eduFire - A New Way to Learn Languages...and More

A while back when Wynn asked me to contribute to The Stingy Scholar I told him that I wasn't sure of what I could commit over the next year. Little did I know... In addition to running LearnOutLoud.com I became increasingly convinced over the last year and a half that there was a big opportunity to bring some massive (and healthy!) disruption to the education industry. While there is a lot of cool stuff going on in the space it seemed like there was something missing.

What we're soon launching at eduFire.com (BTW, the name comes from the Yeats quote "Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire") is the first very small step in what might prove to be a long journey. The goal is to empower hundreds of thousands of people to make a living teaching people what they are most passionate about over the web. We're starting with foreign language training which according to some estimates is a $20 billion market globally.

We'll be launching the main service in a few weeks or so but in the meantime we've put up a teaser blog at blog.edufire.com that contains hundreds of free videos, articles and podcasts to help you learn a foreign language. While we only have a few hundred resources up right now we'll be taking that to a few thousand in the next month.

Our ultimate goal is to give you access to the best teachers independent of geography. It seems really interesting that since the beginning to time people have learned from teachers who were in close physical proximity. Through technology that has changed in the last decade but that's about to change radically in the coming decade. We're hoping to be a part of that change. I'd love to hear any comments you might have about how that can best be accomplished.

Thanks to Wynn and the gang for letting me pop in from time to time and may 2008 be your most learning-filled year yet!

Top 80 Charities for Open Source and Open Access Advocates

The lovely Amy Quinn sent me a link to this AWESOME OA/OS resource. You should go right this very second and check out all the open goodness!

Happy New Year (btw)...this is our first post of the NEW YEAR!

May our lives be full of easy and free sweet tools!

Open Source Living

Many thanks to Paul Hamilton for linking me up to Open Source Living! It is a mega good site with all sorts of goodies (like Yatzee! Wee!) The beauty is that there are goodies for all y'all (PC/Mac/Linux), and the whole site is completely compliant with all the rules about open source stuff. Oh, there isn't a space designated specifically for education, but different programs are tagged as educational. So, have fun digging!!!

Check it out!

The FREE screencapturing Kwout!

I ran across this AWESOME free tool called Kwout that allows you to quote a web page. It is free and no downloads. Here it was it looks like:

Beth's Second Life via kwout

Watch This

Regrets

iTalki

A music video from Corenell vs. Lisa Marie. But you didn't really care, do you?

The whole online language learning community has been improving massively over the past year. Over at Wide Open, I pointed out a couple neat sites such as Open Mango, Live Mocha and Lingro. Check these all out if you haven't, cause they're great.

iTalki is the latest addition to the group. While not all that different from the other language learning communities, the site benefits from a nice design. An excellent addition as well is the shared resources, including language books, essays etc. from around the web.

As the old adage goes, you don't have to do something new, just something better.

Mininova's Featured Content

Mininova, the great torrent site, has rolled-out a new feature called "Featured Content". Through this option, artists can take advantage of the site's popularity to distribute or promote original materials. Many historical and educational materials are also popping-up here.

For instance, check out this biography on Coney Island, Nosferatu, The Man Who Knew Too Much, TedTalks and French Maid TV.

More Merry Christmas

Nothing says Christmas like Wham! Some more great links:

Mashable's Christmas Toolbox
Ugly Christmas Lights
DIY Photo ornaments in 15 minutes
DJ Riko Christmas Mixes

Merry Christmas!

Just when I finally got this out of my head, the internet comes around and messes things up for me. Here's a great list of dozens of other Christmas related videos.

Drooling over Web 2.0

I need to tell Wynn that I can't possibly write on this blog for at least a month. I won't have time because I fell in love with an AWESOME blog written by Larry Ferlazzo.

He posted a list about the BEST web 2.0 apps for education. What is AWESOME is that this site includes stuff that is fresh and new (read: not the same old, same old).

The blog is FULL (like 8000 links or so) of cool web applications and games and other yummy uber goodies. 99.5% of the programs are FREE, and there are wicked link backs to OTHER sites.

