A cool tool finds that sweet spot between doing something novel and something really practical and helpful--that meets a real need, not a manufactured need to just play with technology for its own sake. Cool tools enhance our ability to create and contribute.

For me, snap shots from snap.com is such a tool. It provides readers some additional functionality when reading your blog.

I just installed this free, cool little tool on Practical Practice. Oh, yes, I said the magic word, didn't I: "free." snap shots enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles and Amazon products, displays inline videos, RSS, MP3s, photos, stock charts and more. Try the previous links to see how this can be useful for your own links on your blogs as well as when reading Practical Practice.

Often snap shots brings you a preview that gives you the information you need, without your ever having to leave the site. At other times it allows you to "look ahead," before deciding if you want to follow a link or not--a feature I especially appreciate.

I've set up snap shots on Practical Practice to activate only when you hover (don't click unless you want to visit the link) your mouse over the little bubble icon that now appears next to most of my links. So if you don't want the preview to appear, just avoid the little bubble next to the link.

On your own site you can choose not to turn the bubbles on if you don't like them. Instead, if you want, you can set up snap shots to show the preview when the user hovers over any part of the entire link. And you can turn the previews on or off for individual links and even whole sections of your site. For example: none of the links in the banner or sidebar of my blog use it.

Should you decide the previews on my site annoy you, you as the reader can always turn them off. (That element of choice is so important in life, isn't it!) Just hover over one of the bubbles so the preview appears and click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the preview window and select to opt-out.

A couple of other settings and options: I've set up my preview window to default to the large size. Advantage: my old eyes can read it better; disadvantage: it loads the preview slower. Change it if you wish. When a preview appears, you can select to view the page or the RSS feed summary if one exists. The icons to control this feature appear in the top left of the preview window. In the example pictured below the RSS icon is selected. The preview window would display the RSS feed summaries. To switch to the site view, simply click on the icon to the extreme left.

Of course, as with anything cool, there's always more. Check out the snap.com site for lots more information. You will want to know a little bit about html in order to install it on your site (or have someone with you who does), but it's not hard!

As the students are fond of saying: Sweet. Very sweet!

I spent this past week in a remote area of the Smoky Mountains. I say it was remote because I felt rather disconnected. My cell phone didn't have low signal strength but stated instead, "no signal." Internet was only available via dialing up a long distance telephone number or through a satellite connection. Naturally, I chose the satellite connection. More times than not, however, I would get a "Satellite upload link error. Please try to connect again later." message. And most of the time when I could get a connection, the data would trickle in just one kilobyte at a time--literally!

I realized just how important my being connected, being plugged in, being that "live node on the network" is to me. No, I take that back. It's essential to me. But I think we have to be connected on at least two levels: in our immediate space with those we know and love, and in our virtual spaces (the cell phone and the internet). The substance of both of those levels of connection is vitally important, not just the connection itself. In that regard, I've had some interesting conversations with students about how social networking sites like MySpace an FaceBook are redefining their concept of "friends."

"My mom said that none of my online 'friends' are going to put their arm around me when I'm sick. None of them are going to be there when I really need someone." Seems to me that mom is teaching her daughter balance between being a node on a network and being a human being in the here and now. Finding that wonderful, meaningful balance between all of the things that compete for our attention is increasingly hard to do as the number of things entering the competition increases exponentially along with the vigor with which they compete.

Perhaps because I couldn't be that live node on the network this past week, I noticed a few more things that may have otherwise not caught my attention. About half of the drivers who passed me, waved at me. In the 20 years I've lived in Atlanta, I don't think anyone has ever waved at me as I drove by, except for that one unfortunate incident a few years ago with what one would more accurately characterize as an inappropriate hand gesture! :o)

I also casually noticed a street sign as I drove by, a sign I probably would never have seen in the normal rush of my day, one that demanded I take its picture. Yes, needless to say, this photograph will find its way into a future presentation! I loved it! And one other location required I pull off the road: the old truck in the field of goldenrod set against the backdrop of a cool, cloudless, mountain day. Notice, in the larger pictures available below, someone shot it one time in the center of the hood. If you like it, you can click on one of the pictures at the end of this post for a large version you can use as your desktop picture (Windows users call it Wallpaper.). Yes, the larger version includes an inconspicuous logo for my website. Directions, if needed, are at the end of this post.

