XplanaZine

Here’s our take on news that matters for Tuesday, February 7. Today’s theme is combinations, and here are a some links to headlines about technology that is changing the way we live and learn.

• Gaming — James Cameron sees a future in which multi-player games can be the key to the success of films. Cameron is working on the screenplay for Project 880, which he describes as “completely crazy, balls-out sci-fi.” If it gets produced, it could be the first major Hollywood project that audiences will experience first as a multiplayer game on the Net, and only later on the silver screen. Also, this article talks about the increase of women in the video game world.

• Blogging, Podcasting, and Vodcasting — If you haven’t see the Technorati statistics on blogging, you should.
  The company is tracking more than 27 million separate blogs around the
  world, or about 60 times what was online three years ago. About 2.7
  million of those blogs are updated at least weekly, with about 1.2
  million total posts appearing per day.

• Handhelds – Get ready. TV on our cell phones will become even more pervasive once handhelds using new tuner chips start appearing.
• Social Networks – Now the announcement that Google is merging its popular Gmail with chat functionality. This is inline with Yahoo Mail which
  indicates to users when their Yahoo Messenger contacts are
  online and allows them to launch a dialog with them instantly, as well
  as letting them make voice calls. The convergence of all communication tools, as well as pervasive presence detection and management, are important steps in the creation of pervasive online social networks for adults.

Now, here’s a recap of our favorite posts from the edublogging community from the past 48 hours.

• From D’Arcy Norman : Post on Zack Rosen’s comparison between Moodle and Sakai.
• From Gardner Campbell: Post on the ongoing debate over iTunes U.
• From Jay Cross : Post on Push and Pull forces in e-learning.
• From Chris Lehman : Post on assessment of learning and assessment for learning.
• From Bud Hunt : Podcast on Moodle and Wikibooks.
• From Doug Johnson: Post on the school librarian’s role in ubiquitous computing.
• From Dave Warlick: Post on cultivating a classroom learning engine through information economics.
• From Anne Davis: Post on second graders using blogging comments.