Interface Innovation: The Future of Information Access Nice little article surveying five innovative ways of handling information, providing examples (and links) to companies who are creating alternative desktop interfaces, automatic file sorting tools, automatic summary and metadata generation, pictures over words, and computers that recognize when you're feeling blue. By Tim McDonald, Newsfactor Network, December 19, 2001.[Refer]

Advanced Distributed Learning Plugfest 5 Plugfest is an event where companies who are moving toward SCORM compatibility (and who had the cash to register) test their applications for interoperability. Participants included 30 Learning Management Systems vendors, 23 authoring tool vendors and 50 learning content providers. Links are provided to partgicipant lists, Plugfest objectives and more. By Press Release, ADL, December 19, 2001.[Refer]

Education, Innovation & The Internet: Nobel Laureates Look To The Future A survey of 71 Nobel laureates says that "universal access to the Internet would bring about enormous benefits and improvements to the educational system because of the Internet?s unparalleled ability to spread knowledge and disseminate information." The internet would also have helped them conduct their research more quickly and it will play a key role in improving the overall quality of life. The study, available from this web page in PDF format, was commissioned by Cisco and conducted by the Princeton Research Associates. By Princeton Research Associates, Cisco Nobel Programs, November 20, 2001.[Refer]

Text-E This one comes to me via elearningpost... text-e claims to be "the first entirely virtual symposium dedicated to investigating the impact of the Web on reading, writing and the diffusion of knowledge," a claim, I think, that people in the field would find a bit astonishing in this day and age. That said, the free symposium website is one of the most elegant I've seen, and even more interestingly, eBooks are incorporated right into the mix (requiring, of course, the use of an eBook reader - the sponsorship of eBook distributor Giant Chair - http://giantchair.com/ - probably has something to do with that). By , , .[Refer]

Top 25 Though the twenty-five educators listed are all American (so their designation as the 'top 25' should be taken with a grain of salt), this article is nonetheless interesting reading as it incorporates a breadth of innovative activity. Some of the names you'll recognize, some are more obscure, but all have undeniably contributed to the field. By District Administration Staff, District Administration, December, 2001.[Refer]

Sequential Analysis of Group Interactions in Threaded Discussions Following up on a post I made to DEOS - see http://lists.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0112&L=deos-l&O=A&P=14622 - Allan Jeong introduced readers to a tool he developed to analyze interactions on discussion boards with regard to critical thinking. The link is to his dissertation and also to a download of the tool. It's on Tripod, so you may have to click through some annoying Doubleclick errors first. What struck me as most interesting was his finding that "arguments were rarely followed by evaluation of an argment's validity, accuracy or relevancy (only 4% of the time). " Scary. By Allan Jeong, Dissertation, November, 2001.[Refer]

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