Edu_Rss

ABC Writeboard
Tired of being tethered to one computer, I’m moving more and more of my work to the web. Yesterday I came upon something I’ve been seeking for several years: a fast, free, online note-taker. I’ve been experimenting with this year with a personal wiki for tracking links, reminders, and project details, but the wiki has [...] From Internet Time Blog on August 15, 2006 at 8:45 p.m..

Top 15 Online Populations and Web Properties Worldwide, June 2006
The worldwide online population reached close to 713 million users in June. From ClickZ Stats on August 15, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..

Richard Waters - Apple lays Legal Claim to The Word 'Pod' - Financial Times
Open the pod bay door, HAL. Somebody should explain the meaning of the word 'theft' to these corporations. The word 'pod' was a perfectly good word, usable by all, until Apple came along. And then the company simply snagged it out of the public domain and now claims it as its own. This is theft, no matter what the court says. [Link] [Tags: Apple] [Comment] From OLDaily on August 15, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..

Justin Pope - Ads in Textbooks May Lower Prices - Associated Press
The cost of textbooks - now estimated to be $US 900 per year, according to this article - is one thing. But placing advertisements in textbooks is not the answer. In addition to the advertising, "Students, or anyone else who fills out a five-minute survey, can download a PDF file of the book, which they can store on their hard drive and print." The coverage in this article is one-sided and in some cases deceptive - as, for example, in the statement of this falsehood: "so far, the model hasn't spread to college textbooks - partly for fear that faculty would consider ads undignified." It&ap From OLDaily on August 15, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..

Marshall Clemens - The Art of Complex Problem Solving - Idiagram
This is a very good presentation of complex problems and how they are addressed. The designer effectively captures many aspects of complex problems and, most importantly, demonstrates how they are different from technical problems (and this is the basis of the argument against measuring instructors and schools by educational outcomes - it is effectively the treating of complex problems as technical problems). The diagram emphasizes the role of visual imagery in the solving of complex problems, which is not surprising, as the author is an artist. However, it is important to stress tha From OLDaily on August 15, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..

Press Release - Oracle and Unicon, Inc. Unveil Plans to Create Next-Generation Academic Enterprise Environment - Yahoo!
This came out at the beginning of August but I've just seen it now. In a nutshell: Oracle is backing Sakai, the open source LMS. Now, if we think about that for a second, we have here a pretty clear and unambiguous response from Oracle to the Blackboard patent, which was unveiled just four days before this announcement. And that response - which is actually unprintable in this newsletter - is, I think, more eloquent than anything else I could say here. More from a much more recent Saka From OLDaily on August 15, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..

E-Learning Myths: Introduction
Norm Friesen has embarked on a project to expose a series of e-learning myths - a worthy project. But his first foray, an examination of the 'net gen myth', is flawed, as I explain here. [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Project Based Learning] [OLDaily on August 15, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..

Mark Howie - The Teaching of Grammar - (Re)writing English
I have long been puzzled by the divergence of grammar and logic, expecting (naively, I admit) that logical form and grammatical form would be isomorphic, so that something that is a proposition (such as the 'P' in 'P or Q') in one form would be classified the same way as the same proposition in a logically equivalent form (the 'P' in 'If not P then Q'). Alas, no. Were I rewriting grammar texts (one of those long-term ambitions, which falls right after rewriting my 1995 guide to the logical fallacies) I would revise the rules to accord with the From OLDaily on August 15, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..

Dave Cormier - The Edubloggypodlearnonlinosphere - Are We a Field And If So... - Dave's Educational Blog
Dave Cormier asked this question in reaction (in part) to a statement on Wikipedia to the effect that I am unremarkable - it's nothing personal, says Cormier, but if I'm not remarkable what does that say about the field as a whole? While I sat and pouted at the Wikipedia dis (doesn't being connected to Adam Curry count for anything?) Cormier set up an Ed Tech Talk segment in which I spent about 45 of a planned 5 minutes talking about propaganda and publicity pre- and post-2.0 style. And while I joke about the Wikipedia thing, I do From OLDaily on August 15, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..

Graham Glass - EDU 2.0 Early Beta Launched - Graham Glass, etc.
Something to look at: "Teachers: find and share educational materials, assemble courses, manage classes, set and grade assignments. Students: study at your own pace, find educational materials, participate in classes, submit assignments, track grades ...and this is just the beginning..." This early beta only supports Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 and above; others coming soon. [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, OLDaily on August 15, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..

Various Aliens - All Signs Point to the Fox - The Fox Tales
I'm taking a break from the recent patent coverage and instead linking to this nice celebration of 200 million downloads for Firefox. Well done, folks. [Link] [Tags: Copyright and Patent Issues, Linking and Deep Linking] [Comment] From OLDaily on August 15, 2006 at 5:45 p.m..