Miguel Guhlim writes of Gollum. Gollum is an AJAX based browser for Wikipedia. The author of Gollum states that he created it for his daughter because he found the interface to Wikipedia to be cluttered and confusing. Basically Gollum pulls the content from Wikipedia and lays it out in a more visually appealing manner. Miguel wishes the interface would filter out inappropriate language from Wikipedia entries. This got me thinking about the web browser Firefox and its extendibility with extensions such as Greasemonkey.

Clean Language is a Greasemonkey script that filters out selected text from a web page before it loads in your browser. You can set it up to remove the offending words, or just replace the word with some other nonsense characters. The script comes with a preloaded list of offending words and can be edited to include any words you like. I’ve played around a bit with it and it works well. So if students were using the Firefox browser with this script loaded, then you would be able to filter offending words not only from Wikipedia sites, but any page that was visited when using Firefox. Am thinking I’ll load this script on our next lab image.

Another interesting use of Greasemonkey and Firefox is the work that Simon Willison did to clean up the pages at the Library of Congress’ American Memory project. I recently read a post by Cory Doctrow on BoingBoing lamenting the fact that the items in the project were locked in a Web .5 interface that made navigation and retrieval of information cumbersome. Simon Willison read the post and quickly came up with a Greasemonkey script that rendered the American Memory pages in a much more visualizing appealing and organized manner. (see examples screen shots below…)

Technorati Tags: firefox, greasemonkey

The Hurricane Digital Memory Bank is a web site devoted to the preservation of digital accounts of the devastation and aftermath caused by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. They welcome contributions from survivors, first responders, relief workers, family, friends, and anyone with reflections on the hurricanes and their aftermath.

Contributors first find their location on a Google Map, then they contribute their story, picture or other file (am thinking this could be an audio recording, size is limited to 5 mgs, but if you have a larger file you can send them an email and make arrangements for upload…), then they provide some general information about themselves and upload the information. You can browse contributions by type and also via a Google Map.

A very interesting and friendly interface for contributing information. This is a project of The Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University and the University of New Orleans in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History and the

Louisiana State Museum.

Technorati Tags: google maps, Katrina

This week in Miami the National Reading Council is holding its annual conference. NRC is a professional organization for individuals who share an interest in research and the dissemination of information about literacy and literacy instruction. Today their President, Don Leu, delivered his 2005 Presidential Address entitled, New Literacies, Reading Research, and the Challenges of Change: A Deictic Perspective of Our Research Worlds. I have known Don since my years as a teacher at Buckman Elementary. Much of his research deals with “new literacies” and how technology and reading interact.

Today I had the opportunity during Don’s address to speak via iChat about weblogs and how they are being used by students and teachers. I shared with the group the work of John Johnson at Sandaig Primary School in Glasgow, Scotland. The teachers and students are using weblog technology to share the work of their school in interesting ways including student produced podcasts. I also shared a bit about the Lewis site and our use of tools such as Flickr and RSS. After my little part, I was able to listen to the rest of Don’s address. I am amazed with the quality of the video and audio that is now available with tools such as iChat. Also, I hope they had someone recording this and the other talks…

Technorati Tags: Don Leu, Sandaig Primary School, Lewis Elementary

David Muir from Glasgow, Scotland writes at EdCompBlog. He has updated his guide to the social bookmarking tool del.icio.us. Simply Del.icio.us is a 12 page PDF document that gives a great overview of del.icio.us and how it can be used in educational settings. I plan to share it with my staff at our next staff meeting.

By way of Will Richardson’s FURL feed…

Technorati Tags: del.icio.us, David Muir, RSS

KBRT: Radio Free Clarity

Originally uploaded by timlauer.

Steve Burt, Will Richardson, Tim Wilson and I recorded another Ed Tech Coast to Coast podcast this evening. I went downtown to Steve’s office where he recorded the program with Will and Tim connecting via Skype. Steve should have it up on the web site later this week…

Storynory - Free children’s stories for your iPod :

Classic children’s stories for download to your computer or to your classroom set of iPods….

by way of… elearningpost.com

Technorati Tags: Podcasting, Storynory

Superman Returns | Bryan’s Journals - Video Blogs From The Set:

The new Superman movie opens next year, and Warner Bros. is marketing it with a behind the scenes video blog. The interface for the video blog is comic book. Looks a bit like Comic Life, but the little frames contain video clips about the production of the movie. A very interesting interface created in Flash.

Technorati Tags: Flash, Flash, Superman Returns, puppy