XplanaZine

Here’s our take on news that matters for Tuesday, February 28. Today’s theme is should we or shouldn’t we , and here are a some links to headlines about technology that is changing the way we live and learn.

• Gaming — Utah’s legislation regulating violent video games inched one step closer to becoming law.
  As introduced, the legislation seeks to put violent games under current
  statutes that protect children from obscene material such as
  pornography. However, even proponents of the new legislation agree that
  the constitutionality of the new law will certainly come into question
  if fully passed.

• Blogging, Podcasting, and Vodcasting — An interesting article in the Guardian (UK) discusses the need for podcasts created by amateurs to evolve in terms of their quality. Interesting topic, particularly for education. Do we need to create polished podcasts for people to listen? Also, here’s an interesting take on the real status of blogging from WSH’s Jason Fry.

• Handhelds – Who knows where it will all end up, but the struggle between RIM and NTP is getting stranger by the day. The two continue fighting outside of court (it’s hard to imagine a settlement at this juncture) even though the judge in the case has told both sides that no one will be satisfied with a court decision. And, we would be remiss if we didn’t include here mention of the announcement of the new iPod HiFi system announced today.
• Social Networks – Rumors have been swirling that Google is going to jump into the social bookmarking space. Social bookmarking allows a user to save links that he or she finds useful.
  Instead of storing them in just one browser on one computer, however, the links
  are saved to a site such as del.icio.us, where they can be viewed and accessed by other users. Google’s supposed entry into this arena could move social networking even more to the center of the stage.

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

• From Alan Levine : Post on the lack of response from iTunesU and Apple.
• From Anne Davis : Post on a new weblog project at gsu.
• From Doug Johnson : Post asking whether or not schools should provide e-mail accounts.
• From Ben Vershbow : Post of thoughts on blogging and process vs. product.
• From Graham Attwell: Post on using social software in education.
• From Clarence Fisher: Post on classrooms as studios.
• From Lanny Arvan: Post on video in teaching and learning.
• From David Wiley: Post on distributed tools and mashups.