But then again, it’s none of my business, and if he wants to carry a cassette recorder around and listen to analogue tape recordings, then what on earth is wrong with that? Nothing of course, but my own interest in looking for ever new and more efficient affordances of technologies in an educational setting makes it difficult for me to feel comfortable about persisting in antiquated activities like this.

That is until I remember that a few months ago I bought a turntable for playing my old vinyl records. It does have a usb port on it though and will digitise the discs for storage and reproduction elsewhere

Or listen here:

Of course, I found about this through Twitter, the backchannel to my life and a source of much of interest.

Google have also declared an interest in redefining the online TV market, at a time when a number of new hardware offerings are entering the market at the same time. Apple have just announced a slimmed down version of their AppleTV box, now retailing at about £99 with the emphasis on streaming rather than storage. Competitors are rushing to the table with new products that do pretty much the same thing, with Veebeam and new product maker Boxee appearing at the same time.

If all of this means that we can get access to a greater range of content at highly competitive prices, and that providers are realising that there is more to be gained from offering more and less from pursuing litigation, then maybe it is cautiously to be welcomed. As to the impact on education of any of the above, than we should all keep up with developments and ask relevant questions of each other on our blogs – micro or otherwise.

I’ll come back to analysis more soon but the focus group of four teens aged 16 was interesting in itself. When I asked the question ‘how important is being connected to you’, there was a sharp intake of breath at the mere suggestion that this could somehow be taken away. One girl said that if she had to live in a remote place with no internet connection, she’d rather die. I have some sympathy for her.

Interesting, then, to see this research this week, involving Spanish, British and Japanese teens. It suggests, very strongly, that teens, including Spaniards, feel more confortable with their online chums than real life peers. This seemed to have a hollow ring to me, having spoken to teens here on many occasions about this. They consistently say that they prefer having online friends that they already know in real life, and shun strangers as online friends.

Today I handed out questionnaires about social networking habits, and at first glance my previous impressions seem correct. They consistently report that their online friends are also people that they know in real life. I will post more on this when I have collated the data. It would also seem that, though Tuenti still reigns supreme as the Spanish teen social networking site of choice, Facebook is catching up.

It seems that one internet radio in the house isn’t enough these days, as this morning I ordered a DAB / internet radio alarm (to get me up earlier in the mornings and thus lead a more active and constructive life). Watch this space :-O (emoticon for a yawn).

It’s interesting to see how people will use the distance that online interaction puts between them and their victims to behave in ways that in any face to face context would be deemed unacceptable. Interesting but not welcome.

This entry in Mashable caught my attention. A story for our times and obviously very sad, but apart from the human tragedy what stands out is the speed at which we move information around our networks and the fact that normal official channels for transmitting such information don’t have a hope in competing. But there isn’t really much else to be said; official procedures remain the same. They can’t be fast-tracked to compete with Facebook and so from now on the risk of having bad news spread via your social network so that everyone else finds out before you do about something so personal is real.