Consider this an enduring blanket endorsement of Jon Udell’s weblog. His screencast on annotating the planet with a GPS device and Google Maps is amazing. His screencast on how del.icio.us is creating the semantic web right in front of, or should I say, alongside us is amazing. In the two weeks or so I’ve been reading his blog, I’ve had one elating lesson after another.

In the hour or so since I first published this blog entry, after I’d done some sound editing for a new series of podcasts, I did my usual click-around-a-bit interval that typically precedes and follows writing or editing, and I found “Primetime Hypermedia,” a column Jon does for O’Reilly Network, and this behind-the-scenes account of how he put together his Umlaut-Band Wikipedia screencast:

Heavy Metal Umlaut: The Making of the Movie by Jon Udell — Jon Udell explains the process of making a documentary screencast, taking a look at the various screencast genres and examining the potential significance of this medium.

I wrote Jon last week to tell him that he was doing work of extraordinary value for all educators interested in teaching and learning technologies. He wrote back and said I had made his day. Hard to believe, but I was gratified. I just hope I’m not the first or last educator to tell him how much he is contributing to our lives.

I do have one complaint: Udell’s Infoworld blogs don’t accept comments. But his email link works.