CC-enhanced Search Engine
Another step in the right direction (you almost think we'll get there some day): a search engine that indexes only Creative Commons licensed pages. Of course, this is only a step - such a search engine would not be useful for many purposed; copyright information needs, in the long run, to define a search field or a type of search, not a whole search engine. More...

The Problems With Training (and What to Do About It)
As the author asserts, "Mirroring the 7th grade classroom and the freshman college 101 lecture hall will serve only to copy their mediocrity." Too true. But what to do about it? This essay contains a number of good suggestions, ranging from the ever popular 99-second talks to the importance of food, round tables, and varied activities. More...

Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network
The Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network (CLLRNet) has launched a new website. The purpose of CLLRNet "is to generate, integrate and disseminate bias-free scientific research and knowledge that is focused on improving and sustaining children's language and literacy development in Canada." Founded with a 4-year, $14.2-million grant from the Network of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program, the network involves more than a hundred researchers across Canada. More...

Opportunity Rover Finds Strong Evidence Meridiani Planum Was Wet
For the last two years, I have very proudly had a link on my home page saying my name will go to Mars. Who cares if it's the "Space Kids" site? Anyhow, I was a bit disappointed when I signed up, because I was so far down the list my name would not be on the first Mars Rover, "Spirit", but on the second, "Opportunity". More...

The Nuclear Weapon of Digital Rights Law
The legal system is intended to balance the interests of people against each other. Protections for one person come at the cost of liberties for another, ownership of property for one person comes at the cost of need for another. When these balances are tipped too far to one direction or the other, the inherent fairness expected and demanded of law is lost, and it is not surprising when people abandon their faith in it, for justice, from their perspective, is to be found only outside its domains. More...

Publishers Steamed by US Ban
This issue, which has been simmering on the IEEE and open publishing lists for several months now, has broken out into the mainstream media where it is generating some heat under U.S. policy makers. More...

Morning at RSS-Blog-Furl High School
Nice bit of visioning. "At around 7:05, Tom uses his personal Intrablog to upload an assignment on symbolism for his major American literature class. When he opens up the document online to check it, he Furls that too with his English login and it gets sent to a separate Web page set up on the English site for American Literature Best Practices. The rest of the American Lit teachers will get an automatic e-mail later in the day notifying them of his published “learning object” that they can use in their own classes." Of course, the problem is, after this nice productive morning the teacher has to travel to a school and spend a full day teaching the old fashioned way. More...

Schools Targeted in Streaming Video Patent Claim
Don't bother reading the full article (you'll see what I mean). Everything you need is in the first paragraph, with the exception of two strategically deleted words: streaming video. More...

An Introduction to Personas and How to Create Them
The purpose of a persona is to create testing scenarios for software. The idea is to take research beyond market segments and to create a whole person out of the 'two and a half children. More...

Why Engage in E-science?
This is about right: "there is a revolution going on - the democratisation of science." This article looks at this from the point of view of librarians. The revolution is that one person uses another prson's data. But there is a lot of data, and it's constantly changing. The librarian's challenge is to enable access to this data. More...