By Stephen Downes
June 1, 2004
The Knowledge Tree
Rod sent me
this link to the newsest edition of The Knowledge Tree. My
flight leaves shortly, there's no neat table of contents,
and so I can't really assess it. But according to the
announcement it contains "voice technologies, Vygotskian
learning for creativity, knowledge management for
e-business improvement, employability skills, collaborative
community partnerships, digital 'multiliteracies', regional
health service transformation, RTO sustainability, games
using mobiles - GUMS for 15-19 year olds, ROI from
simulation training, change management, and stories of
innovative research and good practice in corporate and
public sector flexible learning." Yeah. Sounds great. But
no table of contents (I know, there's an upper menu that
will get me to articles if I work hard enough, but what I
really want is a nice clickable list). By Various Authors,
Australian Flexible Learning Network, June, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Something Wiki This Way Comes
Via
elearnspace and elearningpost, this article provides a
brief introduction to the use of wikis in the workplace.
Typical: "working on a wiki has cut the daily phone calls
he made on a raft of projects to one a week." Sounds great,
but once again, let's not oversell the technology. By
Robert D. Hof, Business Week Online, June 7, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Open Source a new way to Manage Classroom
Computing
It's not that new any more, though I
suppose to a number of people it will be. In any case, this
article is a nice outline of how open source can be used to
manage classroom computing. Lots of links pointing to
resources and information for managing computers in the
classroom. A good take on a topic I haven't seen discussed
at any length before. By John Perry, Australian Flexible
Learning Community, May 25, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Social Software Ideas
Some good
suggestions for the design of social software, including:
colloquial mapping, geographical opinion systems,
collaborative consumed media, and extended reputation
management. Via Nancy White. By Matt Haughey, A Whole Lotta
Nothing, December 30, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
The ESP
Game
This is a link that came up during this
week's conference. The ESP Game addresses the problem of
creating metadata for images. Basically, nobody wants to
spend hours and hours creating data for images. They will,
however, put in the time if it becomes a game. So the idea
is, you look at an image, and try to describe it in such a
way as to match the description given by someone else.
Match, and you get a point. This is a great idea. By
Various Authors, Carnegie Mellon University, May, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Interim Report on Copyright
Reform
This disappointing report (PDF) on
copyright was published by a Canadian parliamentary
committee and, as columnist Michael Geist says, "would transform the
Internet from the incredible open source of information
that it is into a predominantly commercial medium available
primarily to those willing to open up their cheque books."
The report is also bad news for educators. "Bulte's
committee surprisingly rejected the education community's
proposal, opting instead for a new license to cover
Internet based works. This new license would require
schools to pay yet another fee (the education community
already hands over millions in license fees each year for
content) for works found on the Internet." I don't know
where this committee did its research; they certainly
didn't consult anything like a wide range of people. This
report should be rejected. By Sarmite D. Bulte, Government
of Canada, May, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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