Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
January 12, 2007

We're Back, Sort Of
After a website move that was far more interesting than desired, I have enough of the site working again to send out newsletters. I hope - there's no way to really test the sending of thousands of emails without actually doing it. So I'm keeping today's newsletter short and sweet. (Update: I'm having horrible email problems, as the setup for Sendmail here on EV1 is broken - the reverse DNS lookup fails (!) and consequently it can only send (when it sends) one email a minute or so.) Many of the website links don't work yet, but you'll see everything coming back online over the next few days (the first thing I'll be working on is comments, so if they're not working yet, try again in a day or so). In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the sleek new design. Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web January 12, 2007 [Link] [Comment]

Pedagogy defines School 2.0
Perspective on the concept of School 2.0 (yes, another 2.0) that has been going around, not to be confused with e-learning 2.0, which is something very different. "What is School 2.0? It’s a school that defines learning and knowledge not by seat time, or hours spent on a project, but by what is experienced, created, and communicated." Well, sure, but how old is this? What makes it 2.0? According to Jeff Utecht, the right (presumably Web 2.0) technology needs to be in place. Why? "We can not change our pedagogy and adapt these new taxonomies and new theories if we do not have the tools to do so." Maybe there's a story here - but I want to see a story that isn't just a retread of constructionism or problem-based learning. If it does not essentially involve a network, then it isn't new. But where is the network in all this? Jeff Utecht, The Thinking Stick January 12, 2007 [Link] [Comment]

Second Life Goes Open Source ...Sort Of
There's more on this, but I want to get it in: Linden Labs, the company that owns Second Life, is (in a sense) open sourcing its viewer. As Alfred Essa points out, that's a long way from open sourcing the platform itself, which is what we really need. I have long wondered why we can have a network of open source 3D realms, where we can jump from one realm to the next at will. That's what the old intermud protocol was supposed to be all about. It's almost tempting to try to resurrect some old MUD code to see whether a 3D layer could be added. Nightmare 3D Mudlib, anyone? Alfred Essa, The Nose January 12, 2007 [Link] [Comment]

Semantics in HTML - 1. Traditional Semantic HTML
Nice discussion of the concept of semantics in HTML, identifying the different types of meaning imparted by different types of tags. Useful as a prelude to deeper thoughts about the semantics of XML. Via elearningpost. John Allsopp, Microformatique January 12, 2007 [Link] [Comment]

 

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