The point of this post: Old School Rd. isn't all bad unless it's your final destination. And just as the old truck got put out to pasture, today's technology isn't the answer to all of the complex problems we face in the classroom. (I'm fond of saying that bad teaching with technology is just more bad teaching, faster!) Balance and best instructional practices are essential.

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Click on the image size below you think best matches your screen size. After the larger version loads on your screen, then right click that image to save it to your computer. You can then assign it to your desktop image. (If you download the smaller images you see below, you will download a tiny picture unsuitable for your desktop size.)

1024 x 768

1600 x 1024

I found this article on CrunchGear interesting. And while I do agree that much of Web 2.0 is digital fad, buzz, and empty hype, and that the popularity of many of these "tools" does seem to wane in time, I'm not so sure we can simply ascribe the reason to human laziness. I suspect that as long as these tools are used merely for the fun of consuming other people's attention (that transient sense of popularity), have a narrow focus and represent little substantive contribution to larger human themes, they probably need to pass into the history of pop culture fads like clackers--yes, mine were spelled with a "c." (Do you remember those? They were the rage when I was in 7th grade. But all they did was bruise our arms and make a lot of noise. Eventually, and rather quickly might I add, they faded from "like, the groovy scene, man.")

... If the defining trait of the first Web cycle was the stupid animated GIF, the current “It” sites all have one thing in common: They are, to varying degrees, reliant on user-generated content. ... And that is why the Web 2.0 era will come to end sooner rather than later. Because if there is one immutable law of humankind, it is that we are really, really lazy. ...

Right now, the bubble that the Web exists in is not so much a financial bubble as it is a time bubble. There is still a novelty for a lot of people associated with finding friends on social networking sites, Digging their favorite stories, updating articles about the history of pinball, and leaving comments on their favorite blogs. But that will wear off. People will revert back to the things they used to do: like Minesweeper and work. And without millions of generous mouse-clickers, most of Web 2.0 is weakened, if not entirely useless.

Source: The Futurist: Will Human Laziness Burst The Web 2.0 Bubble?

No, I don't fault people for enjoying that which is novel. Novelty is indeed, by its very nature, transient. And, quite frankly, I don't fault people for valuing economy of resources expended for value added.

If Web 2.0, or anything for that matter, is going to stand the test of time, it does so because the tools lend themselves to being used to meet real needs of real people in efficient and effective ways. Rather than bemoan laziness, we need to develop and use products and resources in ways that add some substantive value to our life experience.

As a classic example of a "hot" Web 2.0 "tool," I just don't see the twittering and tweeting of others adding a lot of value to the state of my human condition. But not to worry, my crystal ball tells me that in the not too distant future, twitter to go the way of clackers.

Years ago I purchased NetNewsWire, an RSS feed aggregator designed for the Mac by NewsGator Technologies. (Their Windows RSS feed reader, FeedDemon, also seems to get high reviews, but, being a Mac head, I have never used it.) I actually tried several feed readers at the time I began feeding at the RSS trough, but of all the readers I tried, I fell in love with NetNewsWire.

In an extraordinary move, a few weeks ago NewsGator Technologies made all of their RSS feed readers, including NetNewsWire, free downloads for everyone--not your standard business model! (They do sell other software and services.) I highly recommend this cool tool. No, I highly recommend this essential tool.

Many people still don't know or have a really fuzzy understanding of what RSS feed aggregation is. And for those who do know, RSS is often used much too little. RSS is far too powerful to be so little used. If you do not subscribe to RSS feeds, you are really missing out.

What Is It?!
The easiest way to explain RSS feeds and their aggregation (fancy word for "collection in one place") is by example: If you had a child at Mabry Middle School, where every teacher blogs (even the counselors, media specialist, nurse, the PTSA, etc.), you could easily have to check 10 or more web sites (blogs) to keep up with what is going on in your child's school. On some days the teachers have posted, and sometimes they have not. The daily process of checking each blog quickly becomes a little tedious--even with the generous use of numerous bookmarks.

So, let's make this easy!

On the first day of school, use an RSS feed aggregator, like NetNewsWire, to subscribe one time to each teacher's blog. (You never need to go to those blogs again if you don't want to.) From that day on, every time you launch NetNewsWire, or any RSS feed aggregator you choose to use, NetNewsWire tells you how many new posts have been published by which teachers. All of the posts come to you in one place--in my case, NetNewsWire. When I launch the program, it looks at every blog or website to which I have subscribed and brings me the new posts.