So, enough reading here....go THERE!

Image Source

Two Hip Tools

So, I am drooling...

TWO NEW TOOLS...okay...maybe they aren't all that new, but they are new to me.

Screencasting is just awesome for students.

Image what students can do if they can take class home with them!

First Stop: Screencast-o-matic

Second Stop (thanks to Vicki Davis for the heads up): Jing

Wicked cool stuff!!!

Grab 50 More Lives

So, you thought for first life was a pain in the arse?

Sign up for these 50.

Zap Reader

Tired of chasing your finger along the page? Try zap-reader to speed read effortlessly. Paste text of interest to zip along at the pace of your liking.

Not a new concept, but handy and well done with lots of speed and formating options. The plug-in "tools", however, are where the real power comes in. Try out the wikipedia firefox plug-in or the bloglines button. Now you're zapping along....

Drooling Over Webware

I am sure this is listed on here somewhere, but, ok, I am a nerd, and I am drooling over the site as we speak.

WebWare 100

Got Cooties?

OMG!

What a riot...

Wicked Web 2.0 Tutorials

The California School Library Association has a WICKED WICKED WICKED cool site that teaches peeps how to use a variety of Web 2.0 tools. There are 23 tutorials and you self pace right on through them.

Go here and start yer learning!

Back for Good

Bet you're all tired of the cheeky "Good Morning Campers" post. I know I am.

Don't know if any has been paying attention, but over the past two months I've been regularly posting on an OEDB as a paid writer. The site's been sold and the new owners aren't interested in continuing the "Wide Open" blog.

I wish the best to the OEDB guys and I'm glad I was a part of it, however briefly. I haven't had much time for blogging recently and being forced/incentivated helped me to get a rhythm going and to remember that I like to do it. I hope to do some more posts back here on Stingy Scholar in the future.

'Cause you know, it's not about the money...it's about the music. All those chicks and parties and blow, dude, that was just keeping us from focusing on the m-u-u-sic....

But seriously, if you want to pay me, drop me a line at wynnwilliamson at gmail dot com. I'm just a whore for the money.

The Sweet Stuff

So, there are two new wicked cool resources that are floating out there in Cybertopia.

First, the New Media Consortium (NMC) is presenting a text called The Evolution of Communication, and they are encouraging conversation. Larry Johnson (known as Larry Pixel in Second Life) and Alan Levine (known as CDB Barkley in SL) put this together in the hopes that it will start the conversation about the changing nature of communication. Here is a wee blurby:

This white paper is being released in a variety of forms as part of the NMC's New Scholarship Initiative. Download the white paper in PDF (78k) -- but please also contribute to the paper and add to the conversation around it by commenting on it here.

So, go check it out and contribute!

The second goodie is one of my personal favorites! The Spoon River Anthology is now ONLINE! WOOT WOOT WOOT! The site totally kicks tookas...so go check it out!!!

Good Morning Campers

Hey guys - I'm back from a long and un-announced sabbatical. I didn't mean to disappear for the summer leaving you with only dancing bollywood supermen and no explanation. I've been pretty busy with work, moving, a book and holidays - and I just hadn't found time to post in a while. But now I think I'm back on track. Thanks to Beth and the other SS writers who've been posting in the meanwhile. And thanks to all of the emails and links suggestions over the past few months - I've been seeing all of them and will post many good ones.

In addition to more regular posting on the Stingy Scholar, I will also be taking over Steve Carson's (of MIT OCW fame) role at the blog Wide Open Education of the OEDB family. Jimmy Atkinson invited me to fill Steve's loafers and I'm happy to do so. OEDB is making a great effort to become the equivalent of the US News & World Report listing for online education. In the process, they are also building a great database of knowledge on free educational resources and online learning in general. I'm very excited to assist in the development of this site.

Although my postings at Wide Open Ed will probably resemble these Stingy Scholar posts at first, I'm hoping to tackle different issues and differentiate the two. Not quite sure yet but will think about how. In any case, if you like this site, be sure to visit both in the future (here's the feed) and I'll certainly be referring back and forth. See you soon.