By Stephen Downes
April 18, 2003
Norman (Pudds) Downes
This is a very difficult week-end for me
as my obviously sick 17 year old cat has been diagnosed
with a brain tumor. With some palliative medicine we have
been able to restore her to something like normal health,
but this will last only for a few days. As I write, in
about 72 hours the vet will arrive and my beautiful cat
will breathe her last. Pudds has been my friend and my
companion since she was a little ball of fluff. A kind and
gentle soul. We shared years of adventures and experiences
together. She was the original cyber-kitty. I will never
forget her and I will love her always.
There will be no issue of OLDaily on Monday.
By Pudds, Stephen's Web, April 18, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Will The "Real" Community Please Stand
Up?
David Wiley expressed surprise yesterday
when he read my comment in OLDaily welcoming him to the
learning object community. Of course, he always felt
himself to be a member of that community. It's a different
community, though, one that includes the leading lights in
the community that brought us such things as IEEE-LOM. Of
course I am not a member of that community and have,
in fact, been openly critical of a lot of what they have
been doing. All of this is new to Wiley, and my response
(scroll down to the bottom to see it) left him "stunned"
and "wondering where (I am) coming from." This
afternoon, I tried to draw this out a bit, referring to
things like my 'Problems and Issues' summation and my talk
at IMS, to name a few. No doubt the discussion will
continue; I will likely provide the entire exchange as an
article later next week. By David Wiley and Stephen Downes,
autounfocus, April 17, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Open-Education.Org
After much
agony with the domain name - which was lost there for a
while - open-education.org is now up and running. Watch
this space or George Siemens's weblog for news of upcoming
events. By Various Authors, Open-Education, April 17, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
How To Get a News Feed Into Your WebCT
Course
OK, keep this a secret from the company,
since this basically undercuts the nice market for WebCT
course packs they built up over the years. In this item,
David Carter-Tod demonstrates how to retrieve syndicated
RSS content - like this newsletter - and place it into
WebCT. Heh. Now, if you read the follow-up discussion you'll see it took
less than a day to reach the next logical step: syndicating
learning objects themselves into WebCT. Well, hey, I wonder
what all those people who invested in course packs think
now. By David Carter-Todd, Serious Instructional
Technology, April 17, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Reinventing the Training
Business
Some good comments mirrored at Internet
Time summarizing where the training industry has gone off
the rails in recent years, and where to look for salvation.
A big part of it is the business model: "The prevailing
business model for technology-based training companies has
been a multi-year license for a large courseware library.
This decades old approach worked because it met the needs
of the buyer, not the learner, and it made the vendors a
lot of money." As the author comments, "If this model ever
worked, it no longer does." Adter a few words of searing
criticism about the quality of current offerings, he tells
the interested what to look for: meaningful job aids,
knowledge bases, external content, two-way communication
and exchanges, and personalized and current treatments. Hm.
Think the 40 hour course on WebCT fits the bill? By David C
Forman, Internet Time, April 16, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Blurbs: Writing Previews of Web
Pages
Via elearningpost comes this interesting
link describing how to write 'blurbs' - like the thing
you're realing right now - for weblogs and web pages.
Comments not just on authorship (blurbs should inform, not
tease) but also on presentation. Many examples of both good
and bad practice. By Dennis G. Jerz, D.G.Jerz, February 5,
2001
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Dot
LRN
Just released.LRN is an "A fully open source
eLearning platform." The creators note, "the core
infrastructure and application suite for eLearning should
be part of the "intellectual commons" and freely available
to all. .LRN is being made available as open source
software under the GNU General Public License." Woo hoo!
By Various Authors, MIT Sloan, April 12, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Current Edu-Bloggers
As George
Siemens comments, "This has been the busiest week I've seen
in the field of edu-tech bloggers." Or as Jay Cross says, "It feels like this train
is finally leaving the station. Bravo!" I second that; I
cannot even keep track of the dizzying pace. If you want to
try to keep track for yourself, check out this page of some
of the major writers in the field. As Siemens comments,
it's probably an incomplete list. But as Chuck Berry might
say, "there's a whole lot of movin' and a-shakin' goin' on
out there." By George Siemens, elearnspace, April 17, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Why do Colleges Build Dormitories? And Teach
Half-time?
Philip Greenspun asks this reasonable
question and notes, "A university will spend hundreds of
$millions on dormitories, i.e., places for students to
drink beer and sleep together. Why is there is no budget
for cubicle farms where students in the same major could do
their homework together?" His answer, likely to raise ire
for its honesty, is that the elite schools are less
interested in pedagogy - "If Biff doesn't learn calculus
his daddy can still buy him a seat in Congress" - and more
interested in making sure rich kids can go to Europe in the
summer and to make sure that members of the "ruling class"
can get to meet each other. By Philip Greenspun, Philip
Greenspun's Weblog, April 14, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Weblog Trackbacks to Provide Context for
Learning Objects
Interesting discussion and
development of trackbacks - a mechanism to follow the paths
of other users - to give context to learning objects.
Trackbacks are based on the same concept I used to develop
my referrer system, and they provide the
functionality of what I have called 'third party metadata,'
that is, a means for third parties to comment on learning
objects. Be sure to read the discussion following this
item. By D'Arcy Norman, D'Arcy Norman's Learning Commons
Weblog, April 18, 2003 4:51 p.m.
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Defense Agency Pulls OpenBSD
Funding
Hard to explain this one as DARPA pulls
the remaining funding from the OpenBSD project. Much of the
money went to improve the system's security, but a
week-long 'Hackathon' scheduled to be held in Canada next
week may be in jeopardy. "The project's leader, Theo de
Raadt... said he believes the cancellation was prompted by
concerns about the money going to too many foreign
developers and to antiwar statements that de Raadt made to
reporters." Yeah, that would do it, I guess, in the new
world order. By Robert Lemos, CNet, April 17, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
eNRICH. New Software for Knowledge
Management
UNESCO accounces the launch of
eNRICH, a "customisable knowledge management software for
communities." According to the release, "eNRICH is designed
to enable communities quickly and easily to build their own
gateway to the web and other multimedia resources –
tailored to meet specific local needs, enriched with local
content and available in local languages." eNRICH was built
by National Information Centre of India and is available
for download.
By Press Release, UNESCO, April 15, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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