OLDaily

By Stephen Downes
April 4, 2005

PSP - The Amazing New Platform
Some commentary on the new Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP). This title review is a rave from Mark Oehlert, who calls it "jaw-dropping." Less positive is Derek Morrison, who (rightly) decries its use or proprietary (and expensive) storage media. Sony has already taken a major hit from the iPod because if its insistence on proprietary formats - it may well take a hit in the area of media players as well. By Mark Oehlert, e-Clippings, April 4, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Standards for Online Content Authors
Useful list of style guidelines for web authors. I didn't agree with everything in it, though, so I create my own version of the document and placed it on my wiki where, if you are logged in, you can add or modify the content. Via elearningpost. By Rachel McAlpine, Quality Web Content, March, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Cross-Platform, Videoconferencing-Enabled
Robin Good calls it cross-platform but if it won't work on my Linux desktop it isn't really. Still, the arrival of this open standards based video-conferencing system is worthy of note. "Ineen is another P2P real-time communication jewel integrating all of the most relevant buzzwords a tool could crown itself with: small-footprint, P2P, SIP-complaint, video-enabled, VoIP-enabled, open-source, cross-platform." By Luigi Canali De Rossi, Robin Good, April 2, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Copyright's Convergence
The point of this article is to look at two recent events - the Grokster case being heard in the United States and the Canadian government's new copyright report - and draw the inference that the copyright debate is drawing much wider interest than in years previous, and that governments (specifically, the Canadian government) will have to consult, and take seriously, the many individual content producers not being represented by traditional publishers. By Michael Geist, April 4, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

edublogs.org
James Farmer sets up edublogs.org, "a hub for edublogs." There's nothing there yet, so this is a link to the blog post. Of course, there is already the EduBloggers Network, though the site is throwing an error at the moment, so I'm not sure of its status. By James Farmer, incorporated subversion, April 3, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

A New Hope for cc.edu
David Wiley is floating the idea of a Creative Commons Education license again, this time returning to the idea of rebranding the Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license as the Education license, an idea that was rejected by Creative Commons when it was floated in October, 2003, but is viewed more favorably today. Wiley's proposal, though, has been criticized by some who feel that an education license should allow commercial use of materials. By David Wiley, iterating toward openness, April 2, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

The Annotated New York Times
This site is a nice example of the use of RSS as a content aggregator combined with citizen journalism - or punditry, at least. The Annotated Ney York Times takes each article published in the times and displays a link to it combined with what weblog authors had to say about the article. Via The Shifted Librarian. By Philippe Lourier, April, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Remembering the BBS Scene
Some time while working with Athabasca University in the late 80s I set up a Maximus Bulletin Board Service (BBS) and called it Athabaska BBS, the intent being to support my telephone tutoring through electronic means. While the university wasn't too interested and while students couldn't call in without incurring long distance charges, the experience nonetheless connected me to the world of BBSs, and hence, makes this history a part of my history. By K. Paul Mallasch, Kuro5hin, April 2, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Communication Theories
Nice list of dozens of communication theories, each summarized in an accessible capsule description. Some old favorites, such as Medium theory and Network theory. One thing that would have improved this collection would have been links to online versions of the primary literature. Still, a great reference for anyone working in communications. Such a list would benefit from a similar list of educational theories. By Various Authors, Universiteit Twente, April, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

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