Before I leave today, I couldn't resist showing off my EdLab badges!

Mad props (and many thanks) to Rebecca for creating these amazing badges and providing me with such beautiful flair. Whatever your opinion on digital badging, you have to admit... these are pretty cool.

What do you think? What EdLab Badges can you put in your backpack?

This spring the Young Adult Library Services Association (better know as YALSA) received funding to develop a virtual badge program for professional development (ht Janice). A grant for this project is provided by three big badging proponents: HASTAC, the Mozilla Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.

Check out this cool infographic "Envisioning the Future of Education" by TFE Research and Michell Zappa (ht EdSurge). Basically, this visualization tries to show all the emerging educational technologies that might affect education starting from now until 2040. It is full of paradigm-shifting potential, focusing on technology in several different areas, including digitized classrooms, gamification, the opening of information, disintermediation, tangible computing, and virtual/physical studios.

Here is what the creators have to say:

This visualization attempts to organize a series of emerging technologies that are likely to influence education in the upcoming decades. Despite its inherently speculative nature, the driving trends behind the technologies can already be observed, meaning it's a matter of time before these scenarios start panning out in learning environments around the world.

The ALA Virtual Conference: Mapping Transformations continues today, with George Needham & Joan Frye Williams kicking off this morning with a presentation on "Libraries in a Post-Print World."

Despite all of the technological changes in libraries over the past several years, for most people the library "brand" is still "books" - good, old-fashioned, paper, bound books. George & Joan talk about how this is a powerful symbol that needs to change as libraries step forward to lead the rising trend of redefining what a "book" is. Books are changing in significant ways, more than simply the transfer of content from print text to digital format. For example, some books are becoming more like gaming than reading, other books provide apps without any narrative, plus there are now "book tracks" (music and sound effects) to go along with the reading experience.

Yesterday afternoon at the ALA Virtual Conference: Mapping Transformations, Brian Matthews presented on "Thinking Entrepreneurially: What libraries can learn from startups and other innovative organizations." His talk was based on his recent white paper, which I blogged about last month after learning about the conference. Full circle.

Everything Matthews presented to librarians about cultivating a "transitional mindset" is relevant for EdLab. He provided a great summary of the "lean startup" model:

1) Don't waste time on things that don't work (fail faster)
2) Good enough is good enough to start (minimum viable product)
3) Feed the feedback loop (iterations and rapid development cycles)

Smith, A., Boyles, J. (2012). The Rise of the "Connected Viewer." Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project published a new report this week on how people use their cell phones while watching television. According to Pew's most recent survey, which was conducted among 2,254 American adults in March and April of this year, 52% of all cell phone owners now incorporate mobile devices into their TV watching experiences. The report calls this trend the rise of "connected viewers."

People give various reasons for using their phones while watching TV.

38% of cell owners used their phone to keep themselves occupied during commercials or breaks in something they were watching

23% used their phone to exchange text messages with someone else who was watching the same program in a different location

Juan, B., Campos, J., Vila, M., & Gálvez, A. (2011). The Handheld Library: Developments at the Rector Gabriel Ferraté Library, UPC. LIBER Quarterly, 21(1), 23-47.

Mobile library services might be one of the more urgent emerging technologies under consideration at the moment. For some librarians, building mobile library services might seem foreboding, for other early adopters it might seem passé. Whatever the context, the conversation is still very relevant since many libraries are in the process of deciding how to go mobile, while others are exploring ways to enhance already existing services with new and better features. As evidenced by a recent report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, smartphones and other mobile devices are becoming a more integrated part of many people's online lives, especially college students.

Over the past couple of days, I've been developing an mSchool course on Google search strategies. My search research led me to an exciting and totally geeky discovery. Today Google released the first class of their inaugural Power Searching with Google course. Anyone can sign up to take the free course and become a search expert in two weeks.

Course Details:

Last week on the Huff Post College Blog (ht The Kept-Up Academic Librarian), an entrepreneur named Jack Hidary created a list of the leading platforms disrupting the education world.

Topping the list are Udacity, Coursera, EdX, iTunesU, and Khan. Since these are all obvious to everyone here at EdLab, I thought it might be more interesting to share the second half of the list. Some of these should probably be introduced individually and in greater detail, but here's a very short run-down based on Hidary's summaries and brief explorations of these companies' websites.

Smith, A. (2012). Cell Internet Use 2012. Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project published a new report last week on “cell internet users,” that is, people who own a cell phone and use thier phone to go online.

According to the survey numbers, 88% of U.S. adults own a cell phone; 55% of these cell phone owners use their phones to access the Internet, and 31% of these cell internet users say that they mostly go online using their cell phone, not using another device such as a laptop or desktop. (For the record, 46% of all U.S. adults own a smartphone.) So, that means 17% of all adult cell phone owners are “cell-mostly internet users.