SRI are making a bit of a fuss about their new groupscribbles. I finaly had a spare minute to have a look.

Not a bad start. The concept is nice, but the functionality is still vey limited. I would like to see more graphical tools and some possibilites to create composite objects.

But then, I thought - surely this could be done web-too-oh, without the need to install or launch a hungry Java web start. Then I remembered webnotes. Google web+paint or web2.0+paint,  a couple of iframes and bob's your auntie.

Gerry Stahl has a new(ish) blog on CSCL: http://cscl-community.blogspot.com/
Worth putting on your aggregator.

A couple of days ago, when my 9 year old son returned from school, I asked him (as I ususaly do) what he did today. His answer was: we saw the eclipse.
I was surprised: what eclipse? I didn't know there was an eclipse today. you mean a solar eclipse?

Yeah, a full solar elipse. At around 11. what didn't you see it?
No, and I imagine I would have noticed.
Oh, but it was in Turkey. Or that's where the focus was.
SO? did you and your class fly to Turkey?
No. Our teacher put it on the interactive whiteboard. We started watching it, but then it got too long, and some of us decided to skip playtime to see it. After that she left it on while giving us our maths assignments.
Where did she get it from?
I don't know for sure. I saw it was media player, but that's just the thing she uses to show the video. I think she got it from NASA.

I wish my school was like that.
Not only does this teacher use the web and the whiteboard to make the students part of an important scientific event occuring on 1000s of miles away, she does it so casualy, she can continue her regular schedule concurently.

The Kaleidoscope project Learning patterns for the design and deployment of mathematical games has released its first deliverable: a review of the literature on the design and deployment of games for mathematical learning. This review should prove a valuable resource for researchers interested in the use of games in mathematical learning. It is also relevant for software and curricular designers, interested in deepening their perspectives, and for policy makers considering the potential role of electronic games in the classroom.