by Salvador Fernández
So, I’m that guy on the Wires Crossed team that shows up late. But I have a perfectly good explanation for it: Resistance to Tumblr.
In a previous post, Emmanuel listed reasons for why we chose Tumblr as the platform for the blog. The rest of the group listed those reasons given when pitching Tumblr. I had no objections, especially when they had excellent reasons. However, I remained skeptical.
by Emmanuel Quartey
Microsoft is throwing its hat into the social network arena with So.cl (pronounced “social”), a way for students to find and share interesting content around a topic and collaborate over video.
Video demo of So.cl.
Microsoft doesn’t appear to be out to create a Facebook or G+ competitor, and while I was initially skeptical about the idea, I can see how this functionality might actually be useful.
I’m knee-deep in research for my senior essay, and some of my best leads have come from the recommendations of friends. Let’s say one of my friends comes across an interesting paper, video or website relating to my topic. It would be cool to have a way of sharing that content with me in a clean, appealing manner. I’m not entirely certain why Microsoft is pursuing this project (So.cl is one of the project from Microsoft’s FUSE Labs), but it’s worth following.
So.cl is currently only available to students at the University of Washington, Syracuse University, and New York University, which is sad because I’m really curious about how it works. Does anyone know someone who knows someone who works on the FUSE Labs team?
Want to get in touch with Wires Crossed? Shoot us a message @wires_crossed or wirescrossedblog@gmail.com!
More posts by Emmanuel.
by Emmanuel Quartey
Image credit: Francisco Diez
Seems like MIT agrees with John Katzman that institutions of higher learning must embrace online education, or else. The school has announced an online learning platform known internally as MITx.
by Emmanuel Quartey
The technology blog Techcrunch recently featured two edu-tech related guest posts worth reading.
by Emmanuel Quartey
Screenshot from Yale Dining iPhone app
This is a review of the Yale Dining app for Android…at least it was going to be, except the app is currently only available for iOS, so I guess I don’t get to get to experience it.
I’ve written a little about my decision to go Android over iOS, and how I knew that I was potentially giving up first access to apps. I’ve heard very good things from my friends about Yale Dining, and I hope I don’t have to wait much too much longer to try it for myself.
Fun fact: one of the coolest things about the app is that it can tell you how crowded dining halls are. The way the app does this to to track the number of Yale ID cards that are swiped into the dining hall within a certain period of time.
Want to get in touch with Wires Crossed? Shoot us a message @wires_crossed or wirescrossedblog@gmail.com!
More posts by Emmanuel.
by Emmanuel Quartey
One of the perks of working on Wires Crossed is that I get to try out all kinds of new toys that might otherwise be outside of my price range (read: I’m a college student thinking about grad school - you do the math). One of those toys came in recently, and so I’m saying goodbye to my trusty Nokia:
and hello to the Samsung Galaxy SII.
The decision to go Droid wasn’t a simple one, and I thought I would write a little about why I made the decision that I did.
by Emmanuel Quartey
Educators are realizing the value of engaging students online, be it through class blogs, multimedia-enhanced notes or wikis. These initiatives, while laudable, sometimes fail to catch on. Our experience setting up the WC blog might help explain why.
by Emmanuel Quartey
There’re a million articles out there about how to be a better blogger, but technology writer Dan Frommer’s ten simple guidelines so perfectly describe what we’re trying to do here at Wires Crossed that I had to share.
Three of my favourites:
2. Write the site that you want to read. That covers story selection, length, frequency, style, vocabulary, attitude, humor, level of sensationalism, and more. Don’t publish anything you’re not proud of. Be yourself.
Yes! All of us here at WC come from many different backgrounds and we each see the topic of mobile technology through a slightly different lens. We knew early on that we wanted this blog to be deeply contemplative, and so reviews of actual devices and applications will be mixed in with quiet ruminations about smallness and how we understand sacred space today.
9. Don’t be the 10th person to write the same thing. Say something that everyone else will wish they’d thought of. It takes longer, and it’s harder, but it’s worth it. When someone beats you to it, share their work if you love it — then they’ll want to share yours.
Again, there’re millions of other places on the web where you can go read about technology. We want WC to be a place for something a little different - a “tech blog” whose posts are coloured by our different experiences as a college radio DJ, a member of the football team, writers for the Yale Daily News and even a performer for a collegiate cappella group.
10. Try new things, all the time. Especially those that are a little outside your comfort zone. This is the Internet — don’t act like you’re writing for Time Magazine in the 80s. Stories can be pictures, charts, lengthy essays, numbered lists, or 140 characters. Measure how your experiments do, and take the results into account for the future.
When we began the project, we thought a lot about how we were going to realize it. Would this be a documentary, an infographic, a storify, a podcast? Eventually, we decided that a blog was ideal because it gave us a central location to house different kinds of content, but we’re eager to begin attempting different strategies of story-telling. Check back often to see how we’re doing!
Read the whole list here. (via SplatF)
Want to get in touch with Wires Crossed? Shoot us a message @wires_crossed or wirescrossedblog@gmail.com!
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