Weekend Reading

For your delectation this weekend, when you just can’t look at any more work have a minute to relax:

• The new issue of First Monday features Lisa M. Lane’s very fine article on the ways that the default preferences in most course management systems (Blackboard/Vista, etc.) tend to downplay their best pedagogical features, especially for faculty who don’t play a lot on the web. (Also in that issue: Carter Jernigan and Behram F.T. Mistree have built gaydar using social networks, suggesting that “Each individual’s traditional and absolute discretion is replaced by that of members of his social network.”)
• What Twitter Hath Wrought (at least for lame presenters): The Great Keynote Meltdown of 2009.
• Taking Multitouch, and Making it Creepier: The Virtual Autopsy Table
• People, Not Laptops:  Interesting report about how to incorporate new technologies.  Precollegiate in focus, but anyone who’s ever built anything will bob their head in agreement.
• Finally, on the psychology of Google Wave.  ProfHacker will have a formal look at Wave soon!

And a bonus video: Rushes of an interview with Howard Rheingold:

Image is by flickr user bopuc / CC licensed