Author: Oscar Retterer

Watch YouTube videos with friends in real-time on synchtube!

The iPod touch “has taken classrooms by storm” in several Minnesota K-12 schools, increasing student enthusiasm and engagement and offering new ways to teach children with special needs.

[Source: TwinCities.com]

As one of the largest research universities in the United States, the University of Washington brings together 65,000 students, faculty members, and administrative staff. From the laboratory to the dormitory, this thriving academic community stays connected with iPhone and the university’s proprietary m.UW app, which gives students and staff mobile access to campus maps, news, directories, course schedules, and lectures.

[Source: Apple Computer]

This year marked the 200th anniversary of what may be the most important science book ever written: Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

Darwin was British, and throughout 2009, the English have been particularly proud, issuing a Darwin coin, official stamps and a variety of celebratory exhibitions.

But none of the Darwin-mania was lost on this side of the pond, even in musical circles. David Balakrishnan, violinist and founder of the Grammy-winning Turtle Island Quartet, composed a piece titled Tree of Life, inspired in part by Darwin’s groundbreaking book. It’s a large-scale multimedia composition (commissioned by the Lied Center at the University of Kansas), mixing theatre, dance, video, spoken word, a wind ensemble and the Turtle Island Quartet itself.

[Source: NPR: American Public Media]

Republicans have a rising presence on YouTube and are increasingly on Twitter and Facebook, too.

Related YouTube Channels:

• http://www.youtube.com/user/USGovernment
• http://www.youtube.com/user/DemocraticVideo
• http://www.youtube.com/user/rnc

[Source: NPR Weekend Edition Sunday]

These days you can learn just about anything from a YouTube video: tying a bow tie, playing the piano or learning math. Salman Khan, a former hedge fund analyst turned online tutor, has produced more than 1,000 YouTube videos ranging from basic multiplication of fractions to polynomial approximation of functions.

He says his Khan Academy Channel started when he worked as a hedge fund analyst in Boston and began tutoring his cousin in New Orleans. Word got around among friends and family, and Khan soon had a cohort of about 10 to 15 students.

[Source: NPR All Things Considered]

Gil Weinberg, the director of the music technology program at Georgia Tech, spends much of his life researching ways technology can expand musical expression. Weinberg created a robot, Shimon, that plays the marimba and can improvise like Thelonious Monk.

Anyone with access to an iPhone can jam with Shimon, that’s all the musicians in Japan were using. And you don’t even have to be a musician. Basically, you create a track using the iPhone app, ZOOZbeat, play it for Shimon, Shimon repeats it and then starts gettin’ super funky with the marimba.

[Source: NPR All Tech Considered]

Students bring a wide variety of wireless mobile devices (WMDs) to their classes.

See an example…