By Stephen Downes
August 11, 2003
All Over For Blogs?
Weblogs won't
disappear because, of course, websites won't disappear. But
the hype will ebb and I would say that the number of active
blogs will be cut in half over the next six months to a
year. Articles will start noticing the glut of abandoned
blogs and the format will recede into the background. There
will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth, many more
articles that read like this one does. And all of that is
OK, that's how it should be. This will not be the end of
anything significant. Remember: hype is not a normal state
of affairs for anything, the decline of blogs has been
predicted (by me, at least) for more than eight months, and
XML (RSS) is still the future. By Bill Thompson, BBC News,
August 8, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
The Perils of Cutbacks in Higher
Education
I don't want to sound like Chicken
Little, but can you see the crisis coming? It is still far
away from a break point, however, the combination of
declining funding and rising tuition is creating a
situation which, like that of an overflowing dam, will
burst 'all of a sudden' on the higher educational
community. One thing will be the proverbial last straw: the
deregulation of credentialling. It's only a matter of time,
now. By Louis Uchitelle, New York Times, Augist 10, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Gestalt and Typography
The
concepts of proximity and similarity play major roles in my
own theories of cognition and therefore of learning in
general. This seven minute presentation is directed toward
visual design but provides a nice introduction to these
basic concepts. It also requires a Shockwave player. Via
elearningpost. By Mike Cuenca, August, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Searching For the Personal
Touch
This article is unfortunately vague, but
the upshot is potentially important: companies have
launched in 'stealth mode' that offer the potential for
personalized search. Great in concept, this is hard to do
well. "The problem is, there isn't a 'one size fits all'
formula. By its nature, it's something that has to be
tailored to each individual user. It's not like Google can
build a personalization module, plug it in and flip a
switch." Even so, despite the difficulties, some sort of
personalized search is the wave of the future. By Stefanie
Olsen, CNet News.com, August 11, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Judge Rejects Subpoenas in Music-Use
Case
A set-back for the music industry as a
Boston judge throws out their subpoenas demanding the names
of students at Boston College and MIT they accuse of file
sharing. By Bipasha Ray, Associated Press, August 8, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
The E-book vs the Ordinary
Book
The latest IFETS discussion paper is out
and the criticism has already started, one writer
commenting - accurately - that the article is nothing more
than a series of unsubstantiated assertions. The mere fact
of being digital gives the eBook properties not shared by
the traditional book, but this in itself does not make it
better, nor is the conclusion that "the e-book may prepare
the learner to learn independently, without a teacher"
supported by these observations. The major question - why
the author thinks that digital learning would resemble a
book - is left untouched. By Zygmunt Scheidlinger, IFETS,
August 10, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Know a friend who might enjoy this
newsletter?
Feel free to forward OLDaily to your colleagues. If you
received this issue from a friend and would like a free
subscription of your own, you can join our mailing list
at
http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/website/subscribe.cgi
[
About This NewsLetter] [
OLDaily Archives]
[
Send me your comments]