Up to date congressional news

The Sunlight Foundation has created an app for the iPhone that will update users throughout the day as to what is happening in Congress. At this point there does not seem to be many bells and whistles, though each message in the Real Time Congress app appears to be tagged with legislation referenced. Could mean all that stuff will be searchable in the future. No need to mention the possible use for Political Science and Journalism classes. If it could be personalized a bit with home state information, and maybe even the state legislature, this could be a big step to really keeping people in the process.

From the Sunlight Foundation Website, features include:

• Live Floor Updates - Updates from the House and Senate floor as they happen.
• Key Documents - See critical reports and memos as they are published online by the Congressional Budget Office, the Congressional Research Service, Office of Management and Budget, party policy committees and more!
• Whip Notices - Daily and weekly notices from the House Majority and Minority Whips.
• Hearing Schedules - Schedule of upcoming committee hearings from House and Senate.

Spaced Education.

SpacedEd is a learning environment that focuses on using questions to facilitate the learning of content.

From the Website:

It is based upon two core psychology research findings: the spacing effect and the testing effect. In more than 10 randomized trials completed to date, spaced education has been found to:

• Improve knowledge acquisition;
• Increase long-term knowledge retention (out to 2 years);
• Change behavior; and
• Boost learners' abilities to accurately self-assess their knowledge.

The system sends questions to e-mail two times a day. If the questions are answered incorrectly they are redelivered after a week. I'm currently testing it out on the "Philosophy" class which focuses on the philosophy of education. I've only answered two questions, but have already started to see some potential use for the classroom (especially if SMS is allowed.)

Who knows what tomorrow brings...?

ReadWriteWeb has published an article about social media and things that can be expected in the next year. With the proliferation of mobile computing and the social connections maintained by the media, new opportunities for learning will evolve. Take a look and see what is projected, and comment below if you have ideas on things you would like to try in your learning environments.

What's Out on the Edge?

I'm sorry I missed this one last Summer. Digging around on a link sent to me by Jeff Newell and Todd Jorns down at ICCB, I found this little bit of fun from Johnny Lee. From what I gather he works at Microsoft on interface design.

Now let's be straight. This is pushing things way down the pike, but it's fun to dream. If the issue is engaging students, how could we use this interface to engage the students--no wait. If this comes to fruition, how can we use this to engage entire families in a students education?

Watchout Kindle, Here Comes a Possibly Better Mobile Learning Solution

Since it's first generation release, Amazon Kindle has set the bar for services provided on a portable e-reader. Coming soon is the iriver Story. In addition to the usual specs, Engadget reports that the Story will support ePub, PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Ogg / WMA file formats. Throw in wireless purchasing, and a podcast player, and you have a multimedia portable learning environment...

Could be neat, but they have a way to go.

Now, if they can just get the price down to a level community college students can afford.