OLDaily

By Stephen Downes
March 7, 2005

What Do You Want The Internet To Be?
From Michael Geist today: "The Minister of Industry, together with Liza Frulla, his Canadian Heritage counterpart, are also reportedly about to finalize new rules that may reshape the availability of Internet content to educational institutions. Acting on the recommendation of a parliamentary committee that was chaired by Toronto MP Sarmite Bulte, the government may soon unveil a new 'extended license' that would require schools to pay millions of dollars for content that is currently freely available on the Internet."

There's a lot more; if you are in Canada make sure you read this report. "There are some who see a very differing Internet. Theirs is an Internet with ubiquitous surveillance featuring real-time capabilities to monitor online activities. It is an Internet that views third party applications such as Vonage’s Voice-over-IP service as parasitic. It is an Internet in which virtually all content should come at a price, even when that content has been made freely available. It is an Internet that would seek to cut off subscriber access based on mere allegations of wrongdoing, without due process or oversight from a judge or jury."

I'm on my way to Sicily to talk about learning networks. There will be no newsletter tomorrow. See you Wednesday, access permitting.

By Michael Geist, March 7, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Code as Ideology
Here's what to expect from this article: "For Habermas, technology is more than accomplishing our ends; it is also organizing society and subordinating its members (us) to a technocratic order." No, wait, don't pass this by, there's a good side: "For Habermas, the process of technicization of the lifeworld is reversible through reasserting the role of communication. Habermas’ goal is the restoration of a healthy process of social communication capable of providing direction to market and administration, and especially capable of limiting their influence." I'm not really a follower of Habermas, but this is the sort of thing I'm up to, that many of us are up to. In slogan form: the type of society we want must be reflected in the software we build. By David Wiley, Iterating Toward Openness, March 4, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

User Experience Diagrams
I had a look at a few of the resources listed on this site and find it well worth recommending for educational designers. Jesse Jame Garrett's The Elements of User Experience is certainly worth a look, for example. So is the Workflow User Experience Via elearningpost. By LukeW, Functioning Form, February 25, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Information Architecture for the Personal InfoCloud @ IA Summit
Seb Paquet is in Montreal attending this conference on information architecture. Valuable coverage, which I am glad I am not missing. Go Seb go! You rock! By Seb Paquet, Seb's Open Research, March 6, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Next-Generation Educational Software: Why We Need It and a Research Agenda for Getting It
This is a pretty neat article, a good argument, well made, for research in new directions in educational technology. Beginning with some observations about such things as the dearth of authoring tools, conservatism in schools and the lack of teacher training, the authors propose the research needs to be conducted into the development of a range of tools that allow people to author and work with such things as simulations. Good use of the human body simulation as an example - of course, when I look at this, what I want to see is some way for students to create their own 'human bodies' - set up the internal organs, add spikes and claws, and then run it to see if it's viable. Or enter it in the Doom arena. Heh. By Andries van Dam, Sascha Becker, and Rosemary Michelle Simpson, EDUCAUSE Review, March, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Podcasting Possibilities
EDUCAUSE seminar on podcasting with links to a Slide presentation, a sample podcast, and best of all, a useful summary with numerous links hosted by the Missouri School of Journalism. p.s. EDUCAUSE shouldn't use a RealMedia button to denote an MP3 file - MP3 plays on most, of not all, media players. By Cyprien Lomas and Jennifer Reeves , EDUCAUSE, March, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

A Non-Technical Guide to Technical Frameworks - Part One
If you have been hearing about the E-Learning Framework and have been left scratching your head, this guide is for you. This first part explains the concept of web services in general; part two (not released yet) will look at educational applications in particular. Good stuff. Via EdTechPost. By Sarah Holyfield, JISC E-Learning Focus, February 15, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Future of FLOSSE: Interview with George Siemens
George Siemens gets the FLOSSE Posse treatment in yet another interation of what is turning out to be a great series. "The half-life of knowledge is shrinking and is affecting many of these issues. Informality of learning is breaking down the barriers of traditional learning. Learning is now a continuous process. We can’t only offer a four year learning experience but we have to support learning that lasts for the rest of the life-time." By Teemu Arina, FLOSSE Posse, March 6, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Future of FLOSSE: Interview with Knut Yrvin
Two excerpts that by themselves make this interview worth a listen (Knut Yrvin is the elected project leader of Skolelinux, a Norweigan open source project). First: "If you buy a bottle of water you shoudln’t have a law that prevents you to pour the water into a glass." Second: "The real reason why Europe wants software patents is because they want to limit the ability of countries like India and China in their way to get into the European markets." By Teemu Arina, FLOSSE Posse, March 7, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Identity Theft is no Joke - Here’s Some Free Advice
No doubt you've seen many dire warnings about identity theft, as I have. But this item contains the most useful advice I've seen in a post. Some practical, simple steps you can take to dramatically reduce your losses. Read this, follow the advice, and make your identity that much safer. Via McGee's Musings. By Marc Orchant, theofficeweblog, March 4, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

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