OLDaily

Joyce Valenza[Edit][Delete]: Meme:, August 22, 2006

[link: Hits] I don't know - do you capitalize the words in a lyric when its used as a title? Oh well - sometimes you just have to throw out the styleguide. This link is a nice chart showing "how life has changed since I left library school" - looking at things like types of reference materials and what we know about how we learn, among many others. The chart looks better here. [Tags: Schools] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

Colleen Luckett[Edit][Delete]: New Video Educates Students on Illegal File Sharing, Educause [Edit][Delete]EDUCAUSE [Edit][Delete] August 22, 2006

[link: Hits] The item states: "In working with EDUCAUSE and the American Council on Education (ACE) to address the consequences of illegal file sharing, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has developed a short video that can be used to educate students about this important issue." Personally, I don't think EDUCAUSE should have anything to do with the RIAA. [Tags: File Sharing, United States] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

Constance Steinkuehler and Dmitri Williams[Edit][Delete]: Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication [Edit][Delete]Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication [Edit][Delete] August 22, 2006

[link: 1 Hits] Quite a good essay on the idea of online games as 'third places' - that is, neutral and familiar meeting areas, like pubs (where "everybody knows your name"). "Participation in such virtual 'third places'," argue the authors, "appears particularly well suited to the formation of bridging social capital." For example, pubs will allow individuals from very different social communities - plumbers and M.Ds, for example - to meet and interact. These weak social ties create important 'bridging' connections between communties. "Without bridging relationships, individuals remain sheltered from alternative viewpoints and cultures and largely ignorant of opportunities and information beyond their own closely bound social network." Via Mark Wagner. Related: i d e a n t: Video Games, Authority, and Problem-based Thinking. [Tags: Networks, Games and Gaming] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

Unattributed[Edit][Delete]: Good Shooting Guide: the Basic Principles, Bbc [Edit][Delete]BBC [Edit][Delete] August 22, 2006

[link: Hits] It's a bit awkward to get into, but this 'course module' (5 minutes to 2.5 hours (which pretty much eliminates time as a meaningful indicator)) is a useful intorduction to shooting video. Via edu.blogs.com. [Tags: Course Modules] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

Scott Leslie[Edit][Delete]: Short Video on Common Cartridge, EdTechPost [Edit][Delete] August 22, 2006

[link: Hits] I don't know - it just seems to me odd that interoperability has finally been achieved - at the course level. "IMS Common Cartridge, recently demonstrated in action between Angel, Sakai, Blackboard and WebCT at the Alt-i-lab 2006 sessions... to create a common standard for full course import and export between CMS and useful to publishers." It's a bit like planning a moon landing and settling for landing your capsule in the Pacific Ocean. [Tags: Books and eBooks, Traditional and Online Courses, Blackboard, Interoperability, Content Management] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

David Carter-Tod[Edit][Delete]: Blackboard's Pending Patents, A poke with a sharp stick [Edit][Delete] August 22, 2006

[link: 10 Hits] An item from David Carter-Tod lists more pending patents submitted by Blackboard. It will take some analysis of these, but they again appear to be concepts already established at the time of the filing.

Take, for example, the "method and system for conducting online transactions." The application describes a system where users have an account with an organization that acts as a broker for sales of third-party materials. Yes, a 'store'. But more to the point, the description seems to be almost a clone of the system I describe here and elsewhere. Not, again, that I am claiming to be the first person ever to think of it. But I was definitely ahead of - and published before - Blackboard's patent application.

Miles Berry takes a detailed look at the likely impact of the patent in britain. He writes, "There was an interesting case a few years ago of Bromcom holding a patent to wireless(attendance) registration, which the the DfES challenged and were then assigned the UK patent rights in an out of court settlement, and I could imagine a similar legal challenge from the DfES if push came to shove in this case. Another curious thing is how, as far as I know, Blackboard have thus far steared fairly clear of the UK schools market..."

[Tags: Web Logs, Wireless, Blackboard, Copyright and Patent Issues, Schools, Great Britain] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

Seb Schmoller[Edit][Delete]: Automatic Metadata Collection. Humans Not Obsolete. For the Foreseeable Future., Fortnightly Mailing [Edit][Delete] August 22, 2006

[link: 7 Hits] I like the way Seb Schmoller introduced this item in his newsletter: "humans are not obsolete. For the foreseeable future. But they can still create useless metadata." Hence we see the proposal that some metadata needs to be based on subjective interpretation highlighted with a reference to Clay Shirkey's metacrap paper. Related: Scott Leslie's take on the JORUM report on automated metadata. [Tags: Newsletters, Metadata] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

Press Release[Edit][Delete]: More than 70 Million Adults Want to Head Back to School, Capella University [Edit][Delete] August 22, 2006

[link: Hits] The headline is an attention-grabber, but of course this is a survey result that has been extrapolated. Moreover, the headline equivocates between 'getting more eduication' and 'going back to school' - and these are two very different things. It would be useful to have the survey questions, however I was not able to find them on the survey itself. Still, I think that the survey does capture a trend, and the barriers identified - time and money - are not at all a surprise to me. [Tags: Schools] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

I want and visualize and aspire toward a system of society and learning where each person is able to rise to his or her fullest potential without social or financial encumberance, where they may express themselves fully and without reservation through art, writing, athletics, invention, or even through their avocations or lifestyle.

Where they are able to form networks of meaningful and rewarding relationships with their peers, with people who share the same interests or hobbies, the same political or religious affiliations - or different interests or affiliations, as the case may be.

This to me is a society where knowledge and learning are public goods, freely created and shared, not hoarded or withheld in order to extract wealth or influence.