The Wikipedia Conundrum

Many a teacher today forbids his/her students use of Wikipedia, yet it is arguably the richest information resource of all time; an encyclopedia which draws on users to expand the breadth and depth of the information contained "within" it.

The argument of those teachers may be that it is "unreliable" . . . a lazy man's refuge. Yet in the end, how is that different from any other works of humans? The very act of committing words to paper is an act fraught with the perils associated with the human condition. . . that each of us brings the perspectives and prejudices of his/her own arc of experience to the task of conveying a "truth" or a set of "truths".

The physicist Stephen Hawking, in a speech celebrating the new Millennium at the White House said ". . . common sense is just another name for the prejudices that we have been brought up with."

Wikipedia is no more or less useful than any other resource but it does provide an effective launchpad for exploring almost any idea, event, person or theory.

To deny students access to the rich resources contained within Wikipedia is tantamount to denying them access to the wisdom of their elders or their teachers. Instead they must be taught to appreciate Wikipedia and to be aware of its limitations - as Ronald Reagan put it to "trust but verify". Reagan was speaking of the complexities of the US-Russian relationship, but he could very well have been speaking about the task of researching, or in an even broader sense the process of learning.

A good teacher need not fear Wikipedia, unless the depth of understanding that he or she themselves bring to their discipline and teaching is so shallow as to grant Wikipedia the power of absolute truth. A good teacher will use this resource as a means of stimulating students to seek out pathways to greater understanding, a solitary brainstorming session where ideas, links and resources lead us to drill deeper into the resources that lie beyond the gates of the wiki kingdom.

Wayne D. King

iTunes University

You may think that iTunes is only for those who want to download music or podcasts but, like other Web 2.0 sites we are only just beginning to tap into the potential of iTunes. It is quite likely that iTunes will play a major role in the transformation of the music, teaching, media and broadcast industries over the coming years as all of us participate in the respective revolutions that each in undergoing.

iTunes U puts the power of the iTunes Store to work for colleges, universities, and other education organizations, so users can easily search, download, and play education content just like they do music, movies, and TV shows.

iTunes U includes some protected content available only to the students of the specific university where the content was generated but the vast majority of podcasts at iTunes U are free and available to anyone with a thirst for knowledge.


iTunes University

Audacity - The Free, Cross-Platform Sound Editor

For those looking for webtools that can help you do more with your blog, Audacity is a free (open source) software that allows you to create sound files, to mix music and much more.

Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Learn more about Audacity...

The latest release of Audacity is 1.3.7 (Beta). Because it is a work in progress and does not yet come with complete documentation or translations into foreign languages, it is recommended for more advanced users. See New Features in 1.3 for more information about the 1.3.x Beta series.

For all users, Audacity 1.2.6 is a stable release, complete and fully documented. You can have Audacity 1.2.6 and 1.3.7 installed on the same machine.

Audacity website.

Monetize

New Terminology Alert!

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The term "monetize" is broadly defined as the ability to convert something to into legal tender, which is a fancy word for money. When we refer to monetizing something on the web it usually means creating a way to make money from something. So, if asked the question, how do I monetize this website? The answer might be something like: With advertising, membership and donations.

Could Geography Professors Lead us to Osama Bin Laden?

Despite seven years of espionage and a $25 million reward for his capture, FBI's most wanted terrorist - Osama bin Laden - is still at large. So if all that money and all those spies can't find him, what makes two professors from UCLA think that they can?

They don't say that he is absolutely where they speculate he might be but they use very specific scientific techniques and tools, used on a regular basis by Geographers along with some new Web-tools like Google Earth, to paint a picture of where he might be.

In an interview on MSNBC, Dr. Thomas Gillespie explained:
(Osama bin Laden) is 6‘4”. Obviously, we have to look for buildings over 6‘4”. He needs electricity for (a kidney) dialysis machine. We selected buildings within Parachinar that had electricity. We looked at things like protective structures so you can see on this one, there is a wall around it. You can actually see turrets on this one." "And then, we looked to other things like privacy," Gillespie added. "And in general, finally, we looked for - you know, there has to be a tree. Because if he goes outside, I‘m sure his positive that people can look down on him. So when you apply these life history characteristics for every building in the city of Parachinar, three popped out as being, you know, places where, hypothetically, he could be. And this proposes a hypothesis that can be tested and rejected."

In response to screaming headlines about this since the study was released this week, Noah Shachtman of the Wired Network Blog, released a scathing response titled: Did UCLA Profs Just Find Osama? Only if He’s an Idiot!

Shachtman's principle beef is that the paper suffers from the Garbage in Garbage Out syndrome and relies on myths and urban legends about Bin Laden, some of which have been debunked.

Gillespie's study was published by the MIT International Review and is available here (pdf).

The Examiner
Economic Times

Creating your Own Blog - Part 1

What is a BLOG?

The word blog is a contraction of the term Web Log. A blog is a flexible web-based program that can be as simple as a personal journal, for your eyes only; or a multi-level community with individual Blogs joined to group Blogs and specialty Blogs.

Many Blog programs are free and available on the web. There are also more sophisticated Blog programs that you can purchase to run on the web.

PBA uses a free web-based Blog called "Blogger". Blogger is created and owned by Google and is compatible with many other web-based freeware programs - sometimes referred to as Google Apps or the Google Suite of programs. These programs can be tapped to make your blog entrys more interesting and multi-media. We'll look at some of these programs as we take our individual blogs from creation to a higher level of development.

Let's create your personal blog.

Open the main Blogger website by clicking here.

Creating Your Blog
In order for Blogger to know who you are when you sign in to make changes to your blog, you need to create a Google account. If you already have a Gmail account, just use this and sign in on the top right. If you don't already use Gmail or have a Gmail account, choose the orange - CREATE AN ACCOUNT - button and fill in the information requested to create an account.

Don't hesitate to explore around on the Blogger website, there are lots of resources for making your personal Blog more fun and interesting. If you create a blog that lots of people want to visit, you can even find ways to "Monetize" your blog.

New Terminology Alert!
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New Terminology Alert!