January 2007 Archives

A student in this semester's Introduction to Information Technology mentioned that Monday, January 29th's Wall Street Journal had a couple articles about social software. So I trekked down to the 7/11 and got a copy.

"Mini-My Spaces: New social-networking sites create communities catering to specific interests" by Roger Cheng, [WSJ January 29, 2007, R9] opens with a story involving Ning.com, a site that allows people to create their own social-networking websites. I remember reading about Ning at some point last year before it was ready for prime-time. Probably why it rang a bell is that one of Ning's founders is Marc Andreessen.

Cheng writes that Ning is an alternative to MySpace and Facebook and that it offers new ways for people to connect online. "These sites offer more-focused interaction on a smaller scale from social networking built around shared interests to family or friends planning a get-together." IMO, MySpace has a very unattractive interface and the flashing ads make me feel like healthy people can look at it and have a seizure.

The United States Distance Learning Association distributed "Distance Learning Today," a quarterly supplement in USA TODAY on January 5, 2007. You can download a PDF of the insert from the USDLA's Website.

It is 16 pages, but there are a lot of ads so it's not a lot read. You can scan it -- visually, not with a scanner ;>) -- and find some good material. I recommend the article "The Changing Role of the Professoriate" and the tip list of questions that prospective distance learners are given in "Giving Distance Learning the Third Degree."