GTC response to the Curriculum Online Consultation The General teaching Council for England responds to the government's recently released Curriculum Online consultation paper. Not addressing specific technologies (wisely), it articulates some general principles the government ought to follow. Some of these are common sense: support for professional development and research, wide and transparent consultation. Their key comment falls under the 'Content and Service Provision' section: "there appears to be some danger that a reductive model is being proposed which could be a retrogressive step for learning and teaching methodologies. The need for a single source of online material to be capable of joining with other sources – both paper and online – and with ‘offline’ modes of learning is crucial if we are to work with an expanded model of curriculum access and teaching." By Unknown, GTC, January, 2002.[Refer]

New for 2002: A Raft of New Web Browsers Hit the Market Tired of Internet Explorer? Netscape got your goat? Opera hits a sour note? Then you might want to try one or more of these alternative web browsers. "None are designed to compete directly with Microsoft or Netscape as a general-purpose browser; instead, these are browsers designed for specialized circumstances." By Kevin Reichard, Browser Watch, January 22, 2002.[Refer]

CeLP Programme Formally Launched at Learning Technologies 2002 This program bills itself as the "world’s first comprehensive certification programme for e-Learning professionals," which can't be right. Oh that's right - you can only get a Master's from Athabasca's MDE program. Obviously not "comprehensive". By Press Release, The Training Foundation, January 30, 2002.[Refer]

Elementary Art Lessons Sure, the title may say elementary art lessons, but for people who don't know much about art (but know what they like), this is a great resource. Want something a little more advanced? Follow the link at the bottom of the page and learn how to paint on bark. By Ken Rohrer, The Incredible Art Department, 2002.[Refer]

The Laptop University: A Faculty Perspective Quick look at the use of laptops in a university context, borrowing heavily from a Node article to list contexts and advantages of laptop use and briefly surveying faculty acceptance of laptops. Using a survey conducted at Zayed University, an undergraduate university for women in the United Arab Emirates, draws some conclusions about "laptop computing in the middle east" (we need to work on the concept of representative samples a bit). By George Kontos, Educational Technology Review Vol. 9, No. 1, 2001.[Refer]

Pupils and Porn and Games, Oh My Well, what did they think would happen when they gave their students total freedom with their laptops? That they would download math refresher courses or Spanish upgrading? So of course the school board is slapping on the filters (as soon as they can deal with their overloaded proxy server (hint: how not to do filtering). By Katie Dean, Wired News, January 31, 2002.[Refer]

Scholarly Work in the Humanities and the Evolving Information Environment I am - sort of - a scholar of the humanities. I say 'sort of' because what I do, especially in relation to the humanities, barely resembles what would traditionally have been called 'scholarship'. I've learned to live with that. And so, maybe, will the humanities. This lengthy study looks at how information technology has changed research in the humanities. Some things - such as the importance of being widely read and citing resources - have not changed. but others - such as dashing off an email to react to a written work - have. Writing has changed a lot, both in the use of the computer to compose text and in the use of online publishing. The report also looks at some of the glitches - lack of uniformity among systems, for example, and archival stability. Reading this report, I wonder whether what I do is really so different. Perhaps not so much so, after all. By William S. Brockman, Laura Neumann, Carole L. Palmer and Tonyia J. Tidline, Council on Library and Information Resources, 2002.[Refer]

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