LionsTimelineFrom2004
Note: corrected link. Lion Kimbro, who was so badly treated by my discussion system (sorry Lion), offers some long range predictions. Note well the section on 'the hive mind' - I think that something like this is very much likely to be the case. More...

What Are JSON, JSON-RPC and JSON-RPC-Java?
Introducing JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), "a lightweight data-interchange format with language bindings for C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Perl, TCL and others." JSON is the scripting language that makes things like Google's GMail so much faster than other browser-based tools. More...

Information Wants to be Liquid
The liquidinformation.org site is responding very slowly at the moment, suggesting that the concept may not be ready for prime time. But it's a neat idea with educational implications: make every word on a web page a hyperlink to something else. More...

The Six Laws of the New Software
Most educational designers don't think of themselves as software architects, but of course, that's what they are. And as such, this document - which starts from the premise that most people already have the software they need - will be relevant. Especially in education, designers are competing with existing products - the classroom, the television, the telephone, the book. More...

Future VLE - The Visual Version
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, and sometimes it's worth a lot more. This picture posted by Scott Wilson is one of the latter variety, as he nails the vision once again. More...

Smithsonian Global Sound Collection to Libraries Worldwide
You won't find this in your CD store, a collection of more than 30,000 tracks containing "animal sounds, beer-drinking at an African homestead, calypso, classical violin instruction, drama, poetry, sounds of the deep ocean, the office, the ionosphere, a frog being eaten by a snake and great performances of traditional music from virtually everywhere in the world." It is the Smithsonian Global Sound and it is being published online to be made available to libraries throughout the world. More...

Skypecasting in EFL
Skype, as many of you know, is a free internet voice chat service (aka an internet telephone - and for a fee, you can call a regular telephone). With the recent advent of podcasting, attention has turned to the idea of recording Skype conversations. It can be done using Windows XP and $40 worth of software, as this article described (one day, I'm sure, it will be possible to record calls with the push of a button). Mac users, don't despair. More...

Are Extensible Programming Languages Coming?
The reaction on the oXML list (where I heard about it) to this Slashdot article was brusk, but then again, Slashdot folk haven't taken kindly to the proposal, either. But I think there's something to it: a programming language written in XML that can be accessed through intuitive interfaces corresponding to your favorite source code editor. More...

President Discusses No Child Left Behind and High School Initiatives
George Bush outlines, in very broad strokes, educational policy for the new administration (which resembles that of his previous term, not surprisingly). The speech stresses two major points: raising the bar for achievement, and requiring that schools demonstrates results in return for federal funding. More...

Preventing Comment Spam
It's official. As I suggested yesterday, the 'nofollow' tag has been endorsed, not only by Google, but also by Yahoo and MSN search, along with a host of blogging software companies (listed in this article). More...