While many technology using educators are at NECC, another interesting conference is taking place in California. Where 2.0 is a conference sponsored by O’Reilly Media and its topic is…

the curious new ecosystem forming at the interstices of mapping portals, GIS systems, ubiquitous GPS devices, open source, and the Web 2.0.

Several interesting announcements were made there yesterday. Amazon announced a new visual Yellow Pages interface. I did a search for coffee shops in my neighborhood in Portland and easily found several. Many had an image of the business associated with the listing. Following the link to the business you’ll get a larger image of the business along with phone and address information. Above the business image are a set of arrows which allow you to visually stroll up and down the street. Great for checking out parking restrictions near the business. It’s not as slick as the Google Maps interface where you just drag your mouse to slide the image, but can’t imagine they aren’t working on this too.

Speaking of Google Maps, yesterday they announced an API (Application Programming Interface) that allows developers the hooks they need to utilize Google Maps for making other web applications. Examples include ChicagoCrime.org which maps criminal activity using data from the Chicago Police Department and Housingmaps.com which takes housing listings from Craigslist and combines it with Google Maps. Now that there is an official API from Google we should be able to see some smart uses in education such as bus route maps and safe routes to schools and such.

More Where 2.0 conference coverage can be found on the O’Reilly Radar weblog…

GarageBand Support - Recording your Podcast

Apple has published instructions for recording podcasts with GarageBand. Lots of tips and tricks to help you create a recording that sounds professional.

(Via Lifehacker.)

Dilworth House - Philadelphia

Originally uploaded by timlauer.

Was out for a walk this morning and came by this house across from Washington Square near Independence Hall. Noticed that the house is scheduled to be demolished. Next to the demolition notice a Dr. R.E. Booth Jr. posted a poem about the house and its history.

I was surprised to see less than an hour later that Mike Cramer, who lives in Philadelphia, responded with a comment adding more context to my post. Am wondering how he stumbled on to that picture…

The Educational Mac: Adding to the Chorus of Boos
Over at The Educational Mac, Kelly Dumont laments the spotty Wi-Fi coverage at NECC. Turns out many of the session rooms do not have access. With all the emphasis on weblogs this year, and with a very large number of folks actively blogging the conference you would think there would be better coverage. Maybe time for a bit of guerrilla networking. Maybe go up and offer to help the speaker set up their laptop as an access point…

Kelly is also posting podcasts about NECC… His feed is now available from within Apple’s iTunes which now allows you to subscribe to Podcasts.

Google Map links for Unesco World Heritage Sites
Brad Templeton has created a page that links Google Maps satellite imagery to UNESCO’s World Heritage sites index.

Network Security at William Penn High

Originally uploaded by timlauer.

This morning, Steve Burt, Tom Hoffman, Ben Harris and I presented a workshop about weblogs and their use in education. We had a great group of folks in the workshop. A very informed group. Afterward Tom and I talked about how there is much more weblog awareness at this NECC compared to last year.

The lab worked well except for a few network hiccups which can be explained by the fact that the guy responsible for creating the site, was messing with it as we were presenting. Not a good idea.

Max of Philadelphia Public Schools did a fine job providing technical support. Unfortunately he couldn’t do anything about the heat and humidity… it was like presenting in a sauna…

Screen grab of classroom notes…
(more…)