Heard of ThruYou yet? Lessig says, “Watch this, and you’ll understand everything and more than what I try to explain in my book [Remix].” Writing for the Huffington Post, Timothy Karr says, “What ThruYOU tells us is that all bets are off. The DNA of our media system has mutated so completely that it’s only a matter of time before our society changes as well.” Writing for this blog post, David says - Wow. ...

Here is my wrap up from last Friday’s incredible Hacking Education meeting. Books mentioned: The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life What Would Google Do? Websites mentioned: http://worldwideworkshop.org/ http://scratch.mit.edu/ http://gamestarmechanic.com/GSM/web/home.html http://www.muzzylane.com/ http://edufire.com/ http://www.gamesforchange.org/ http://betterlesson.org/ http://www.facinghistory.org/ http://schoolofeverything.com/ http://www.teachstreet.com/ http://techshop.ws/ http://openhighschool.org/ And here are my tweets from the meeting. If you prefer them in context, you can see the tweets at http://search.twitter.com/search?q=&tag=hackedu&from=opencontent. All the tweets from the meeting are available at #hackedu. ...

The Brigham Young University David O. McKay School of Education’s Open Learning project has joined the OCW Consortium! We’ve only published two courses to date, but more are coming. We’re still in pilot mode, so if you find anything not working or looking out of sorts, please let me know!

I thought I would share my most recent letter to John Conyers re: HR 801. Please consider something similar to john.conyers@mail.house.gov. John, Please let me very briefly explain the two reasons I oppose HR 801. First, as a member of the taxpaying public, if I pay for research to be conducted I don’t expect to pay a second time to gain access to the results of the research. When the public pays for research, the research belongs to the public. In a time when budget shortfalls are at historically high figures, the idea that HR 801 would create or continue a situation in which taxpayers pay TWICE for access to research is appalling. The people’s representatives in government should now be looking for any and every opportunity to be better stewards of the people’s money. To the extent that government represents the people’s interest, our representatives in government should act vigorously to strengthen and uphold the NIH mandate and similar initiatives that insure the public only pays once for research. ...

John said that a prophet hath no honour in his own country. While USU OCW has earned international attention in some of the world’s greatest media outlets, it has only just this week hit USU’s own news service, as they recognize in the story OCW Receiving National, International Recognition. It’s great to see the institution paying some attention to this wonderful program. While the administration may not know it, according to Google USU OCW is the 4th most useful / important / interesting thing happening at USU, only ranking behind the university home page, the athletics page, and the extension page. No USU college or department outranks USU OCW in the eyes of Google. Therefore no USU college or department outranks OCW in the eyes of millions of individuals around the world who depend on Google to help it understand what is useful, interesting, and important. ...

iTunes University and the classroom: Can podcasts replace Professors? iTunes University, a website with downloadable educational podcasts, can provide students the opportunity to obtain professors’ lectures when students are unable to attend class. To determine the effectiveness of audio lectures in higher education, undergraduate general psychology students participated in one of two conditions. In the lecture condition, participants listened to a 25-min lecture given in person by a professor using PowerPoint slides. Copies of the slides were given to aid note-taking. In the podcast condition, participants received a podcast of the same lecture along with the PowerPoint handouts. Participants in both conditions were instructed to keep a running log of study time and activities used in preparing for an exam. One week from the initial session students returned to take an exam on lecture content. Results indicated that students in the podcast condition who took notes while listening to the podcast scored significantly higher than the lecture condition. The impact of mobile learning on classroom performance is discussed. ...

It’s not just these guys in suits who react this way when they learn about Twitter and Facebook… Most of the university administrators around the globe who hear my talks react the same way! =)

(Note: This is a draft of my upcoming BackBurner column in Tech Trends. I’d appreciate your comments.) In the 1997 film adaptation of Carl Sagan’s Contact, S. R. Hadden teaches Ellie Arroway “the first rule of government spending: why have one when you can have two for twice the price?” If only! When it comes to curriculum materials like textbooks, practice exercises, test item banks, instructional videos, and online simulations, our government and school districts are more than happy to pay for them again, and again, and a hundred thousand times again, year after year. ...

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article New Kindle Audio Feature Causes a Stir Fowler and Trachtenberg reported an incredible claim from the ED of the Authors Guild: “They don’t have the right to read a book out loud,” said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. “That’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.” Hot on the heals of (and perhaps influenced by) this announcement now comes word that Zondervan, publisher of the popular New International Version of the Bible, is suing Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren for copyright infringement. ...

FWK, the open source textbook publishing company, has come out of private beta! Find out what all the excitement is about at http://flatworldknowledge.com/. As a quick recap, FWK textbooks are much like traditional textbooks in that they are: beautiful looking printed books, written by world-class authors, supported with all the supplementals and teaching aids (like an instructor manual, slides, and assessments) teachers expect, and available as review copies (for teachers), FWK textbooks are UNLIKE traditional textbooks in that they are: ...