OLDaily Publication Breaks

We are not yet at the point where I can sit in an airplane over the Prairies or over the Pacific and compile and send a newsletter. Close, but not quite. Consequently, as I travel across Canada to and from New Brunswick this week, and thence to Australia on Friday, OLDaily will experience some publication interruptions. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Channel One to be Expelled? Seattle school administrators are set to remove Channel One, a news and advertising television network shown in school to students. The new policy would also eliminate advertising from school property, such as on scoreboards, readerboards and school buildings. While not mentioned in the article, such a policy would also impact how Seattle schools approach online learning and other online services. By Keith Ervin, Seattle Times, September 25, 2001.[Refer]

Knowledge Management and Peer-to-Peer Computing: Making Connections Article that discusses the blend of two new online trends: knowledge management and peer-to-peer computing. The idea here is that a number of people could share a set of knowledge resources without the need to depend on a cetral server. By Eric Woods, KM World, October, 2001.[Refer]

Handheld Technology: An Essential Ingredient in Teaching and Learning Mathematics This interesting article looks at the role of technology in the teaching of mathematics, making the reaosnable point that while technology gives us new means of, say, calculating square roots, it needs to be balanced with a common sense understanding of the discipline. It also looks at the impact new handheld technology will have: where calculators are used today, powerful handheld computers will be used in the future. By Terese Herrera, New Horizons in Mathematics and Science Education, Volume 8, Number 4, 2001.[Refer]

Pearson Education and XanEdu Create New Digital Standard This press release states, basically, that Pearson will produce textbooks linked to online 'course packs' offered by XanEdu. It's hardly a 'digital standard' (I hate misleading press release titles) but it is revealing: it shows that at least one major publisher wants to continue to focus on selling books and sees the collection of internet resources as a way of selling books. By Xanedu, Press Release, September 24, 2001.[Refer]

Metadata Harvesting and the Open Archives Initiative Good article clearly written explaining the "arcane" concepts of metadata and archive harvesting. Describes an initiative called the Metadata Harvesting Protocol (MHP). Raises issues of copyright and acceptable use, granuality, and the selection of resources (I have encountered all three issues constructing OLDaily, which is based on similar concepts). This is an article well work reading for anybody working in the areas of educational content syndication, learning marketplaces or XML. Today's Eduprise Need-to-Know has a good analysis: "Although metadata harvesting and distributed repositories may sound arcane, they could have a surprisingly direct bearing on faculty. Instructors, for example, who have created digital course resources will be able to use the OAI standards and protocols to catalog their local materials and share them with distant faculty." By Clifford A. Lynch, ARL Bimonthly Report 217, August, 2001.[Refer]

Higher Education in the Digital Age: Planning for an Uncertain Future In an age of information technology and online access, university leaders are wondering whether their traditional monopoly on the production and distribution of knowledge is in danger. Of course, it is. But the real question is: how do universities respond in this light? What is their role in a world of distributed information? There's no single answer: universities are going to have to try different models to find their place in society. By Diane Harley, Syllabus Web, September, 2001.[Refer]

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