BrianGriggs.com » Technology

Symphony of Science

Brian — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:13:46 +0000

Like Science? Like T-Pain-style autotune? Check out the Symphony of Science. It reminds me a lot of the Autotune the News folks.

Mobile 2012

Brian — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:05:50 +0000

Are you interested in mobile learning, whether it’s on a tablet, a phone, or something else? AZK12 is hosting Mobile 2012 April 11-13.

Check out the list of speakers:
Jaime Casap
Eric Marcos
Janet Wozniak
Tony Vincent

I’ve attended a conference with Tony before and chatted with him. He definitely knows his stuff. And the Wozniak last name should sound familiar in connection to Apple…

ChillingEffects.org

Brian — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:55:06 +0000

Do you know your online rights? If you write fan fiction, are you breaking copyright? If you link to another site, are you breaking the law?

ChillingEffects.org, a shared project from a number of universities, came to my attention because of recent decisions by Twitter to censor people’s status updates depending upon the laws of certain countries. In China, your Google search is filtered stricter than even a school network, and that took years to come about. Twitter isn’t even allowed in China.

Twitter was influential in the Middle Eastern and Russian protests in recent years. It will be interesting to see how protesters will coordinate now. ChillingEffects will at least keep a record of government requests to censor online messages.

Check out ChillingEffect’s database of cease and desist messages by clicking here.

Actions vs. words

Brian — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:46:52 +0000

Wikipedia followed through on the blackout, although you can get around it by turning off JavaScript in your browser. Google changed their logo. Twitter is tweeting about it. We’ll see if the statement was heard by lawmakers.

Are you ready for the Internet to shut down tomorrow?

Brian — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:11:46 +0000

As a protest against SOPA and PIPA, Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, and a number of other big sites on the Internet are planning to stop services for 24 hours. Instead of a normal Google search, a page describing why they’re protesting.

The text of the Stop Online Piracy Act is here. The Protect IP Act is here. Essentially, the bills say that if a site is found to have material on it that breaks copyright, Internet service providers are required to deny access to those sites.

Are you ready to get some sunshine tomorrow? What are we going to do with ourselves? Use Bing?

Floppy drives as musical instruments

Brian — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:13:01 +0000

I just found this video of five floppy drives playing a cover of daft Punk’s “Derezzed” from Tron Legacy:

So, that’s a lot of fun, but the really cool thing is that YouTube user Sammy1Am uploaded a how-to video for how to do this with your own old floppy drives:

3D tours of the Smithsonian and a virtual dinosaur dig

Brian — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:45:11 +0000

Even if you don’t get to travel this break, you can still explore the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History by clicking here.

Want to see what the process is like when you dig up fossils? Click here

The Newton Project

Brian — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:01:21 +0000

The University of Sussex has scanned Isaac Newton’s notebooks and put them online for others to search. Check out the notebooks from the 1700′s by clicking here.

An amazing interactive map of the Pearl Harbor attack

Brian — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 18:56:05 +0000

National Geographic always has great resources, but this one really grabbed my attention. Check out this map that commemorates the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Just like how the JFK Library incorporated real audio and visuals in We Choose the Moon, National Geographic has included a ton of primary sources (click on the We Were There links) from the attack.

Put this one up on the LCD and let the students explore.

Poligraft – Tracking financial influence in politics

Brian — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 18:33:34 +0000

I recommend the Congress app for Android, iPhone, and Windows phones. It’s a very handy tool to stay informed about what your elected officials are doing.

While on Sunlight’s website, I found Poligraft, a site that helps you track financial influence in politics. You find an article online and paste in the URL or the selected text. The site then searches the article for political names and organizations. On the side of the screen it highlights those names and shows either how much money that politician has received from which organization or how much the organization has donated to politicians.

It can help you track influence when sifting out bias (which helps students meet standard 1.2.4 from the AASL’s Standards for 21st Century Learners).

Click here to learn where Sunlight gets its data.