Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
April 8, 2008

Applications of Social and Collaborative Technologies in Education
My objective in this presentation was not only to describe the changing nature of community, and not only to describe how Web 2.0 applications create community as well as replace your Office applications, but also to talk to New Brunswickers about the role our province can play to help educators share learning with each other online. Presentation by Stephen Downes, Symposium on Advanced Learning Technologies, Fredericton, NB, [Link]

Sugar On Classmate PC: Edcuation 0wned by Open Source
This is pretty cool, so ignore the spelling of the title (corrected for this newsletter). What the author describes is the installation of Sugar, the operating system used to run the OLPC XO computer, on a Classmate PC, the competition created by Intel. The results? "The classmate is s.l.o.w. [but] Linux feels much more responsive than Windows on the Classmate [and] the disadvantage of not having a layer 2 mesh right in the WLAN card can be solved with layer 3 software." Aaron Kaplan, One Laptop Per Child News, April 8, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Operating Systems, Newsletters, Microsoft, Cool] [Comment]

Blackboard 138 Patent Re-Examination
Sakai responds to the Patent Office overturning fo the Blackboard Patent, leading Barry Dahl to comment that they're acting as though it's over. "This rejection of the patent is good news for the education community and supports what we have believed all along--that the patent in question should never have been issued in the first place," writes Michael Korcuska. "Because the SFLC request was accepted essentially without modification, their work on the re-examination is essentially complete and this concludes the current relationship between the SFLC and Moodle/ATutor/Sakai." Michael Korcuska, Sakai, April 8, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Patents, Online Learning, Copyrights, Blackboard Inc., Patents] [Comment]

Changing How We Teach Copyright Pt 1
This first point in the list won me over: "Change the focus of copyright instruction from what is forbidden to what is permitted." Absolutely. Doug Johnson, Blue Skunk Blog, April 8, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Copyrights, Patents] [Comment]

Ubuntu Breathes New Life Into School's Abandoned Hardware
The email message from Andrew Richards says "A familiar story now." Perhaos to the readers of school-discuss, but it's a lesson the wider community should note. Andrew Hendry, Computerworld, April 8, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Schools] [Comment]

Smart Phones: A Tutorial
A brisk tutorial that does not go into a lot of depth but is worth a quick read for people who haven't looked at smart phones befopre. Provides an overview of various smart phine platforms and a look at the (client-server) architectural framework. Ramesh Singh, Preeti Bhargava and Samta Kain, Ubiquity, April 8, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

COL/UNESCO Workplan Agreement
The Commonwealth of Learning and UNESCO have updated their collaborative agreement to allow WikiEducator to be developed and deployed outside the Commonwealth. "Most particularly, UNESCO will help to expand access and dissemination, incorporating multilingual/cultural aspects so that the outcomes can benefit all UNESCO Member States." Announcement, Commonwealth of Learning, April 8, 2008 [Link] [Tags: UNESCO] [Comment]

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