Ernie on weblogs as smart filters

Good advice from Ernie that applies to more than law students and explains one of the key values of weblogs as a key element in your personal knowledge management strategy (you do have one don’t you?).

Read the dissenting opinion first. Here’s a tip for law students: read the dissenting opinion first. Assuming you can glean the facts of the case from the dissenting opinion (and, if not, then skim the main opinion until you have the gist of the case),… [Ernie The Attorney]

Here’s Ernie’s key point:

This concept of ‘reading the dissent first’ is applicable to weblogs. In fact, I’d say it is a large reason why reading certain kinds of weblogs makes news gathering more efficient. Reading opinion blogs changes the news gathering process from one where the reader is a ‘passive receptor’ to one where she is an active participant.

Go read the whole thing, it’s worth your time.

Guide to problem based learning

I’m biased in favor of PBL based approaches to learning. It is a lot more work to design and setup, but the payoffs in terms of learning that “sticks” is well worth the initial design time. This is a nice introduction to the concept in a practical setting.

PBL Guide.

Here’s an interesting guide to problem based learning:

“This guide is based on what Queen Mary University of London does and its context. It can be used as a guide to developing a PBL system that works in your context….”

… and another one on using case studies!

[incorporated subversion]

Research on technology impact out of HP

One of the risks of following bright folks like Lilia is that you end up with all sorts of interesting and intriguing things for your reading list.

HP: How to search a social network, Finding Communities in Linear Time. Implicit Structure and the Dynamics of Blogspace and more papers from HP Information Dynamics Lab.

It’s always like that: looking for one thing you find many others.

Full paper behind Blog Epidemic Analyzer (for Anjo and Rogier 🙂 – Implicit Structure and the Dynamics of Blogspace by Eytan Adar, Li Zhang, Lada A. Adamic, and Rajan M. Lukose

And other papers from HP Information Dynamics Lab, especially those with titles that I found interesting:

[Mathemagenic] [It’s all about people and networks]

You can't rush readiness

Isn’t this the truth. And a truth that I, too, need to learn over and over again. Now, I have a handy reminder.

You can’t rush readiness.

Homeschooling parent, Sarah, reminds of a very important point when it comes to parenting:

You can t play games with readiness. That s been my one of my Most Important Parenting Lessons (and one which I, apparently, need to learn over and over again). Kids are, or are not, ready.

…

Readiness simply comes of its own accord. You can lay the foundation, but no game, no trick, no bribe can make an unready child ready. Those things are approaches or motivators; they don t flip the switch inside their brain, or body, or heart. They ll be ready when they re ready. And because we re impatient, or we believe we know better, or that we re more powerful/ influential than we are, we struggle to learn this lesson. But go ahead and learn it. You re ready.

[urlgreyhot blogs]

Technorati macro for Radio

Something to add to my “Radio” setup here. Matt Mower up to his usual tricks. Thanks Matt and thanks Lilia for passing this along.

Technorati macro for Radio.

For Thomas and others: Radio macro to get Technorati cosmos for a post (see this post in browser for an example).

From Matt Mower via IM:

I also edited macro to display “Technorati cosmos” instead of “What other blogs are saying about this post”, you’ll find it easily in the text.

[Mathemagenic]

World's greatest Wi-Fi signal finder

Innovation continues. I have both the Kensington unit and the WFS-1, which I prefer of those two. This looks to be a definite improvement over the first generation products.

World’s greatest Wi-Fi signal finder. Glenn Fleishman got his hands on a prototype of a new, tiny, Wi-Fi signal finder, and he likes it a lot. There’s a video clip of it on his site.

Chrysalis previews their WiFi Seeker, a keychain sized device for instant Wi-Fi signal finding: Chrysalis sent me a demo unit of its just-unveiled WiFi Seeker, which they designed to differentiate 80211b/g networks from other devices. Two previous Wi-Fi signal finders fell short in ways the Seeker does not.

Link [Boing Boing]

Great New RSS Primer

I was on the phone with one of my brothers the other night. He’s a long time computer user and early adopter. Yet he is very early in the learning curve on RSS and weblogs, even though he does read mine from time to time. So now I have a useful resource for him as he starts to explore this space.

Great New RSS Primer.

Fagan Finder provides us with a Great New RSS Primer: Before you go any further, realize this: RSS is really simple. Just because it is an acronym doesn t mean that it s complicated. Don t get scared away, there s really nothing to it. I said it was an acronym, but depending on who you ask and what version of RSS you are speaking about, it may stand for Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, RDF Site Summary, or a variation on one of those. None of that matters to you anyhow

By dhenry@howdev.com (Daniel Henry). [Lockergnome s RSS & Atom Tips]