By Stephen Downes
July 2, 2003
VET Learning Object Repository - Green Paper
Discussion
From the article, "The purpose of the
VET (Australian Vocational Education and Training) Learning
Objects Green Paper is to seek responses and invite
discussion from a range of stakeholders on relevant issues
surrounding Learning Object Repositories. While the paper
provides an overview of learning objects and related issues
of metadata and granularity, it is not the intention of
this paper to add to the 'What is a learning object?'
dialogue, but rather to focus on the demystification of
learning objects and to create a better understanding of
how they can be used within the VET sector." By Ian Kenny,
Australian Flexible Learning Community, July 1, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Weblogs Should be Topic-first, Not
Author-first
I agree with this sentiment - hence
the organization of Edu-RSS by date, not by author or
weblog (and topic-based organization is coming). But it is
important not to be seduced by the lure of One Universal
Classification System. That said, as the author notes, "I
can browse topic pages and read through what various
bloggers have to say on the same topic. It's a good way of
discovering new voices - rather than simply reading the A
List Bloggers." By Richard MacManus, Read/Write Web, July
2, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
NECC
2003
For the last few days the NECC conference
in Seattle has been the subject of an active group blog. I
haven't had the chance to read everything they've linked to
- there's a lot of stuff - but I've been following the
photos and the overall coverage. My favorite bit is the use
of t-shirts labled "I'm blogging this" by the writers.
Today I see that the bloggers were finally noticed by the
conference organizers. Good job, folks. By Various Authors,
EdWebLogs, July 2, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
CourseForum
According to the
announcement, "CourseForum broadly follows a 'Wiki' model
of collaboration, but without the installation nightmares
inherent in most Wiki's, and with the extra features
(authentication, user activity tracking, page locking,
version history, etc.) needed to prevent things from
descending into chaos." This makes the product suitable for
Wiki-type projects in the more controlled classroom
environment. CourseForum is, sadly, not free. A demo site is available. By various
Authors, July 1, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Pupils Learn in Wi-fi Wood
I have
actually used the line in my talks, "People should learn
about forestry in the forests." Here we have an example of
how wireless internet access makes this happen. In the
Ambient Woood Project (great name), a wireless network has
been set up in a forest in Sussex; children wander through
the trees and report back, using PDAs, about their
experiences. By Unknown, BBC, July 2, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Legal Group Spites RIAA, Defends
P2P
More coverage of the counter-attack against
the RIAA's campaign against file sharing. As mentioned
yesterday, this debate is spreading to other forms of
content, such as images. The EFF position is essentially my
position: "Copyright law is out of step with the views of
the American public and the reality of music distribution
online," said EFF Executive Director Shari Steele. "Rather
than trying to sue people into submission, we need to find
a better alternative that gets artists paid while making
file sharing legal."
By Michael Singer, InternetNews.Com, July 1, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Interoperability in Practice at the CETIS /
LTScotland Codebash
The purpose of this event,
held yesterday in Bangor (Wales), was "to test the theory
of educational technology interoperability standards in
practice by exchanging as many instances of IMS Content
Packaging (including SCORM compliant ones) and IMS Question
and Test Interoperability as possible." The article could
have given us a better indication of the results - after
reading it I am still not clear on who is interoperable and
who is not - and it should be, as the article suggests it
may be, open next time. By Wilbert Kraan, CETIS, July 2,
2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Intel, Universities Create World
Network
"PlanetLab," writes the author, "is an
experimental network that sits on top of the Internet that
will allow researchers and others to test and build
applications that can essentially span the globe." It is a
network that will allow, for example, sites to broadcast
video worldwide without slowing internet access. It's an
interesting project, but more interesting is the
architecture it suggests: a multi-layered global network
with different layers dedicated to different applications.
By Michael Kanellos, CNet, June 23, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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