadsheet at once and, as many note in the comments, a number more Android tablets are expected to be introduced as time goes on.

Have you heard of any other tablets coming to market that aren't included on the list? What features are you looking for in a tablet that the iPad doesn't seem to have or does the iPad have all you need? Let us know.

The list is certainly getting longer fast.

Google Code University

Google Code University

September 1, 2010 at 7:56 am

by Gina Trapani

One of the most frequently asked questions I get is, "How can I learn how to code?" Today fluorescentinca showed me Google Code University, a collection of tutorials on Googly languages (like Python, Java and Go) for relative beginners. Some good stuff there. (I also wrote a more general Lifehacker piece last year that can help you decide what language to start in.)

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, ,

Really great resource for teaching.