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OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
October 9, 2007

Inventing the New Boundaries
Dave Warlick's chatty keynote (yet another "[verb]ing the new [noun]" talk) opens the second K12 Online Conference. Warlick is mostly a storyteller, though I confess the long bit from Ender's Game and the discussion of borders and airports didn't really appeal to me. "You have to create your own borders," Warlick says, to create traction to move forward into the future. The main message - that the best thing we can be teaching students today is how to teach themselves - is pretty common nowadays, don't you think? Julie Lindsay summarizes. David Truss comments. Also - I consider the 93 megabyte download required to view the video to be a disgrace, but Doug Belshaw has uploaded it to Google Video. Dave Warlick, K12 Online Conference October 9, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Chatrooms, Online Learning, Video, Google, YouTube, Web Logs] [Comment]

Thomas Davenport and Blogging - He Is Wrong!
Does blogging hurt productivity? There's two ways to look at it. Blogging most definitely helps you and your career and your learning. So it improves productivity. But it may take away from what your boss wants you to be doing (especially if this has nothing to do with helping your career and your learning). So it may hurt productivity. This is the thing: who defines poductivity? Related: Taiga Brahm on promoting self-regulated learning in online learning. Also related: Luis Suarex, ROI and Social Computing, part 1, part 2. Tony Karrer, eLearning Technology October 9, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Web Logs] [Comment]

Common Cartridge: E-Learning Made Easy
Summary article about the IMS Common Cartridge standard that never actually tells us what the Common Cartridge standard actually is, but is enthusiastic about its benefits. "You download the cartridge over the Internet as any other file. Then you import the content using the Content Import Wizard." Jim Farmer, e-Literate October 9, 2007 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

The Vigel / The Sea

Claude Ostyn and Phil Dodds (center).

I didn't know either Claude Ostyn or Phil Dodds, both of whom were pioneers in the e-learning standards movement and both of whom have recently passed away. So what do I say?

I started my day today listening to Jane Siberry:

sail ho heave ho come on let go your time on earth is over
i watch you sleeping on the bed i'm talking to your soul

did you ever think it'd be like this?
did you ever think you'd walk away?
you and me running through the backstreets of the world
like a pack of hounds of two
wanting more and more love and how much is too much?
did you ever think we'd love so hard?
fighting hard and hurting worse
oh...you're sailing away...

it's alright
put your arms around my neck
hold me tight as we drift out now
while i have the stength of ten men
hold me close as we drift out into the darkness
pigeons rushing up past our heads
people in doorways
i think this is europe somewhere
you're so thin you're so light
don't let go hold me
...are these yours? or mine?

When my time comes, I hope to have lived well, fought well and loved well.

Mourning Claude Ostyn. Also, Chuck Allen on Ostyn. On the passing of Phil Dodds. More from Mark Oehlert. Phil Dodds SCORM primer. Jane Siberry, Website October 9, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, SCORM, Wikipedia] [Comment]

Opensim (and Soon Edugrids) - a Month Later... I Still Love It.
This is something I'd like to be involved in too - if I can figure out how to find the time and how to be involved in it. Dave Cormier writes, "Edugrids is a concept. I've currently been approached by two teachers who are interested in working alongside the project that we have going on here in PEI. They want to be able to bring their kids in to our opensim world and have them play along with other students. Nice safe environment, nice controlled access, but enough kids participating to have some community type stuff happen. Not a difficult concept really, but potentially very interesting... and very powerful." Dave Cormier, Dave's Educational Blog October 9, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Project Based Learning] [Comment]

Chalk Assisted Instruction (CAI)
Terry Anderson presents a formal paper on groups and networks (open with MS Word) which draws from my own work on the very topic. The paper resents the concept of the 'collective', as an alternative to groups and networks, though I confess, I have not been satisfied with the account. Terry Anderson, Virtual Canuck October 9, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Networks] [Comment]

 

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