Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
May 6, 2008

My Digital Identity
Presentation by Stephen Downes, e-Portforlios, Montreal, Canada, [Link]

Yahoo for Teachers
Well here we go again. "Something new to try out! Will this be one to watch? Like a Web 2.0 content management system - for your school, between schools, between you colleagues, and just sharing. Will this solve some problems for schools, or just create new ones? Check the Yahoo Teachers info page and register for your own beta invitation." Judy O'Connell, heyjude, May 6, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Schools, Web 2.0, Content Management Systems, Yahoo!] [Comment]

Teacher Appreciation Day
Today is 'Teacher Appreciation Day' according to some blogs. My question is: do I count as a teacher? Jennifer Wagner, Tech Thoughts By Jen, May 6, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Web Logs] [Comment]

The Day the Music Died
What a mess. Mark Pilgrim: "So what happens on August 31, 2008? On that day, Microsoft will turn off the servers that they maintain for the sole purpose of validating that the songs that people have already 'purchased' through MSN Music are still theirs to play. Those people (hereafter 'the victims') will not notice the change right away... the Microsoft music player running on the victim's PC (like iTunes, but all Microsoft-y instead of Apple-y) will make a call to Microsoft's validation servers to verify that the music files were legitimately purchased. This call will fail, since the servers are not responding, since Microsoft has intentionally turned them off. The Microsoft music player will then conclude, incorrectly but steadfastly, that the music files were downloaded illegally and that the victim is a filthy pirate, and it will refuse to play them." Via Tom Hoffman. Mark Pilgrim, dive into mark, May 6, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Microsoft] [Comment]

Mobile Phones in the Classroom…. Again
Short post with a nice off-the-cuff list of uses for mobile phones in the classroom. Steve Dembo, Teach 42, May 6, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Edublogger Etiquette - Student Blogging
People are so worried about their kids posting identifying information on blogs or Facebook or whatever - but then they send their teenage kids to work evenings and weekends at McDonalds. Tell me, which do you think is more dangerous? Which behaviour do you think is more open to predators? I'm just asking... Darren Draper, Drape's Takes, May 6, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Books, Web Logs] [Comment]

Global Language Learning Exchange
I got the publicity email in my inbox today as well. Toffler Niemuth wrote, "italki has a new version -- featuring italki Knowledge, a source of free language learning textbooks. Now users can work together on creating an open source textbook using videos, pictures, sound and text." Derek Wenmoth comments on the site, "it provides a useful insight into how the traditional approach to distance education may be changing - from the paradigm of teacher (expert) delivering to students (learners) to members of the community teaching and supporting each other." Quite so. Derek Wenmoth, weblog, May 6, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Books, Video, Open Source, Paradigm Shift] [Comment]

The Mountains Are High
I don't want to belabour this issue too much - but the discussion is compelling. Two things. First, I believe these two facts are inextricably related: "# Nearly one-fourth of U.S. children live in families below the poverty line, more than in any other industrialized nation [and] The U.S. ranked 21st of 30 OECD countries in science and 25th of 30 in mathematics." And second, Doug Noon writes, "The only people who are surprised by a billion dollar per year program bust are the clueless pundits and policy pushers who believe that 'scientifically based reading research' is about science and reading, and not about ideology and profiteering." Doug Noon, Borderland, May 6, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Research] [Comment]

Interview with Lisa Petrides
"Interview with Dr. Lisa Petrides (President, Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education - ISKME) about the creation of the Open Educational Resources Commons." Nikos Manouselis, FM EA-Tel, May 6, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

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