Why does this matter? Because it suggests a change towards student-centered learning:

The traditional learning structure—where students take a backseat while content is developed by instructors and then structured and delivered as courses—has undergone a radical change with the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies. Students have become an important component in the development and distribution of learning content.

For more, go read the rest: “Open Source Software in Education.”

In the meantime, what do you think? As digital learning evolves will it move towards more student-centered learning? The answer seems fairly clearly yes to me, since that’s a move in teaching in general, and Web 2.0 technologies certainly help facilitate that.

via BoingBoing

There were three rules:

1. Each game must be made in less than seven days,
2. Each game must be made by exactly one person,
3. Each game must be based around a common theme i.e. “gravity,” “vegetation,” “swarms,” etc.

If you’re interested in game design, you might want to go read the whole thing: “How to Prototype a Game in Under 7 Days: Tips and Tricks from 4 Grad Students Who Made Over 50 Games in 1 Semester.”

If you are a fan of games can also check out Mudd to EA: life after graduation, a presentation by Michael Coupland, a 2006 graduate of Harvey Mudd College, who gave a talk about his work as a software engineer for Electronic Arts at the Libraries on April 28, 2007 which is available in the CCDL.

via Slashdot

Cinco de Mayo celebrates the legendary Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, in which a Mexican force of 4,500 men faced 6,000 well-trained French soldiers. The battle lasted four hours and ended in a victory for the Mexican army under Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza. Along with Mexican Independence Day on Sept. 16, Cinco de Mayo has become a time to celebrate Mexican heritage and culture.

Some of the facts include:

— 28.3 million - # of US residents of Mexican origin in 2006

— 9% - percent of total US population this represents

— 25.7 - median age of people in the US of Mexican descent

— 630,000 - # of Mexican-Americans who are US military veterans

— $37,661 - median household income in 2006 for households with a householder of Mexican origin

— 23% - poverty rate in 2006 for people of Mexican heritage

For more, go read the whole thing: Facts for Features: Cinco de Mayo.

via kottke

Agoraphobia

To go read more, visit Kleon’s Newspaper Blackout Poems blog.

In 1978, a joint congressional resolution established Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week. The first 10 days of May were chosen to coincide with two important milestones in Asian/Pacific American history: the arrival in the United States of the first Japanese immigrants (May 7, 1843) and contributions of Chinese workers to the building of the transcontinental railroad, completed on May 10, 1869. In 1992, Congress expanded the observance to a monthlong celebration. Per a 1997 Office of Management and Budget directive, the Asian or Pacific Islander racial category was separated into two categories: Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander. Thus, this Facts for Features contains a section for each.

Some of the facts include:

— 14.9 million - # (estimated) of US residents in July 2006 who said they were Asian alone or Asian in combination with one or more other races

— ~5% - percent of total US population this represents

— 5 million - Asian population in California

— $64,238 - median household income for single-race Asians in 2006

— 1 million - # (estimated) of US residents in July 2006 who said they are Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, either alone or in combination with one or more other races

— ~0.3% percent of total US population this represents

— $49,361 - median income of households headed by single-race Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander

For more, go read the entire release: Facts for features for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.

Although you haven’t designed coins before, is currency something that’s interested you before, as a non-designer and designer?

As a child I was interested in all things shiny, and as I grew up I became interested in all things ‘designy’. There are moments in my life where currency, and especially coinage, made an impression on me in different ways, though I’d never actually considered designing coinage until I became aware of the competition.

Read the rest: Designs on Your Money.

For more: previous liblog post and news from the Royal Mint.

Though it feels like a modern appendix to our ancient alphabet, the ampersand is considerably older than many of the letters that we use today. By the time the letter W entered the Latin alphabet in the seventh century, ampersands had enjoyed six hundred years of continuous use; one appears in Pompeiian graffiti, establishing the symbol at least as far back as A.D. 79.

To read the rest, and also see some examples, go read the rest: “Our Middle Name.”

Previously on liblog: & the ampersand that points out Adobe’s ampersand page.

I’m a filmmaker in Los Angeles at the helm of project ARTEMIS (‘Artemis Eternal’) a short, scifi-fantasy film currently in preproduction that is professionally-led, community-funded, cross-platform and supported by an audience of Wingmen who accept the challenge to create a better professional model for film production, distribution and exhibition. Here’s a 2-minute clip.

For more, you can watch that video or check out the projects flash site.

via via BoingBoing

Ever wonder what does the world like at night from space? Then the new feature from NASA’s earth observatory provides you with the answer you’ve been looking for. The article, “Cities at Night: THe View from Space,” provides exactly what you’d expect, images of some of the world’s cities at night, and the views are pretty amazing. You can check out Chicago, the Vegas strip, Denver, and Tokyo Bay among other cities.

For more, go read the whole thing: “Cities at Night: THe View from Space.”

A Claremont Colleges Library in the Midwest

One of the Claremont Colleges Libraries’ greatest resources for primary documents is not located any where near Claremont, but lies almost 1800 miles away, in Chicago, the Center For Research Libraries (CRL). CRL is a library cooperative that houses materials held by few other libraries in North America. Such resources as older and current foreign newspapers, dissertations from foreign universities, government documents from around the world, rarer journals and magazines, and microform sets focusing on everything from missionaries to labor organizations in South Africa during apartheid are available to students, faculty, and staff by virtue of the Libraries’ CRL membership. There are two major ways of exploring CRL’s holdings—by clicking on the Center for Research Libraries button after you’ve done a search in Blais or by visiting the CRL website. There you can find the CRL catalog as well as topic guides and databases designed to locate specific types of items among holdings such as foreign and ethnic newspapers. CRL materials can be requested through the Libraries’ Interlibrary Loan. CRL also offers a growing number of digital collections, available from their website.

— Adam Rosenkranz,
Reference Librarian/Bibliographer

From Graffiti, Volume 2, Issue 3, April 15-May 31, 2005 (pdf), from the Graffiti Archives.

Some of the facts of 2006 covered include:

— $2.45 trillion - federal government’s domestic spending

— 7.5% - percent increase in federal spending over 2005

— $400 billion - defense spending

— 10.3% - percent California received of the total distribution of federal expenditures

For more, go read the whole thing: Where Did Your Federal Dollars Go in 2006?

As the lead graph explains:

Honda’s ASIMO (http://asimo.honda.com) humanoid robot will focus attention on the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s (ASIMO’s appearance will draw attention to the DSO’s nationally acclaimed youth music programs, and particularly DSO’s effort to encourage and support involvement of children in Detroit.

For more, go read the whole thing: “ Honda’s ASIMO Robot to Conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.”