http://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_stewart_how_youtube…

Copyright is an area of immense interest for me: I cannot say exactly why, but I think it is to do with the interplay of creativity, reward and culture. I mostly think of copyright as being a battle between the content creators and content users, with each trying to find the best deal for themselves. Lawmakers, swayed by one side or the other, pass legislation to maintain a balance of some kind (currently far too much in favour of the creators). And technology provides a landscape which is constantly changing, requiring all players to exert effort to maintain equilibrium for themselves and the system as a whole. At the core of copyright is the issue of our culture, and specifically how we create, transmit and enjoy its artifacts (such as music, video and books).

Of late, we have seen many attempts by content creators (recording artists, move directors) and their representatives (MPAA, RIAA) to block technological developments that they see as harmful to their interests. This often leads to a strong perceived delineation between bad/evil/greedy creators and poor/choiceless consumers. In many instances this delineation seems to be fair and accurate, for example when Paramount attempted to claim copyright over someone’s footage of the public filming of movie.

However, every so often we catch a glimpse of developments that are distinctly more subtle in their effort to create benefit for all. My standard examples of these instances are Creative Commons and the Open Source movement. Having watched this fascinating video, I think I might now have a third example. The video deals with YouTube’s automated efforts to allow content creators to have control over their content in such a way that uses economic incentives to encourage them to permit remix and reuse. This softly-softly approach seems to be a great way to get big corporations interested in the power of participatory culture, whilst allowing them to maintain ownership over their content.

From an information technology perspective, the video provides great insights into the way that YouTube uses technology to process, analise and make decisions upon huge numbers of videos. It also illustrates many interesting points regarding information processes, and shows that systems are not just composed of technology, but also consist of people, policies and data. I think many students will definitely be interested to see what happens behind the scenes on the world’s most popular video sharing platform.

I am certainly interested to learn more about YouTube’s efforts in this area, and would love to see this system fulfill its potential to empower individuals to create culture rather than simply consume it. As to whether or not it will, who knows, but given Google’s long history of pushing the envelope when it comes to copyright, it just might.

http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2010/04/17/news…

This extremely dated video clip introduces video to a new craze sweeping the world: Internet. When you need something to remind students that there was life before the Net, this is the resource to use. It also provides a view of the Internet as it used to be: text only, giving students a path to understanding how technologies adapt and evolve over time. Students can be asked to consider how dependent they are on particular technologies, and how there school and home lives might be different if the Internet did not exist. How would these changes translate into the working world? What are the effects of the Internet on today’s globally connected economy?

http://www.wordpress.org

Originally designed as a blogging platform, WordPress has evolved into a fantastic system for publishing all manner of content. Whilst it is not quite as flexible as Drupal, it is far easier to use, and has a great variety of high quality themes, making it relatively easy  for anyone to build a website. If you have your own server or hosting, you can download and install a copy of the software within 5-10 minutes. With such a setup, you have are afforded great flexibility in terms of site setup and content. Alternatively, you can use the free hosting service provided at www.wordpress.com, which uses the same platform, but applies controls on content and functionality.

I like WordPress so much that I used it in the creation of this website.

The aim of this collection of files is to provide a relatively simple illustration of how HTML, CSS and image files combine to make websites in the real world. In terms of educational use, this is pitched at students in their last two years of high school, or beginning university. It is not a beginner’s tool!

The aim is not to provide a complete teaching resource, but simply a foundation that educators can build a resource from. The work is based on the Mollio site templates (see the README.txt file in the zip), and is a significantly simplified version of the type-b layout. Very advanced students can be pointed direct to the Mollio files to see if they can work from them.

The original work contains code to provide backwards compatibility for older browsers. These have been striped out, so please use with FF3+, SF3+, IE7+ etc.

Download the zip file here.

http://cssremix.com/

This is one of the best web design showcase sites. A perfect source for inspiring designers to improve their own work.

Having completed my first practicum I thought it would be useful to post the major artifact that came out of it: the unit of work plan for the project I ran with my two HSC classes. This complete document details a proejct whereby students in the HSC IPT Preliminary course work in teams to redevelop their school website using the Drupal Content Management System (CMS).

The unit can be downloaded from our here.

The main aims behind this project, derived from and taught through the syllabus outcomes outlined in the unit of work, were are to challenge students with the following aims ideas:

• undertake work that poses a significant challenge;
• work in a situation that is more like industry than school, including;
  • engage in independent problem solving;
  • work towards developing a functioning system;
  • engage in effective time management;
  • interact professionally with a “client” (played by the teacher);
• produce effective written communication
• consider their new system from the perspective of its users.
• meet specified syllabus outcomes

Whilst the document plans for 4 weeks of work, it eventually took 6 weeks to deliver the unit, so some modification will most likely be required. Do keep in mind that this was designed to really challenge students at an academically selective school, and so may require customisation for use with other student groups.

The final presentation of student-developed websites showed that students had met many of the expected outcomes, and were, in many cases, capable of producing functioning websites suitable for use by a school. Students provided feedback suggesting that they valued the learning involved in the unit.

Remember, this work is published under a Creative Commons BY-SA license and I encourage anyone interested in it to take it and use it (provided you meet the simple license requirements to attribute the work back to me and to share your resulting work in the same way I have shared mine). Have fun!

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/17-03/mf_netbooks?currentPage=all

Spurred on by the development of the OLPC project, ASUS created the EeePC, and in doing so created a whole new computing market: the Netbook. This development is interesting for many reasons, not least because it demonstrates the speed at which things can change for businesses and technologists. Students might be asked to consider the factors, both technical and social, that allowed Netbooks to become so popular.

Despite the comical voice over, this video provides some interesting material on the history of the Internet and the developments that lead to it, such as time-sharing and file sharing. This provides an interesting way to bust the myth that the Internet is a recent development.

http://hivelogic.com/enkoder

Spam bots crawl the web looking for email addresses which they can harvest for their evil overlords. This means that posting your email address online can lead directly to an increase in the amount of spam you receive. The Enkoder helps protect email address by encrypting them with JavaScript, effectively hiding them from spam bots, but allowing them to be read by humans.

http://estimator.astuteo.com/

A simple way to estimate the cost of a project. This can be a great tool for making student projects more lifelike.