PBS: Will 3D Printing Change the World? (via Stephen Abram) See also, the 3Doodler Kickstarter project — a 3D printing pen!
Google Reader R.I.P.! (although not until July 1, 2013). Lifehacker offers alternatives to organize and sort your RSS news feeds.
Got MOOCs? Here are two recent pieces I found interesting:
The first is from Wired: Beyond the Buzz, Where Are MOOCs Really Going? by Michael Horn and Clayton Christensen. “We believe they are likely to evolve into a scale business, one that relies on the technology and data backbone of the medium to optimize and individualize learning opportunities for millions of students. This is very different than simply putting a video of a professor lecturing online.”
The second is The Trouble With Online College from the New York Times and takes perhaps a less optimistic view. “Courses delivered solely online may be fine for highly skilled, highly motivated people, but they are inappropriate for struggling students who make up a significant portion of college enrollment and who need close contact with instructors to succeed.”
Worldometers: Real Time World Indicators
Watch the numbers change. Everything from current world population, CO2 emissions, to blog posts written today (hope they caught this one). Strange, but no mention of the number of McDonald’s burgers sold?
The new library of Babel? Borges, digitisation and the myth of a universal library, by Christopher Rowe. via First Monday.
How M.I.T. Ensnared a Hacker, Bucking a Freewheeling Culture (via New York Times)
As a #PDFtribute to Aaron Swartz, O’Reilly Media is posting their Open Government book files for free for anyone to download, read and share. The book asks the question, in a world where web services can make real-time data accessible to anyone, how can the government leverage this openness to improve its operations and increase citizen participation and awareness? (via Slashdot.)
Marginalia, or The Roger Williams Code: How a team of scholars decrypted a secret language—and discovered the last known work of the American theologian. (via Slate)
Ithaka, the non-profit organization that brings us JSTOR, on Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Historians: This study, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, uncovers the needs of today’s historians and provides guidance for how research support providers can better serve them.
3D Printing: Wondering what this technology is all about? Read the latest CQ Researcher report “3D Printing: Will it revolutionize manufacturing?” Trivia question: How was this technology used in the latest James Bond thriller “Skyfall”?
Some faculty and students have been reluctant to post undergraduate theses to Scholarship at Middlebury in part because they fear it could jeopardize their ability to publish the findings in journals later on. A report published in the Chronicle of Higher Education indicates there isn’t much cause for this kind of concern. (Read the comments too, where the validity of the conclusions is debated.) Putting Dissertation Online Isn’t an Obstacle to Print Publication, Surveys Find.
The Middlebury Campus, our student paper, covered three stories about LIS this week.
TV Advertising To Students Most Effective; Email Best Reach from a 2012 College Marketing Report from the Barnes & Noble College Marketing Division
eBooks and libraries – topic of discussion on a recent radio show. (This episode happened to be guest hosted by Midd alum and past trustee, Frank Sesno.)
This will put a smile on your face for sure!
From Astronomy Picture of the Day