Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
September 16, 2008

Relaunch of Sakaiproject.Org
The Sakai project web site has been relaunched (Sakai is an open source learning management system). "In addition to being a big improvement over the previous site, the new site is built on Sakai itself (2.5.x)." Michael Korcuska, Sakai Blog, September 16, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Open Source, Project Based Learning] [Comment]

Edmodo-Twitter for Educators
OK, I am so not convinced of the utility of this - first, because I'm not convinced of the utility of Twitter (though I know many people swear by it), and second, because I'm not convinced of the 'education-only' version of anything. But I still can't resist running a link to Edmodo, just in case... Who Knows?, AcademHacK, September 16, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Twitter] [Comment]

Interview with Dave Cormier: Rhizomatic Education
george Siemens interviews Dave Cormier on Rhizomatic Education. George Siemens, elearnspace, September 16, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Connectivism] [Comment]

Opening Up Education The Collective Advancement of Education Through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge
Couldn't have said this better myself: "Given the abundance of open education initiatives that aim to make educational assets freely available online, the time seems ripe to explore the potential of open education to transform the economics and ecology of education." Thus we are introduced to this substantial volume edited by Toru Iiyoshi and M. S. Vijay Kumar on the subject of open education. It will take some time to digest the contents. There are many many articles here from some of the leading proponents of online learning and education. While daunted by the amount of reading I now face (it has been quite the busy week) I am nonetheless heartened by such a show of support for open technology, open content and open knowledge. Toru Iiyoshi and M. S. Vijay Kumar, eds., EDUCAUSE, September 16, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning] [Comment]

Higher Education Crossing Borders
I'm working on something else again today, and came across this report. It's from 2006, but I don't think I linked to it then. I want to highlight one of its main points: "The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), adopted by the World Trade Organization in 1995, clearly identifies education as a service to be liberalised and regulated by trade rules." Can it be long before we start hearing a lot about 'education as a Service' (EaaS)? (This is the only reference to EaaS extant on the web today). Jane Knight, Commonwealth of Learning, September 16, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

My Vision Of Social Networking: Burning Problems
We hear a lot about what works in social networking. What I like about this post is that it tells us what's not working: privacy, distraction, quality, advertising, identity... Vladislav Chernyshov, Follow the Passion, September 16, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Privacy Issues, Networks, Marketing] [Comment]

Wisdom of the Crowds Isn'T the Answer for Everything
The problem of lies (much less spam) being propagated using the internet has been brought into sharp focus by Tim Berners-Lee's comment that the web needs a rating system. This article is a good discussion of the problem. "Within the Digg and YouTube communities exist sub-communities that make clear an honest debate even harder. There's the long fabled 'bury brigades' on Digg that group along ideological lines and will bury anything that contradicts their world-view before it has a chance to be seen by a wider audience." I think that we will see this wherever we have a centralized system, which makes questions of power and control compelling. My own preference is for a distributed system. But that won't solve the problem magically either. Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins, Mashable, September 16, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Video, Spam, YouTube] [Comment]

In Search of Student-Generated Content in Online Education
Interesting discussion of student generated content. "To anyone who's ever witnessed firsthand the excitement of learners who have created their own content, the marginalization of student-generated content is perplexing to say the least." PDF. John Sener, e-mentor, September 16, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

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