ECHO TOOLS CENTER: The number of scholars interested in using digital tools to facilitate their work has been rapidly expanding, as has the number of researchers developing online tools for the humanities. In order to facilitate contact between these two groups, Echo would like to announce the beta launch of its new Tools Center, an experimental, comprehensive resource for scholars interested in the nuts and bolts of online history. Just as Echo's Research Center offers a guide to thousands of history websites, the Tools Center is envisioned as a central directory of the myriad pieces of software and other tools available to contemporary historians. Built using the same open-source software that powers sites like Wikipedia, the Tools Center is a specifically collaborative resource, enabling developers to post descriptions of their products, and users to apply their own expertise to build and expand its entries. Though still in beta form, we invite both historians and software developers to visit the Tools Center at http://echo.gmu.edu/toolcenter-wiki/ and contribute their knowledge to this growing asset to the online history community.

Stratification in the social bookmarking world had to happen eventually. Digg and del.icio.us and other social bookmarking sites tend to be pretty technology heavy and despite the huge number of users, if there's a specific topic you're interested in that isn't related to technology, it can be difficult to find good links. Also, if you're someone who tends to scan the "most popular" list, you're likely to get a mix of hot tech links plus everything to do with Paris Hilton. Educators tend to want links that have a more direct application to teaching and learning or to their specific subject area. Enter EdTags. It doesn't have many links yet, but it appears to be trying to be Digg for education. Some of the most popular tags right now are education, English, tools, web2.0, and games. Most subject areas are represented, so that teachers can find resources pertaining to their subjects. It's small now, but EdTags could become a central location for educators to share links.

Welcome to EDUblogs, a website that utilizes the popular blogging platform WordPress, offering educators, researchers, students, or anyone interested in education a free name.edublogs.org URL. With this website just being released a week or so ago there are currently 345 blogs active on the edublogs.org server. Finally a community where educators, students, researchers, & technologists can experience a convergence in their thoughts, blogs, & research at one common community.

We recently found out -- by way of Alan Levine's most excellent blog CogDogBlog -- of a partner in crime with the name of Education Commons. Levine's post, entitled Online Community Megalopoli asks the hard but useful question: what's up with all of these new on-line communities? He writes "Like going from a nice scattering of small rural communities to big bustling cities, are we headed down the road to sprawling Megalopoli ?."

In the ensuing discussion, we got to find out what some of our readers think when they come to Academic Commons: that the lights may be on but nobody seems to be home.

From the Educause web site: 

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.

Toru Iiyoshi is a senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, where he works as director of the Knowledge Media Laboratory. Matt Pasiewicz has a good interview with Toru via an Educause podcast  that offers some good insights into KML projects and the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Edupage a free e-mail briefing published three times each week by Educause. "Where other EDUCAUSE publications focus primarily on information technology in higher education, Edupage offers synopses of a more general nature, which are extracted from the mainstream media."