Knol from Google. Sharing knowledge in an online world.

Google has announced knol (short for a unit of knowledge), a new service in very early testing. It will consist of free articles about any subject, each authored by one person. The tools will allow for community participation in form of ratings, comments, and other social tools.

Like Wikipedia, this is about a world-wide community collaborating to build better access to knowledge.

However, unlike Wikipedia, knol will be about unique authorship. Each author creates and owns a knol page, and can collect ad revenue if he or she wishes. The community aspect comes from how high these pages show up on searches.

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Banning Laptops in College Classes

Just thought this post on Engadget was pretty interesting, especially the comments that follow. I know that this is a problem in just about any type of meeting situation where wifi and laptops are present. Which, of course, begs the same question that the podcasting of classes begs: If the content isn’t for the most part interactive and engaging (which, in theory at least, would preclude students from surfing the Web) why are we teaching it? I’m about ready to do an RSS workshop here at MICCA. Should I have them close their laptops when I’m talking???
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