I'm sure that many of you have already seen twitscoop before, so for you this won't be anything new. But, for others it might be. I just think it's such a VERY cool idea. It filters through the twitter stream looking for commonly used key words, eliminating the's and and's, etc. Then it forms a tag cloud with those words. But the cool part is that this tag cloud changes in front of your eyes as the conversation in the 'twitterverse' changes.

There have been a couple especially interesting twitscoops lately, and those folks have made youtube videos of them. Here's one that shows what happened the day that the new of Michael Jackson's death started to spread. Watch as his mention comes in very small (fewer mentions) and then grows as more folks spread the word. Here's another (part 1 and part 2) of the day when there was an earthquake and Tsunami in New Zealand, as well as a plane crash making the news.

Wouldn't this idea be excellent if somehow you could sign in and it would make a tag cloud based on what is being said only by those whom you follow? Wow. VERY nice - if it ever happens.

In the meantime, here's a little widget that they offer. It's not as cool as the one on their site, but pretty neat, nonetheless. Of course, depending on when you look at it, it may have references to people or things that you wish weren't there. (Another reason to limit it to just those you follow) Still, it's signs of the immediate times. A visual reminder of how information is being transmitted and gathered every second of every day.

How are we helping our students make sense of all this?

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Back in 2007 I blogged about an article on NPR about wireless electricity. I thought at the time it would be a good writing prompt for a science class, at least.

Today, when browsing through the Ted talks videos I came upon this video of Eric Giler demonstrating wireless electricty. This really is something that could truly inspire one of your students to set out in a career to advance this even further. This is HUGE!

Of course, we still have to HAVE electricity in order to send it wirelessly, but that could also be part of your newly inspired student's vision. I hope you'll send this to your favorite science teacher.

I've been hearing folks talking on Twitter about starting back to school and how excited they are for the new year. Some are starting a new position. Others are excited because of the challenge of teaching a new grade level. And others are excited because this year they are finally able to use a wiki or a blog, or maybe they've got their own Moodle server. Simple things, yes? But, it has taken years of effort to get to that point so they are rightfully excited about it. Here's to them. I can't wait to hear about all the great things that they're now going to be doing.

We KNEW it would happen eventually, didn't we? It was never a question of if it would happen. Only when. Let's just hope that it happens before the next big technological advancement renders today's tools obsolete, putting us right back in the same situation - but just with different tools.

I, too, am looking forward to some wonderful new opportunities. First, there's the fact that my role as a Mentor in the Classrooms for the Future program will be morphing into something new this year. The global economy and the struggles with PA's budget have put an end to the CFF program as we had known it. But, the principals of the grant were solid and will be still be promoted. The only question is what it will look like. CFF was about using technology to engage students, and to get students involved in activities that are truly meaningful in today's world - AND tomorrow's. So, the push will continue there, and I'm very pleased and proud to be a part of it.

And, I'm excited about the opportunities I have to work with schools directly in my business at gatesideas.com. I've got what I believe to be a very good set of timely and important workshops that I offer, as well as being willing and able to be a third party, independent observer to determine whether or not the huge investments in technology are making a real difference. We like to think that it is, but an outsider can see things more clearly, sometimes.

So, this will be a fun year for me, too. I'm a lucky man.

I thought this Dilbert cartoon was especially appropriate, don't you?

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This is potentially some EXCELLENT news from the folks at Diigo. You may remember that a while back Kevin Jarrett and a few of us met online to experiment with the teacher-student roles in Diigo to really explore it. In that experiment Kevin discovered that students were able to see some of the groups that non-teachers had created, and some of those groups were less than appropriate for school. Teen love, etc.

Since that time both Kevin and I have been in contact with Maggie Tsai and her team of programmers there at Diigo as they worked to create a solution to this issue. Well, I'm very happy to announce that I just received an email from one of the programmers who stated that the issue is now resolved, and that students are only able to see other groups that had been created by teachers.

YES!!!

Now, I've not gone in, as yet, to experiment, but I'm confident that this is the case, and I again feel ready to promote Diigo as THE TOOL to help students and teachers manage the information that they find when researching the web.

Of course, Kevin, I'm sure, will be putting the changes to the ultimate test very soon (when he gets his labs set up ;-) ) but for now, I'm quite pleased with the announcement by the programmers.

WAY TO GO, DIIGO!!!