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by Stephen Downes
September 26, 2008

Open Educational Resources
Presentation on Open Educational Resources (OER) at the Brandon Hall Innovations in Learning conference. Talks about licenses, content models, funding models, some major initiatives, and more. Presentation by Stephen Downes, Brandon Hall Innovations in Learning 2008, San Jose, California, [Link]

More 'Open Teaching' Courses, and What They Could Mean for Colleges
The Chronicle of Higher Education discovers the Connectivism & Connected Learning course being offered by George Siemens and myself (just finishing its third exciting week). "Last month we wrote about a professor's experiment in 'open teaching,' in which he allowed anyone to take his online course and fully participate in discussions. Since then readers have alerted us to at least three other experiments in open teaching, in what appears to be a growing movement." I'm expecting more coverage, eventually. It will be interesting to see how traditional academic reacts to the idea of opening learning to, um, students. In the mean time, like he said, a growing movement. Jeffrey R. Young, Chron, September 26, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Traditional and Online Courses, Connectivism, Academia] [Comment]

What the OpenEd/OCWC Conference Is About
Video from the Open Education conference in Utah. I haven't listened to it, because at this moment I'm listening to Lance Dublin in San Jose. "In this clip, if you can hear over the ambient noise, you'll see Brian Lamb giving a presentation on edupunk approaches to course publishing." Mike Caulfield, OCW Blog, September 26, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Edupunk, Books, Video, Silicon Valley, OpenCourseWare] [Comment]

Teacher Education and Next Gen Collaboration
Christopher D. Sessums summarizes and discusses 'Connecting Informal and Formal Learning Experiences in the Age of Participatory Media,' which is worth looking at for the way it connects social media, via informal learning, to education. "I am concerned," he writes, "about some of the ways I still see and hear how technology is still considered a disruption in the negative, resource-soaked sense, rather than as a disruption that allows us to re-think what we are doing as educators." Christopher D. Sessums, Weblog, September 26, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Losing It
Andy Powell, on the JISC Services Skills event, Illuminating Event Management: "Where was the stuff about the amplified conference? About using tags successfully? About streaming options?  About Flickr and Crowdvine and blogging and live-blogging and Slideshare and ... oh, you get the picture.  I'd expect these things to be at the forefront of every event manager's thinking these days?  In our sector at least. This stuff isn't that cutting edge after all... look at this paper by Brian Kelly et al. from 2005." Andy Powell, eFoundations, September 26, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Wikipedia, Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), Flickr, Web Logs] [Comment]

eBooks and the E-Learning - Filling Station' Revisited
Derek Morrison offers a longish perspective on the 'filling station' metaphor he has employed over the years. A lot of the article is a retrospective on the concept of the eBook and why it hasn't really taken off. Morrison identifies factors that impact whether eBooks will be successful (things like weight and visibility) and revisits the idea that eBooks might be 'filled' with content from newspapers and magazines. Derek Morrison, Auricle, September 26, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

SlideRocket Is HOT!
I had intended to test SlideRocket in action at the Brandon Hall conference but events overtook me and I found myself messing around with UStream and multi-paned screens instead (not really successful; I'm going to have to ask for multiple screens). Mark Oehlert gushes, "This is by far, the slickest Web 2.0 app I have seen to date - an online presentation tool that goes right past PowerPoint and even challenges Keynote." It will, he cautions, be a pay service at some point in the future, so maybe I won't get so excited. Mark Oehlert, e-Clippings, September 26, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Web 2.0] [Comment]

CCK08: Bloom'S Five Forces of Collective Intelligence
As the title suggests, a survey of five elements of group formation and discurse (I'm not really willing to call them 'forces'). The elements are: (1) conformity enforcers, (2) diversity generators, (3) inner judges, (4) resource shifters, and (5) intergroup tournaments. Jonathon Richter, Technology, Education, & The Future, September 26, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Students' Experiences with an Automated Essay Scorer
"Now that the technologies behind making AES possible are stable," write the authors, "more attention needs to be brought to users' experiences with AESs." And, interestingly, what we see is that students aren't hesitant to experiment with the system - all with the aim of using it to help them improve their essays (or at least, I would say, to help them learn how to game the scorer). Cassandra Scharber, Sara Dexter, and Eric Riedel, The Journal of Technology, Learning and Assessment, September 26, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Experience, Gaming] [Comment]

Olympic Mottoes Borrow Lines From O Canada
Probably a decision that should be reconsidered (but indicates how silly IP law has become) - the Vancouver Olympic Committee is in the process of trademarking some lines from Canada's national anthem. No, there won't be a charge for singing the anthem, we are told, but the phrase "with glowing hearts" will belong to them. From where I sit, that's a type of theft. Unattributed, CBC, September 26, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Canada, Copyrights, Patents] [Comment]

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