Weekly Reading List 11/4/2013
*This weeks reading list is an attempt at automating some of the process via the tool I use for bookmarks, Evernote. It’s not perfect because it uses Evernote’s shared URL rather than the source, something I hope to fix if I can.*
[The Internet of Things That Used To Work Better | Jon Udell](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/3c33b665-bd1b-4227-a011-dc084c8e55c0/b516246956d5639b896f0432b32dca65)*Strong argument for embedding “maker culture” or whatever you want to call it into classrooms.*
[Press Release - FAA to Allow Airlines to Expand Use of Personal Electronics](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/a60f6e01-134a-4e79-8963-ecce16302a44/78f50868e089c3a2faea826713aa878a)*So let’s get this straight. We’re all now allowed to stop pretending that we turned off our devices, but only if airlines choose to prove to the FAA that they can safely handle the imaginary danger that this non-issue provoked. Ok then.*
[Wars on Kinkade by RolandDeschane on deviantART](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/b00853a5-8242-494f-8131-d1d0f2bbff8f/87677b594562958ebf72ef372eaf7a0b)*I love this remix of the "Painter of Light" so much.*
[The Extensible Web Manifesto](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/98b6d63d-81ff-4382-be07-ed541084435a/a114cff3594cf0f48227b376173fc4f4)*Making the low-level architecture of browsers a priority for expansion by developers makes a ton of sense. And the signed list is a strong list of people to help push for it to happen.*
[Learning/WebLiteracyStandard - MozillaWiki](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/368d679d-8519-435b-ba8a-3dabf42ad367/e9e9d225a7a930bf097fcfbb4f99cdea)*Version 1.0 of Mozilla’s Web Literacy Standard is now out. Such an important initiative Mozilla has going to promote a generation of web tinkerers.*
[Facebook of the Dead](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/3c3b650a-1b44-4895-8406-19fde90a82fe/945926745afa5f7ef2051a93c24b46f6)*So *[XKCD's What If series](http://what-if.xkcd.com/)* is regular reading and I love it. The recent one attempts to answer the question "When, if ever, will Facebook contain more profiles of dead people than of living ones?" and the result is a very interesting anthropological analysis of how we as a society are attempting to deal with mourning via social networks in a digital age.*
[Who Needs Wikis When You Have Github? - Robinson Meyer - The Atlantic](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/673243e2-743e-43f1-a092-1ce6e813823f/d281110514588bbec54efa17ffb9b7ae)*Interesting idea about Github replacing wikis as collaborative editing space. I’d really like to see some examples of non-techy students using Github as a collaboration tool. In my eyes the barrier to entry still seems pretty high (then again wikis can often over-complicate things too).*
[8 Big Ideas of the Constructionist Learning Lab | Generation YES Blog](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/0f0f8315-d5c1-4151-9e4b-28b0de1c57d9/a921d862175b3d048ef3db2169c88415)*Having my revelation this week that somehow I’ve gone years without exploring Papert. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do but this is a hell of a start. I’ve shared this with at least 5 people today alone because it explains so succinctly the ideals by which I approach every single course (especially the Makerbots and Mashups course)*
[In the pipeline | Music for Deckchairs](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/2d09f87a-2c45-430e-8225-694da08dff5c/a8ffdcb46f028c926ea9548e59080971)*Kate Bowles highlights a few key points of the ongoing labor war of adjuncts but the real gold is right there at the end.*
* *
*"And our radical new friends in Harvard, Stanford and MIT aren’t disrupting any of this. Whenever you see a celebrity online prof surrounded by her grad student teaching team , or wherever you read that MOOCs have given “the common person access to elite professors” and the result is “star-struck” students who show up like “groupies” and want their photos taken , you know that they haven’t the least interest in changing the model that reserves professorship for the few.*
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*Quite the opposite."*
[Off Track: Adjuncts Are Addicts | Vitae](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/6963aa62-5e32-4bdf-bc25-a7473ab502b1/fb3f0ac6b5b226548e56f24fa41f254c)*Parallels between adjunct labor and drug abuse? Disturbingly accurate.*
[College Unveils New Media Center Every Month | The Onion - America's Finest News Source](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/c4f0f596-4715-4d60-9ccd-59273825adf6/e33ec2960198a638d2c06af9fc4e4766)*This one is specifically for *[Andy Rush](http://andheblogs.andyrush.net/)*. Some of the Onion’s best pieces are when life imitates art and this is no exception.*
[Wordpress by Example](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/57837d52-46b3-433b-ace4-8581e0336677/b72aa525e08866af51adbb708d71dd86)*I’ve said for awhile now that I long for better discovery tools for finding the right themes and plugins for a specific job. This seems to be a decent way of finding better examples of themes in use by context rather than just color or number of sidebars/widgets.*
[Recent | Make It @ Your Library](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/78e87dd4-ba48-4629-a945-5bce16528c1d/ee6b9232bfc8a5c1299da4db86914443)*A repository of project ideas and assignments for libraries who want to get their Make on.*