In NetNewsWire I can read a summary of each new post. If I find it of interest, I can click on the summary and see the entire post. I can even click on the title of the post and open the blog from which it came.

If I have two children at Mabry, I can have two folders: one for the teachers of one child, and one for the other child. I can have a folder for news sites like CNN and the BBC, a folder for technology sites like Wired and Boing Boing. I can even have NetNewsWire search the internet for posts about specific topics and keywords with which I want to keep informed with the latest information. In this post I am only scratching the surface of the many powerful possibilities, but lest I overwhelm those who are first learning about RSS aggregation, I'll stop here.

As far as I am concerned, every student in middle school and up (at the least!) should use an RSS aggregator daily. This can be a powerful learning and research tool when used well.

Why Not Use Your Browser's RSS Capabilities?
For one thing, only the latest version of Internet Explorer has any RSS functionality built into it. Since a significant number of internet users use older versions of IE, this may explain why RSS subscription has not become standard practice. The old version of IE can't work with it at all.

And while both Safari (for Windows and Mac) and the new version of Internet Explorer have RSS functionality built into them, they lack some of the amazing additional functionality provided in the free RSS feed aggregators you can download from NewsGator Technologies.

How Do I Use It?
All you need to know is that blogs and even many websites create RSS feeds. One of the ways you can tell a site has an RSS feed available (not all do): they are typically identified with an icon that looks much like the one pictured next to this paragraph--small orange, "radaresque" icons. (I picked one that's a little fancier than usual.) You click on the feed icon which launches NetNewsWire or whatever aggregator you have installed on your machine. (The fancy feed icon pictured in this paragraph is linked to this blog's RSS feed!) You select the folder you want the posts from the feed to appear in within NetNewsWire. You have now subscribed. Now all of the new posts from that feed, that web site, that blog will automatically appear in NetNewsWire everytime you launch it.

Go ahead and try it. Download a free aggregator from NewsGator Technologies. Click on my feed icon near the bottom left sidebar or in the paragraph above, and watch what happens. This is a better, more efficient way to work!

Teach the parents of your students how to subscribe to your blog. Teach your students how to subscribe to your blog. (Don't even tell me you don't have one! I'll leap right through this screen and point my finger in front of your nose for your not using best practices!!)

If You Are A Geek (Like Me)
You will want to check out this post about tweaking NetNewsWire to provide you with abundant functionality. Also read this post. You can: have NetNewsWire feed you your blog stats, your mail, posts about you, comments made to your blog, podcasts, create smart folders, post an article to your del.icio.us account, post an article or a highlighted section from an article to your blog, show you blogs that aren't actively posting, show you blogs that are using the most bandwidth, send podcasts to iTunes to sync to your iPod, send your feeds to Safari on your iPhone (or other mobile devices, or any computer browser in the world), have your feed summaries appear in the sidebar of your blog, and on and on and ...

Educators, this should rock your world!

Articles on Wikipedia
RSS
Web feed
Aggregator
NewsGator Technologies

Articles about Blogs and RSS for Teachers and Parents at MabryOnline.org
Under the Hood of Our Website
How to Subscribe
Overview Information (which contains numerous resources about RSS)

and some thought! Unlike the state of Oregon that wants to claim its laws are copyrighted and can therefore not be posted on online sites, this video speaks to the heart of the internet as a sharing machine...

Source: CharlesLeadbeater.net
Book: We-think: mass innovation, not mass production

The web lit up after Clay Shirky spoke at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco last week. Blip.TV is hosting his 16 minute presentation--a must see. I'm embedding it below. I want to encourage everyone to go beyond taking the time to watch it; really soak in what he's saying, giving deep thought to its implications for the art and science of teaching and learning. Aside from being an engaging story-teller, he skillfully unwraps some compelling and powerful ideas.

Here are just a few of my take aways:

• "Media [dare I substitute 'classroom instruction'] targeted at you that doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for."
• Focus our attention on designing for, rather than trying to dissipate, the cognitive surplus: what are we going to do with this new architecture of participation to move it from social crisis to a meaningful asset?
• For our present generation, new media [dare I substitute 'classroom instruction'] moves from just consumption to also include producing and sharing [--or, as I like to sing: contribution].
• If we could leverage just 1% of the cognitive surplus soaked up by watching television, we would have the equivalent amount of time to produce 10,000 Wikipedia projects.
• Moving to participatory contribution is a one way shift we are growing into, not a fad that will pass.
• How are we as educators going to leverage and manipulate the cognitive surplus, through our students' unparalleled interest in this emerging architecture of participation through technology, to move them beyond the mindless stupor in which we grew up passively soaking up television (and our teachers' endless lectures)?

