By Stephen Downes
September 26, 2003
Home Is No Place For School
Brief
statement of some of the major objections to home
schooling. The major points: first, many parents are not
qualified to teach, especially when students reach higher
grade levels. And second, students that study at home miss
out on the non-academic values of schools, such as
socialization and citizenship. The former is at this time a
good argument (on Judge Judy the other day I saw a parent
who could not even pronounce words properly proudly
announce that she was home-schooling her children,
notwithstanding the fact that she had not attained the
grades she was now purporting to teach). The latter less
so, as home-schooled children they also miss out on
bullying and peer pressure, among the other less savory
aspects of the school system. By Dennis L. Evans, USA
Today, September 3, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
MSN Ditches Chat - Gillian Kent Urges
Everybody to Adopt Instant Messenger
Dave Green
of NTKnow
says it much better than I could: "A contrary couple of
weeks among the forces fighting the good fight - or at
least, convincing everyone else they are. MSN certainly
added a few people to their buddy list after many outlets
ran MSN's cancelling of their chat services without a
glimmer of analysis. MSN UK head Gillian Kent was on all
media, recommending people switched from 'free and
unmoderated' chatrooms to... MSN Messenger. Oh yes, much
safer. Anyone wanting to write a real follow-up story might
want to try opening MSN Messenger. Click on 'Search for a
Contact'. Choose 'Search By Interest'. Browse 'Profiles By
Interest'. Click on 'People > Romance'. Click on '13-19'.
Voila. A list of potential penpals, sorted by age and
gender. Any chance of MSN Messenger getting shut down now?
Or is the AIM-killer a bit more profitable than free,
moderated chat?"
By Anonymous, currybetdotnet, September 24, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Teacher Money May Run Private
Schools
I'm just killing myself over this one.
Is it capitalism run amuck? Or is it socialism run amuck?
Either way - let's hear it for the teachers, who are
responding to the privatization of their workplaces by
buying the workplaces! Oh sure, I can hear the critics
chiming in from all sides - but if the teachers own the
schools, they are probably in a better position than ever
to protect their own jobs and at the same time advance the
principles of education and learning they have worked for
so many years trying to promote. Of course, there is the
darker, more cynical interpretation (which I do not rule
out): that " the investment was a last-ditch effort by Gov.
Jeb Bush, who is strongly in favor of privatization, to
resuscitate Edison." Nothing is simple in today's world, is
it? By Joni James, Miami Herald, September 26, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
After 5
The e-learning industry
newsletter for New Brunswick has added an RSS feed (at http://www.teleeducation.nb.ca/feeds/enNews.xml
). It has, of course, been added to Edu_RSS. If you use
their feed, drop them a note - I'm sure they'll appreciate
knowing that it was worth the effort. By Various Authors,
September 26, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Enterprise IA Roadmap
While not a
complete picture, this diagram (available via link as a PDF
from this page) is nonetheless a useful guide to
undersatanding the dimensions of enterprise information
architecture. Where the author uses the term 'klog' you can
replace it with the original term 'weblog' or 'blog'. Also,
as some commentators have pointed out, the roadmap lacks a
semantical dimension, overlooking ontologies and relational
data. Still, as I said, a good entry point. Via
elearningpost. By Louis Rosenfeld, LouisRosenfeld.com,
September 25, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
ISSN
Canada
Well. Prompted by some nice comments on my discussion board, I
decided to take another crack at obtaining an ISSN for
OLDaily. I received the following response: "Thank you for
your application. At the moment, we are no longer assigning
ISSN to weblogs, but the situation is under review. The
question of whether weblogs will be able to be assigned
ISSN is under discussion in the
international ISSN Network. The question hinges on the
scope of the ISSN but also on the very real consideration
of the limited staff resources of ISSN
centres worldwide." Now it is worth noting that I did not
self-identify as a weblog: I declared OLDaily to be an
online periodical. But they have decided that OLDaily is a
weblog, and (therefore) will not be assigned an ISSN. Which
means, bibliographically, it doesn't exist. This link is to
ISSN Canada, to which you may send your comments. By
Various Authors, Undated
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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