By Stephen Downes
October 7, 2003
RCDEO To Enter IEEE Standardization
Process
The IMS Reusable Definitions for
Competencies and Educational Objectives (RDCEO) will be put
into IEEE format by the Learning Technology SubCommittee
(LTSC) and submitted as an IEEE formal standard. By Ed
Walker and Robby Robson, IEEE LTSC, October 3, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
BSI and IMS will Collaborate to Deliver
Online Learning Standard
Just what the world
needs: another e-learning standard. This one, to be
developed by IMS in conjunction with the British Standards
Institution (BSI), will be called "UKLeaP" (British
Standard BS8788 UK Lifelong Learning Profile) and will be
an application profile of the Learner Information Package
(LIP), "a generic skeleton for information about learners'
experience, capabilities, credentials, and preferences." By
Press Release, IMS, October 6, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
In Defense of the Essay
Given that
I write essays almost exclusively, it feels odd to read
this item about the genre as being second-rate,
under-valued, and dismissed. Though I have dabbled with
fiction, it is the essay that has always attracted me
(these days it is the 100 word essay, but I digress). My
first excursion into Montaigne was an opening of the eyes,
a realization that my art did, indeed, have a home. I have
no real desire to write anything else (save, perhaps, Haiku
error messages). If you have ever felt the energy of a
thought half-expressed, free flight on the wings of a turn
of the phrase, you will know that the personal essay needs
no defense, wants no defense. By Christopher Orlet,
ButterfliesandWheels.com, October, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Ideas as Corridors
The idea that
ideas are a corridor is like saying that ideas are situated
in clusters; think of the corridor as being similar to a
particular culture, environment or zeitgeist. New ideas,
situated beyond the corridor, are resisted, and people
adapt to them in the following stages: they ignore the
ideas, they deny them, they reject them, they integrate
them, and finally, they make the transition to the new
world view. This final stage is very infrequent, and very
disruptive. I like this article; it reads a lot like Kuhn
in a nutshell. By George Siemens, elearnspace, October 6,
2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Define E-Learning? Let Me Count the
Ways...
So is it E-learning, e-Learning, or
Elearning? And why can't people who work in online learning
fix their friends' computers? These and other mysteries are
raised (but not resolved) by this article's anonymous
author. By I.D., After Five, October, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Scientists Take on the Publishers in an
Experiment to Make Research Free to All
Coverage
of the Public Library of Science (PLoS), an organization
that publishes open-access jorunals, recouping costs by
charging authors a $1500 publication fee. Some good quotes:
"We need to get academics to recognise the craziness of
what they've been doing. They do all this work and then
they just hand it over for free, and then the publishers
sell it back to us at these rip-off prices." By David Adam,
The Guardian, October 6, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
The Blogging Iceberg
The results
of this survey should not be surprising. The authors
estimate that while more than 4 million blogs have been
created on blog hosting services, almost 3 million of them
have been abandoned, leaving (only) a little more than a
million active blogs. These blogs generally have a very
small readership, only infrequently link to traditional
news stories (10 percent). "Underneath the iceberg,
blogging is a social phenomenon: persistent messaging for
young adults." By Unknown, Perseus, October, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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