K-Web News

We've just had our first videoconference using Flashmeeting.com and it worked great. You can Replay 2/11 General meeting http://flash.kmi.open.ac.uk:8080/fm/memo.php?pwd=161f58-3151 if you missed it (the first half hour is chatting and getting used to the interface).

Jim Zaun, Crack Engineer (his official title bestowed by JB) blew us all away yet again with this: http://www.zaun.com/kweb/Node_Space_04.html
Click and drag! I thought at first it was a static image (which itself would have been impressive), but no! Use a scroll wheel on a mouse to get the full zoom in effect! Small file, no download, only Flash 7 needed.

I just attended a really interesting C5 conference at Berkeley which was very encouraging in terms of Opencroquet.org overcoming some technical challenges that have made VR difficult for education. I also presented K-Web to an enthusiatic group in Austin Texas . In addition we have productive talks going on with TheBrain.com, Looking Glass and FastSearch. Watch here for details on those.

The December meeting in San Jose was very energizing. Chris Imhof (see early posting below) showed us some really amazing results he's having with elementary school students making K-Webs (students who have graduated even come back to visit their work and use it in current projects). Alex Patillo, who wrote a Master's thesis on using K-Web also discussed success that at-risk high school students are having with K-Web. Jim Zaun showed Looking Glass and a new Flash demo of K-Web. We also had a very productive meeting at Sun Microsystem hosted by Kevin Roebuck, which included Sun and folks from Stanford and Berkeley. James also had a number of meetings related to various media projects. For those who could not join us, we'll schedule an online meetings in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

James is just finishing a number of speaking engagements, most recently in Ontario Canada, as well as working on the new book. He'll be in Northern California at the end of November early December; schedule http://www.speakerseries.net/dates.htm.

We'll have teaqm meeting, open to everyone, Saturday December 3, in San Jose.

I've just finished putting together a proposal with a group from Oregon Public Broadcasting for a PBS grant (20 million total available) to investigate how to use digital technology as well as television to teach history better.

I'll be teaching a teacher's workshop for teachers in San Jose in December, and have just proposed a new lifelong learner course that will center on American visionaries like Doug Engelbart and Buckminster Fuller, using K-Web to investigate such folks.

Looking Glass

Jim Zaun, James Burke and Patrick McKercher used Looking Glass, Sun's new 3D desktop browser to create the first complex nested globe (there's a mockup of nested globes in Activeworlds Education Universe, which has the virtue of being connected to immersive 3D worlds to explore , which can't be done in Looking Glass, but Jim actually had to work with matematicians at the Univ of Arizona to generate the globes).

We demo'd this at the big international Java conference in San Francisco on Weds.


You can see a crude video of an early version here: http://scylla.cse.ucsc.edu:8080/05-06-16.mpg
The nested globes looked fantastic on Sharp's 3D laptop
We'll post a more refined version of the video soon.

Looking Glass also has a new scheduler program that might be a fun approach for k-web timeline:
http://k-www.mickey.ai.kyutech.ac.jp/cosmo/index_e.html#screenshot

Google is also announcing some amazing tools that will big huge boosts in realizing James' vision of k-web. One is Google Earth, which allows you to fly aroind the world and even see 3D buildings (i have just seen my house from space (not 3d) and flown over paris, thru the grand canyon (i could see rapids and rocks!) and Yosemite (not quite so much deatil, but falls are there, and hiking trails). just amazing! http://earth.google.com/index.html you will need a game card to run this.
Google is also hosting video, which givesd us great potential as well. https://upload.video.google.com/

let's get going!

Quick update: ReConnections was uploaded to the satellite yesterday for national distribution (check with your local community broadcast station for dates/ times). We've launched into the demo for Looking Glass which will bre shown at the international conference for java programmers, JavaOne, at the end of June. James is working on a new book (no hints!). We're putting together an on-line course for teachers who want t6o use K-Web. Chris Imhof, a Montessori teacher in Colorado, sent a great video of his students building their own Knowledge Web physically (paper and string) as well as virtual. text and images: http://k-web.org/imhof.htm

Hi,

been busy of late with California Social Studies conference with Willie and Alex Patillo, as well as our online Town Hall meeting, both of which very well. At the online meeting, we decided to work on a game concept to help new users understand how to use the K-Web interface, building community around the PBS broadcast, creating lesson plans, fundraising and creating other visual materials to help people understand the overall capabilities of the K-Web system. You can see everyone's written input (and even add your own to the discussion) by logging into Groupmindexpress.com: http://gme.groupmindexpress.com/k-web/index.php3?object_id=c7745762c7917a09b94039b4523afb94 If you log in from main page, our site is k-web (case sensitive, Open the Feb. Mtg folder). The guest login is guest and the password is guest. If you want, you can add your name to the end of your entries. You can also hear a recording of the conference call until 03/27/2005 by following these steps:

1. To access the conference specified above, click on the link below or paste the entire URL into your browser: http://www2.readycall.com/moderator/presentation/Playback?id=693bec1c-8817-11d9-9923-00d0b7c50dff.rpm
2. At the prompt, enter your name and email address
3. Click "Submit". The playback will begin. You can safely skip the first and last ten minutes.

As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome.

Hi,

been busy of late with California Social Studies conference with Willie and Alex Patillo, as well as our online Town Hall meeting, both of which very well. At the online meeting, we decided to work on a game concept to help new users understand how to use the K-Web interface, building community around the PBS broadcast, creating lesson plans, fundraising and creating other visual materials to help people understand the overall capabilities of the K-Web system. You can see everyone's written input (and even add your own to the discussion) by logging into Groupmindexpress.com: http://gme.groupmindexpress.com/k-web/index.php3?object_id=c7745762c7917a09b94039b4523afb94 If you log in from main page, our site is k-web (case sensitive, Open the Feb. Mtg folder). The guest login is guest and the password is guest. If you want, you can add your name to the end of your entries. You can also hear a recording of the conference call until 03/27/2005 by following these steps:

1. To access the conference specified above, click on the link below or paste the entire URL into your browser: http://www2.readycall.com/moderator/presentation/Playback?id=693bec1c-8817-11d9-9923-00d0b7c50dff.rpm

2. At the prompt, enter your name and email address

3. Click "Submit". The playback will begin. You can safely skip the first and last ten minutes. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome.

// posted by Pat @ 3:32 PM