December 15, 2006
OLDaily
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Today is a sad day in our household as our little cat Nadia passed away after a brief illness. She was only 3 years old.
Video, Nadia in the box - she is the second cat to appear, the light white, orange and grey cat (the other cat is Polly).
Video, the cats playing, Nadia is the first cat you see, at the beginning and near the end of the video; the black and white camera hog is Bart. Nadia was so named because she was the gymnast, pulling herself up on chairs, leaping not walking (she always lived in three dimensions), prancing down the hall. We would play with her with the butterflies, and she would soar through the air. She was upstairs with us last night, but at the breaking of the day, she heard the butterflies calling, and went downstairs to meet them. Nadia, sweet Nadia, lives on in our hearts. [Tags:
Push versus Pull] [
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[link: Hits] Heh. "All these bloggers I subscribe to appear to be learning without formal instruction... All these bloggers are self directing their own learning proceses, motivating their own progress, synthesizing their own meaning and constructing idiosyncratic mental models. How did all these bloggers get so resourceful and practiced at learning informally from the blogging they are doing?" That's the evidence we all see and feel, the evidence of our own learning. [Tags:
Online Learning,
Web Logs] [
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[link: 1 Hits] Google has launched a new patent search tool and of course the first thing everybody in our field has done is to look up learning. Here's a patent for
roles-based access control from 1997 - this is one of the things Blackboard claimed in its patent. And 'learning'?
A search reveals 1147 patents - and a lot of work for someone, I guess. I think we need to get a handle on this, though I must confess, I preferred my earlier strategy - ignoring the U.S. Patent Office as irrelevant. [Tags:
Blackboard,
Copyright and Patent Issues,
Google] [
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[link: Hits] A good find from Luis Suarez, who is actually viewing slide shows uploaded to SlideShare. [Tags: ] [
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[link: 1 Hits] Good for the University of Manitoba, which got a review from CBC for its Web 2.0 initiatives in e-learning. Via
George Siemens. [Tags:
Online Learning,
Web 2.0] [
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[link: Hits] This is a bit of a grab-bag post, which I don't usually cover, but there's something in here for everyone, including the iCarta iPod toilet roll holder, food bloggers raising money for hunger relief, where do you stand on love?, Org2.0 from Seth Godin, Executive Briefing on Social Networking for Businesses and Associations, a map application with wiki features, and much more. [Tags:
Web Logs] [
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Marjolein Hoekstra popped up on Skype this morning and told me about
this application. Basically, it looks at your reading selections, as well as the things you write, then scans your RSS feed and highlights, in different ways, things it thinks you will be most interested in. The software if alpha, so it's not perfect, but it has been running well thus far (though I did turn off the ticker). [Tags: ] [
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[link: Hits] Nice application that does something I've been thinking about for a while - takes an RSS feed and inserts it into a nifty S5 template. Here, for example, is
the current OLDaily in S5. [Tags: ] [
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[link: Hits] Some good advice, especially with respect to the design of games in learning (and note that I did
not say 'learning games'). The 'meta level' that Kathy Sierra, of course, is the nuggin - the thing that people are actually buying when they buy something. People buy heat, not coal or oil. Transportation or status, not cars or trucks. What do they buy when they pay tuition? What do people looking for when they sign up for OLDaily? Good questions, I think, and it is worth taking to heart, that "'Don't mess with success' is often the biggest barrier to becoming your own 'killer'." [Tags:
Tuition and Student Fees,
Games and Gaming] [
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Copyright 2006 Stephen Downes
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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.
This is what I aspire toward, this is what I work toward. - Stephen Downes