learnandteachonline.com

"Learning 2.0" is the 2nd highest-ranked Technorati search this morning. Huh!

Have you been following the blogosphere conversation about Techmeme, its new leaderboard, piling on, and groupthink?

Seems like everybody who's complaining also visits regularly. Me too, but I do agree it incents bloggers to behave like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

Maybe that's the trouble with relying on algorithms. They can seek out items like other items, but math has a harder time detecting something original and new (while also being important or consequential). You need human judgment for that, just like you need people to intervene in the social problem of juvenile and rude behavior in comments, even though the techies keep saying identity systems are the answer.

Human brains and machine brains dividing the labor in a smart way. Calacanis isn't all wrong when it comes to that part.

Danah Boyd's story of how one company came to understand the viral power of the web just by watching something unfold.

Ever since I read the thread on the Moodle forums about integration with Facebook, I've been thinking how the two species just don't want to meet in the wild.

But what about something like this? Build a Facebook app that's a simple output of an assignments feed from a learning management system. Give it a name like "Here's what I'm supposed to be doing; tell me to get back to work."

I think most kids -- heck, most humans -- like the idea of a nudge if they've asked for it. Think of diet groups or the dissertation support group I started 10 years ago, run for years now, and more ably, by Tom Tom Jankowski (PhinisheD). That kind of help can be quite motivating.

By this time you must have seen the quiz that asks you to identity which terms are Star Wars character names and which are Web 2.0 cutsie business names.

I had an idea. It sounds too much like Odeo, but how about Oh-Ree-Oh for a name? You know, that chilling chant sung by the guards of the castle of the Wicked Witch of the West? You could use a guard as the logo/mascot.

That's me, after messing around with Adobe Audition filters.