Stephen's Web

OLDaily

OLDaily is currently being produced by Barry Dahl (BD), Harold Jarche (HJ), and Gary Woodill (GW).

by Stephen Downes
July 21, 2008

I'm Back!!!


First of all, and most importantly, a HUGE thank you to Barry Dahl, Gary Woodill, and Harold Jarche, for taking over the newsletter for a month. I know best how much work it was, so I really appreciate their effort. It was also very interesting to read the newsletter from the perspective of an average reader, which will probably show up as some goodness in the future.

Anyhow, as you know, I was in Spain for four weeks, including two weeks on the Canary Islands. The photo above is from the island of Lanzarote. I have hundreds of photos (and more to add). Here are photos from:
Cadiz
Madrid
Gran Canaria
Fuerteventura
Lanzarote
Barcelona

Stephen Downes, Flickr, July 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Newsletters, Flickr] [Comment]

Comparing Schools in Finland and in the United States
Nice to get a perspective on this from Finland. "In Finland the educational system, as it is today, was build slowly. It is still strongly relying on the work of Uno Cygnaeus ( 1810-1888 ) who was influenced by the early European 'constructivist' Pestalozzi ( 1746 - 1827 ) and Froebel ( 1782 - 1852 ). The idea that children learn the best when they areactive and build things was not really invented by John Dewey or Piaget - they only were able to present the idea in a language of positivist science, when the earlier thinkers thought themselves as 'pedagogues' or educational philosophers." So there you go. Teemu Leinonen, FLOSSE Posse, July 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: United States, Schools, Online Learning, Constructivism, European Union] [Comment]

Court Denies Blackboard's Motion for Contempt
Blackboard's motion for contempt has been denied. That means Desire2Learn 8.3 is immunized from the patent lawsuit. Press Release, Desire2Learn, July 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Desire2Learn, Patents, Copyrights, Blackboard Inc., Patents] [Comment]

Leading by Example
"Should learning professionals be leading the charge around new work literacies such as social media and informal learning?" Good question. My answer: yes. Because everyone should be. Tucker writes, "my responsibility is to work on my own sphere of influence, starting with our online course development team leading by example for our facilitators." Christy Tucker, Experiencing E-Learning, July 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Traditional and Online Courses] [Comment]

Connectives and Collectives: Learning Alone, Together
Really nice presentation from George Siemens this morning - I hope someone recorded the audio. In any case, I took extensive notes, so there is at least some record of it. Siemens talks about network learning and the importance of the role of the individual in collaboration. Also from today's D2L conference, I have summarized Brett Emmerton's useful (if technical) talk on virtualization, and David Delgado on integrating iTines U with Desire2Learn.

Tomnorrow I will be taking part in a panel with Barry Dahl, Michael Feldstein and Robbie Melton. We will be broadcasting live on the web - here is the link - starting at 11:30 central time (GMT -6). We will also be using my backchannel - you can input your comments directly from the video page (or so we are planning it as I type this) or through the input page at my web site. George Siemens, Half an Hour, July 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Desire2Learn, Connectivism, Audio, Networks, Video] [Comment]

eLearning 2.0 = the Need for a Real 2.0 VLE
This is exactly right: "eLearning 2.0 is not about allowing teachers or students to set up their own blog within the VLE, or about inserting images from Flickr or videos from YouTube or others... A 2.0 eLearning ecology is about mashing up the LMS, from code to content." Zemanta, E|FL 2.0, July 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Video, E-Learning 2.0, YouTube, Flickr, Web Logs] [Comment]

Everything Is Fragmented-Building CoPs for Knowledge Flow
Dave Snowden presents a short " ... step-by-step approach to a low-cost knowledge management (KM) program using social computing, and will focus on the functionality that has been touted but rarely delivered by communities of practice (CoPs)." He suggests starting with loosely controlled blogs which I've also found to have the best longevity for CoP's, as compared to wikis or other social media. -HJ Dave Snowden, KM World, July 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Knowledge Management, Web Logs] [Comment]

Stephen Downes: Surfear Sobre La Ola
Spanish language version of my talk in Madrid (you hear the voice of the interpreter and view the video of me presenting).



There is also a separate video of the question and answer period that followed. Here is another web site with the same video and some more commentary. Here is a third source. And fourth. Fernando S., gabinetedeinformatica.net, July 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Video] [Comment]

Mapa Conceptual de Stephen Downes Traducido Por Potachov
Spanish version of my 'groups vs networks' diagram:



Additional discussion (in Spanish) and more links. Profesorrr Potachov, La via Ivan Illich, July 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Networks] [Comment]

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