On March 5th, the U.S. Department of Education released its National Educational Technology Plan, which they named Transforming Education: Learning Powered by Technology. Some of the recommendations made in the report include things like having a computing device for every teacher – and student – so that they can access the Internet from both school and home, as well as wanting schools to embrace cloud computing, Creative Commons and open-source technologies.

The report focuses on what they are calling “21st Century Computing”. As a way to transform education, the department states that the plan is to “engage and empower learning experiences for all learners… by leveraging the power of technology to provide personalized learning instead of a one-size-fits all curriculum.” Overall, the plan calls for a challenge to the normal model of having an isolated teacher in every class. Instead, they want to promote the ideas of “always on” learning tools, with online communities for the teachers and students.

I know that this plan cannot possibly be enacted in schools across the country overnight. However, I’m excited to see things moving in this direction finally. What do you think? Is this a massive step forward for education in the United States?

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Should School be Taught in the Cloud?

Startup video site Vevo was created by three of the largest record companies – Universal Music, Sony Music Entertainment, and EMI Music. Warner Music Group is in negotiations to join as well. They chose to start their site based on the huge following that music videos attract on YouTube. YouTube owner Google helped to create the site, believe it or not. In January, the site posted approximately 35 million unique visitors. That’s not too shabby for a site that only launched a few short months ago.

Lady Gaga has emerged over the past year as a music phenom. Whether or not you approve of how she dresses, you have to admit the woman can sing her face off. Her videos account for over a quarter of all views on Vevo! Additionally, if you click an official video of hers on YouTube, you’ll be redirected to Vevo to actually watch the content. That is the kind of partnership I like to see happening.

Vevo may not yet be profitable, but I have no doubt that it won’t take long. They are seeing billions of page views according to the website. Reactions to the site around our community have been very positive from what I’ve seen, and I admit to using it quite often myself! What are your thoughts on Vevo? Have you used the site yet? If you haven’t checked it out yet, I think you’re silly for waiting!

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Lady Gaga Tops Vevo

With so many people using Firefox these days, it’s no wonder there are what seems to be a kajillion addons and plugins available for it. What do you use, and why? I asked several people what they like most, and if you read carefully… you’ll see that one really stands out as a favorite.

What’s Your Favorite Firefox Plugin?

I need to have some WordPress plugins developed, and I’m sure the rest of the world would love ‘em, too…

• Take a look at any given Vox blog – when you hover over any given tag, you can view the results for that tag in specific local indices. I’d like for someone to make a WP plugin that passes the tag to selected local AND external tag engines (Technorati, TagJag, Flickr, etc.).
• I’d also like to see a similar WP plugin for Bookmarking the post in the multitude of social engines (on hover, add to del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, etc.). I don’t wanna clutter my posts with hundreds of icons, and I believe this is plugin is also within the realm of possibility.
• I need someone to create an expanded version of the Kramer WordPress plugin, so that it might take in link data from other blog search indices – Yahoo!, Ask, Feedster, Windows Live, Google Blogs, etc. Kramer really beefs up the discussion for any given post, but I really wanna kick that into overdrive.
• What about a plugin that takes incoming search terms and auto-tags the post based on those terms (with or without moderation)? So, if a user searches for KeywordXYZ on Google and ultimately visits one of the blog entries, that blog entry will have the KeywordXYZ added to its tag list (via UTW or something).
• I also need a WP tool that recursively goes through my posts which have not already been tagged, then tag the posts with keywords it finds most appropriate (either through the Yahoo! API or internal logic) – almost like how the Related Posts plugin works against the posts database automatically?

And while we’re on the subject of WP, Automattic really needs to rename MUWP to something more human, like “WordPress: Community Edition.” Doesn’t that position it better?

WordPress Plugin Ideas

I’ve been pimping my WordPress – hardcore. From spilling a little SpotMilk over my admin interface, to getting an admin toolbar for when I’m looking at my own blog. I’ve been looking high and low for fun and functional extensions for WP, but I think I’ve found the mother of all plugins tonight. It’s called Edit N Place – and if you have WordPress installed, you must install this plugin immediately. Its name is exactly what it does – enables you to edit your post’s title, categories, and/or body inline! No need to load up the admin page to tweak a word or two anymore! Yes, it’s accessible with a little sprinkle of AJAXy goodness. I sent Matt an instant message the moment I had it running. He didn’t even know about it, so it’s a fair bet most of you WordPressers don’t, either. It’s so simple to configure to your liking, even a caveman could do it.

World’s Best WordPress Plugin

I was banging my head up against the wall with BlogWare. For a novice user, it’s fine – but in the time I moved to it (from MovableType, originally), so much had happened with WordPress development. I’ve been scouring the Web for the “must have” plugins, and am finding them relatively easy to implement and tweak. There’s still a learning curve here, but I’m much happier now that I’m away from BlogWare’s “you have exceeded your bandwidth” notices that just started to pop up due to my alleged popularity. I’m still snagged by BlogWare bloopers, including not having flexible export options. That said, Shayne was able to customize an existing script to get most everything he could out of the old system and into WordPress. I now wish to share with the world the BlogWare Import Plugin for WordPress (created by Gada.be’s very own Shayne Sweeney). I hope Matt puts it into future installs.

BlogWare Export / WordPress Import