Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
November 24, 2008

Reuters Closes Second Life Desk
Don't want to say "I told you so," but... Bryan Alexander, Liberal Education Today, November 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Second Life] [Comment]

The Missing Link to Maximum Performance
A crucial element of online learning: "The information needed is targeted and organized at the MOMENT OF NEED by embedding the solution directly into the employee's applications or workflows." The question of how to do that is to me most engaging, and has motivated my investigations into RSS, Javascript, and related technologies. Emma King, Brandon Hall Research, November 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning] [Comment]

Time for a Little Comprehension
From Doug Noon, because it needs to be said: "people overlook the 'scientifically-based' textbooks scam. It turns out that news of the $6 billion Reading First con, which Margaret Spellings announced and defended, produces no significant difference in reading comprehension... Now, can we please return to studying comprehension instruction?" It seems to me that too much time has been spent looking for short cuts and magic solutions (and that still seems to be the expectation of online learning). Doug Noon, Borderland, November 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Video, Research] [Comment]

WordCampEd: Permanent Revolution

No doubt there are people who oppose the strident sounding language in this post. "I think it starts to marry the ideas of the "Permament Revolution" I am imagining in regards to Jefferson's thinking with Brian Lamb's framing of Radical Reuse." Sounds good to me. And I can't resist a good graphic Jim Groom, bavatuesday, November 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Flickr, Web Logs] [Comment]

The Future of Campus Email
Boston College takes the important step of not providing incoming freshmen with email addresses. I have argued this before, but, I simply don’t understand why campuses spend so much money trying to maintain and provide students with email addresses. There are so many free services out there, ones which students who are coming into the [...] , academhack, November 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

N.B. Bans Facebook During School Hours
Yet another institutionalized Facebook ban, and this time in the province where I live. The story and the comments (50 of them, as I write) are the same as have played out elsewhere. I don't understand why administrators and teachers don't see that they are sending exactly the wrong message when they ban things they don't like. It's a form of collective punishment that does nothing to address - or reward - personal responsibility. Unattributed, CBC, November 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Schools, Books] [Comment]

WordPressDirect: Like Blogging Without the Blogging
See, this is why I attach a 'non-commercial' condition to my Creative Commons license (not that sites like this respect the license). With Google set the way it is, it would be almost impossible for my genuinely free content to compete against the search-engine optimized clone blogs set up by WordPress advertising factories. Pete Cashmore, Mashable, November 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Google, Marketing, Web Logs] [Comment]

CCK08 Final Presentation
The final presentations are coming it. Worth highlighting is this one, which uses a Flash animation to illustrate some of the core concepts of connectivism. x28, x28's New Blog, November 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Connectivism] [Comment]

Mary Lou Jepsen On One Laptop Per Child
Inspiring talk by Mary Lou Jepsen on the environmentally-friendly design of the OLPC computer. "By trying to do the right thing and by designing for the poorest people in the world, we've made the greenest laptop in the world. And that's not just the color!" This is the edited five-minute version, with a link available to the full talk. Meanwhile, the 'give one get one' program will be available on Amazon in December. More on this from Wayan Vota. Jill Fehrenbacher, Inhabitat, November 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Portable Computers] [Comment]

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