How are we going to engage our students authentically to empower their contribution? In a way, this reminds me of the horrible cycle of child abuse that is perpetuated from the abused to the next generation. We do what we know. Now, we need to move on to doing what we know can be done: leveraging the cognitive surplus for meaningful participation and contribution.

I remain fascinated by the disruptive impact of technology, and not just in schools, in other institutions and whole societies around the world. The ease of use of pervasive technology, digital cameras and video, with access to immediate global distribution will inevitably be used in social activism that challenges existing social, corporate, and political structures the world over in ways that will make the 1960's in the United States look boring and passé.

To date such activities largely have been entertaining and benign as this video by "Improv Everywhere: We Cause Scenes" demonstrates. They mobilize large groups of people via the internet to show up and stage an improvisation in a public setting.

But in the last couple of days two videos have been posted to YouTube that I suspect are an omen of things to come: people leveraging these tools to make global statements challenging the status quo. In this first example, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer begins a lecture at a university in Hungary as a protester stands up, accuses Microsoft of stealing billions in Hungarian taxpayer money and then throws three eggs at the CEO.

Then Russian presidential candidate Garry Kasparov was delivering a speech when a modified, remote controlled, toy flying helicopter carrying male genitalia came flying toward him. Russian speaking commenters over at Wired.com's post about the incident offered the following translation of Kasparov's comments after the flying object was smashed by security:

I think we have to be thankful for the opposition's demonstration of the level of discourse we need to anticipate. Also, apparently most of their arguments are located beneath the belt." Someone in the audience shouts, "Finally the political power shows its face!" Kasparov quickly replies, "Well, if that's its face..." to laughter from the audience.

I do not speak Russian and have no idea if the translation is accurate or not, but another commenter seems to indicate it is. (Don't watch the video if it will offend you. That's certainly not the point of my including this link to it.)

I include these examples, not to entertain, embarrass, or offend, but to make the point that these tools will inevitably be used for activism--probably in more significant ways that these examples begin to demonstrate. Perhaps this is among the reasons we have seen China's efforts to centrally control the internet in China.

And while governments and corporations the world over have been increasingly leveraging technology for surveillance of their citizens, citizens the world over are going to turn that surveillance, that reporting, that global transparency on the goeverments and corporations themselves. The fact that the technology is readily available to everyone will disturb a delicate balance.

As a photographer who reads numerous photo-related blogs around the world, I have seen an increase in posts about the legal rights of photographers as increasing numbers of photographers, while taking pictures in public places, are claiming to be harassed by police and security. In fact a large protest rally is being organized in Los Angeles.

But It Just Got Even Easier
A company in Israel, FlixWagon, has now made it possible to broadcast live from your Nokia Series 60 3rd edition cell phone! (Here is a link to an interview with FlixWagon by Robert Scoble over at FastCompany.TV.) Now, as long as a cell phone signal is available, security will not be able to confiscate the video shot of a staged incident or event as it will already have been broadcast. Certainly this is only the beginning of an increase in this capacity to broadcast your life coming to market. People seem to love it!

As I have mentioned before, our capacity to develop technology is vastly outpacing our capacity as a society to come to terms with how to use this technology in ways society feels are appropriate, fair and proper. Social norms have yet to be formed about any of this. What is private? What is public? What expectations should I have to anonymity of person, of information, of data?

Implications for School
This technology has significant implications for learning. If I were a teacher today, I would be all over uStream.tv! For some time now educational technology enthusiasts have chided our profession for banning cell phones from our classrooms. The more cautious educators have been reluctant to change practice citing the ways the cell phone can be abused in the school setting.

And now that live CellCasting (remember you first read the term here!) is possible, I can see this debate heating up significantly. I for one do not blame schools for wanting to proceed with cautious deliberation and informed integration. But, in the long term, school is likely to be the place this new disruptive technology has the least impact.

The world is being carved wide open, and, for better or worse, we will all get to see what it looks like.