Jun 19, 2001

Salary Survey, Spring 2001: University & College Web Developers Collected informally from university and college web developers and webmasters. What's interesting is the range of salaries - from $25K to $60K (all figures in $US). By Kari Chisholm, Lewis & Clark College, June 18, 2001. Submitted on Jun 19, 2001 [Refer]

Education Boom Sidesteps Canada Canada has experienced a ten percent decline in post-secondary education enrollments between 1995 and 1999, according to an OECD report. According to the report, the cause is decreased government funding. But during that time, the internet became part of mainstream Canadian culture. It would be interesting to see a report documenting online and self-directed learning in Canada for the same period. By Heather Sokoloff, The National Post, June 19, 2001. Submitted on Jun 19, 2001 [Refer]

McDonald's Pulls Ads Off WTIC-AM After Criticism Another lesson from the realm of school partnerships with corporations... a student in a Hartford area school is forced to apologize to a student assembly after he criticized McDonald's during a company visit to his high school. Now I ask: what message are we sending to students when this sort of thing happens? And since when has criticizing corporations become a punishable offense? Well - since corporations started providing part of the core curriculum... see, the big problem isn't that private enterprise is paying a role in education, the big problem is that private enterprise is fundamentally undemocratic... By Tara Weiss, the Hartford Courant, June 12, 2001 Submitted on Jun 19, 2001 [Refer]

eBookWeb This site launches July 4. "...new online resource for readers, writers, publishers, booksellers, librarians, and journalists, as well as hardware and software makers." Press Release (with a link to the pre-launch cover page), June 14, 2001. Submitted on Jun 19, 2001 [Refer]

Advanced Television Enhancement Forum This is the future of video - data enhanced television transmissions. Contains a link to the full ATVEF (Advanced Television Enhancement Forum) specifications, some background information, links and news. Submitted on Jun 19, 2001 [Refer]

Coins of the Realm (Part One) Creative people take note: a changing economy means that people who write, draw, sing or otherwise produce original content are finding it more difficult to make ends meet. By Scott McCloud, May, 2001. Submitted on Jun 19, 2001 [Refer]

Coins of the Realm (Part Two) Really nice discussion of the motivation behind music sharing services such as Napster and a strong argument for micropayments. But what's really cool about this item is the presentation - I think online course designers could learn a lot from its organization and use of a visual medium to express a complex argument. By Scott McCloud, June, 2001. Submitted on Jun 19, 2001 [Refer]

Can University Students GPL Their Submitted Works? As with many SlashDot topics, this starts as a question and ends up as a very long and detailed discussion of the issue at hand. Some good arguments, examples, observations and links. No real verdict, though the general trend seems to be that students can indeed register their work as open source or open content. Exceptions apply. June 18, 2001. Submitted on Jun 19, 2001 [Refer]

Guidelines for Live E-learning Sessions Nice link dug up by elearningpost - this article is a quick overview of the steps involved in running a synchronous online learning session. ITDirector.Com, June 18, 2001. Submitted on Jun 19, 2001 [Refer]

Non-users “Don’t Need” the Net How times change. Today when news reports talk about the size of the internet, they use the word 'only,' as in 'only six percent of the world's population. That amounts, according to the same survey, to 400 million people using the web daily. Most of those who don't use it see no need for it; "The hype and the promise of the Internet clearly hasn't impressed them." 65 percent of Swedes, 60 percent of Canadians and 59 percent of Americans use the web daily. Short article with a number of related links. NUA Internet Surveys, June 14, 2001 Submitted on Jun 19, 2001 [Refer]

Experiences in Co-designing Very interesting presentation about the process of information design. Provides a nice description of each stage of the research: scoping, benchmarking, prototyping, refinement, production. But the interesting point is this: a full fifty percent of the time taken is devoted to politics. Yes, politics. By David Sless, September 13, 2000. Submitted on Jun 18, 2001 [Refer]

Schools' Difficult Search For 'Just Right' Standards An interesting take on the testing debate - is it possible to set testing standards that are neither to rigorous nor too lax? By Kate Zernike, New York Times, June 17, 2001. Submitted on Jun 18, 2001 [Refer]

Corporate E-learning ROI Scoreboard: Early Leaders Emerge The average reader can view only the introductory page and PDF executive summary, but that's still enough to make an interesting (if quick) read. Major trends: the adoption of payment-based e-learning systems, the growth of e-learning providers into significant businesses, and the entry of established companies, such as IBM, McGraw-Hill, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Raytheon and Oracle, into the field. A word of caution: if you look at the venture capital figures at the bottom, you'll see that investments in even traditional corporate learning have tripled. I take this as a sign that the market is becoming saturated. This is the same pattern we saw in e-commerce a year and a half ago. Not all of these companies are going to make money, certainly not enough to justify the billion dollar investments being made today. Expect to see some business failures, layoffs, acquisitions and the usual upheaval. By Yegin Chen, Eduventures, June 18, 2001. Submitted on Jun 18, 2001 [Refer]

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