Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
September 28, 2007

E-Learning 2.0 in Development
Audio from my talk this week is now available (just click on the [Audio] link). I hope to have video some time in the future. Also, just for fun, I wrote a scipt that added a back-channel for the conference. People would go here to add a comment, and I displayed the results in large text on the conference screen (you need a special login to display the large screen, because comments show once and only once). You can see the chat archives from my talk and Jay Cross's talk the following day. I am thinking of making this generally available for people to use - it's a very simple system, and all you need to do is display the web page. If anyone wants to use it, let me know. Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web September 28, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Audio, Video, E-Learning 2.0] [Comment]

Google To Out Open Facebook On November 5
Things should get very intresting in a hurry as social networking applications try to open up and claim as large a share of the market as they can. "And that is a potentially killer strategy" writes Keegan. "Facebook has a platform to allow third parties to build applications on Facebook itself. But what Google may be planning is significantly more open - allowing third parties to both push and pull data, into and out of Google and non-Google applications." Helen Keegan, EduSpaces September 28, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Books, Networks, Google, Push versus Pull] [Comment]

Becta's Process for Giving New Shape to the E-Strategy for Education in England
Seb Schmoller links to this publication from Becta describing the series of policy seminars that will be held by the organization. The process asks, "What are learner needs" and "what are employer needs" before asking how the system will need to change. What I wonder is, why do employers get a special crack at this? Many people - and not just employers - have a stake in the outcome of the educational services: police, who have to maintain order; medical professionals, who have to see to their health; service clubs and NGOs, who depend on them for funding and volunteer support; and more - the list goes on. So long as we see education as being driven by "employer needs" we will continue to make mistakes in its implementation. Seb Schmoller, Fortnightly Mailing September 28, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Great Britain, Online Learning] [Comment]

Five Reasons
I agree with the general criticisms of the mobile web - and especially the ones concerning advertising and cost. If commercial companies charged less than ten dollars a day for 50 cents worth of bandwidth, people would be less hostile to commercial wireless web access. Note that though I usually post the entire title of the articles I cite, I didn't care for the language used for this one. Via George Siemens. Scott Karp, Publishing 2.0 September 28, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Connectivism, Wireless, Bandwidth, Marketing] [Comment]

Are We Digitising Into Silos?
So here's the question: when open content activists sneak into the British Library and start photographing these old (and now public domain) texts, in contravention of the Library's deal with Microsoft to create a private archive, is it piracy? Does David Wiley have any comment on how we are going to ensure open access to these public domain resources now that they have been commercialized? How do we protect the right of people to access these materials without charge? Andy Powell, eFoundations September 28, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Great Britain, File Sharing, Open Content, Microsoft, Open Access] [Comment]

High Performance Web Sites
I am always interested in loading web pages more quickly, and Yahoo is certainly a good model to learn from. Video presentation (which is a bit annoying; I really prefer to scan and zero in to things I want to look at). Also a good chance to look at Yahoo's new video service. Better than YouTube and Google? Maybe. Steve Souders, Yahoo Video September 28, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Video, Google, Yahoo!, YouTube] [Comment]

MOCSL Tools and Focusing On User Empowerment
Continuing coverage of the OpenEd Conference. He notes his regret that the Making Open Content Support Learning (MOCSL) project is not being refunded. "I think these tools and this effort were really promising and important," he writes, "because they focus on individual learner empowerment in the networked world of OER resources." I took a look at the code - not all of the projects are available yet. I think the effort is worthwhile, though documentation consisting of "run RAKE" leaves a lot to be desired. George Siemens mentions another link from Scott Leslie, to a site called 51 Weeks, which is intended to facilitate conversation for the time the conference isn't being held. Scott Leslie, EdTechPost September 28, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Connectivism, Networks, Open Educational Resources, Project Based Learning] [Comment]

Stanley Frielick Moodle Moot NZ07
Slides and audio from the New Zealand Moodle conference. Frielick asks, can Moodle become more supple - that is, a more social, ubiquitous and permeable personal learning environment. I think it's a good question to ask - can Moodle migrate from the old LMS world to the new web 2,0 world? Stanley Frielick, Slideshare September 28, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Ubiquitous Internet, Audio] [Comment]

 

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