Education
Wolfram Alpha is a ‘computational search engine’ and was named the best computer innovation of 2009 by Popular Science. The same people who brought us Mathematica, a mainstay in university math, physics and engineering, are now reaching for the masses. A smartphone with a Wolfram Alpha app is the graphing calculator (and much more) for our generation.
Khan Academy – Salman Khan has tirelessly put together thousands of amazing educational videos on all ranges of topics, from basic algebra to complex fluid dynamics. His trademark videos, with their black backgrounds and colourful text and graphics, are created with little more than a cheap Bamboo tablet.
Curriki – Teachers, share your lesson plans and activities! Students and parents, use others’ lesson plans for all your educational needs. Curriki.org is a not-for-profit that is growing quickly. There are hundreds of thousands of educational activities on this site, ranging from Math to English Literature.
People and Ideas (always being updated)
Macrowikinomics -Â Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams.
Tapscott is a Canadian business executive, author, and education reformer. He’s written a number of books, including Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World and Wikinomics.
Williams is probably the lesser known of the two co-authors. He is the vice-president of Tapscott’s company, New Paradigm. I attended a webinar with Anthony D. Williams in September 2010, as he shared his thoughts about the Age of Networked Intelligence and the world of macrowikinomics. It was really interesting, and I later shared some of his slides and ideas with my cohort at UBC.
Ray Kurzweil – Kurzweil has been called “the ultimate thinking machine†by Forbes and the “rightful heir to Thomas Edison†by Inc. Magazine. Kurzweil uses his Law of Accelerating Returns to make predictions about the future course of humanity and its interactions with computers. Kurzweil is an optimist, envisioning a future that is full of promise and marvelous cures for diabetes, cancer, and even human hunger. He has some incredible visions for the future of education, and it’s amazing to see that some of them are already coming true.
Jeff Jarvis – Jarvis was the creator of the magazine Entertainment Weekly, the author of What Would Google Do? and the most frequent Tweeter I have ever seen. He also started blogging about how Dell Sucks! and forced the computer company into changing the way it viewed blogs and how they can be used to help a brand’s customer service and image. As a self-professed Google fanboy, I loved his book WWGD?
Everythingology – This is my friend Coy’s site. He posts news articles and discussion topics about… everything. The site was created in hopes of stimulating discussion and raising awareness about things that actually matter. He is a law student in Washington, DC.
H20 Cooler Genius – This is my friend Kevin’s blog, where he posts the latest in Science and technology news. He works at the Mayo Clinic in an immunology research lab.