Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
November 27, 2007

Edublog Awards 2007 Finalists Announced
The Edublog Awards nominees have been announced. This blog has rceived two nominations:
- Best Individual Blog
- Best Resource Sharing Blog
Voting is now open and will remain open until December 6. You are encouraged to vote for the blog of your choice (but not too many times please). Josie Fraser and James Farmer, Edublog Awards November 27, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Web Logs] [Comment]

Evaluating E-Learning
What I really like about this 45-page guide to the evaluation of e-learning is that it recognizes from the outset that people working from different perspectives will have different evaluative criteria. The heart of the paper is therefore the continuum of six evaluation orientations (p. 21, drawn from Fitzpatrick, et.al.) and the outline of an evaluation framework (p. 27) that takes the policy level into account. Graham Attwell, ed., Pontydysgu November 27, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning] [Comment]

mLearn 07
Series of posts from Stephan Ridgway summarizing, and even better, providing audio from, the mLearn 07 conference. Stephan Ridgway, Talking VTE Podcast November 27, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Audio] [Comment]

Bloggers Who Write Paid Posts
(Note: I have altered the title of this post because I don't care to post the metaphor in my own newsletter.) Karoli offers a slew of examples of mothers with kids or who are raising money for cancer who are making a little spare change off their writings. The reason? Apparently Google lowered the page rank of bloggers who write paid posts or have paid links on their blogs to zero. Me, I have no sympathy. The commercial bloggers link to each other to artificially boost their page rank. This counters that, and lets people like me have a voice too. Karoli, odd time signatures November 27, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Blogger, Newsletters, Google, Web Logs] [Comment]

Flash Quiz Tools
Nice table listing Flash quiz tools ranked by customer satisfaction. No detailed explanations (but you can get the full report by registering, etc. etc.). Not surprisingly, the companies that specialize in surveys, like Survey Monkey, take top place. Not surprisingly, companies for whom surveys are an add on, like Saba, bring up the bottom. Tony Karrer, eLearning Technology November 27, 2007 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

What's Happening at the Economist?
The Economist, notes Ken Carroll in his new blog, reports on "craze for teaching Chinese may be a misguided fad." He quite rightly takes the political journal to task. Here in Moncton, the Chinese government is launching a Confucious Institute "to promote friendly relationships with other countries and the study of Chinese language and culture." China is a permanent presence in the world. The world is better for it. Ken Carroll, Ken Carroll on Learning November 27, 2007 [Link] [Tags: China, Web Logs] [Comment]

When E-Mail Is Outsourced
I think we should think of hosted email as the thin edge of the wedge. It allows Google and Microsoft to get their foot in the door, ready to offer other hosted services (known today as 'web 2.0') that will, as this article notes, change the way students learn in the classroom. Andy Guess, Inside Higher Ed November 27, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Google, Microsoft] [Comment]

 

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