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by Stephen Downes
December 15, 2008

Dusseldorf

I spent the day today in Dusseldorf. Tomorrow I fly home, so there will be no newsletter. See you Wednesday. Thanks to everyone in Holland and Germany for the hospitality. Stephen Downes, Flickr, December 15, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Newsletters, Flickr] [Comment]

Sakai 3 Vision Document
Michael Feldstein links to an interesting Sakai 3 Vision Document which offers a system somewhat beyond the traditional site-based learning management system. The designers intend also to make the software easier to install. Use cases envision Sakai as a portfolio system and as a collaboration system. All of these are steps in the right direction. Michael Feldstein, E-Literate, December 15, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Revealed: Amazon Staff Punished for Being Ill
I haven't ordered anything from Amazon and, if this report proves to be true, I won't. Ever. Claire Newell and Daniel Foggo, The Sunday Times, December 15, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

The Right to Education
Lexa summarizes: "In Western Europe, we have the luxury of having an almost universal right to education. In the rest of the world, it's not necessarily the same. Peter Hyll Larsen has just launched a new website for the Right to Education Project." Lexa, eLearning across the globe, December 15, 2008 [Link] [Tags: European Union] [Comment]

Trends Shaping Education
Don Ledingham links to and summarizes a comprehensive OECD report on the state of learning in an uncertain world - though we must remember that OECD publications often represent a particular (market oriented point of view. Hence, we see Chapter 7 describe efforts to "roll back the welfare state" (as though that has ever really existed in practice". And in chapter 9 we see it asked "how well do young people balance their lives as learners in school with their lives as consumers?" Do have a look at this report, especially as regards the discussion on inequality - the last few pages observe, "the very rich are getting richer", and yet - somehow! - makes no connection between this and the degradation of the environment, the destruction of the economy, the relegation of individual lives to the status of "consumer". Don Ledingham, Don's Learning Blog, December 15, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Schools, Quality] [Comment]

Liberty Is the Recognition of Want
Saturday was the 40th anniversary of the publication of The Tragedy of the Commons, "how a group of herders sharing a common grazing area can destroy it by acting in their personal self interest" (and December 10 was the 40th anniversary of the publication of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - how ironic). It has always strck me that the title of the article has always carried more weight than the content - the very same situation could have been described as "the tragedy of free enterprise" or "the tragedy of self interest" since it describes, not communal ownership, but individual greed. It is this individual greed that wrecks the commons, be it the environment or the financial system (or the internet, if we let it). Isn't it time we addressed greed directly, as a society, instead of jumping from crisis to crisis in its wake? Dave Snowden, Cognitive Edge, December 15, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Renting Keys to Walled Gardens
The Pew Report is published from a strictly American perspective, but the implications of a walled-garden internet are of concern to all users. The prediction that "the mobile phone (or its descendant) will be the primary access point to the Internet by 2020" is of particular concern since the handset is controlled by the content provider, and this provider can (and will) remove applications or content that violates its (commercial) terms of use. This blog post looks at the Pew Report from the perspective of librarians and observes, "our libraries are full of enormously expensive walled gardens. How did we let that happen?" How, indeed. People looking at their own narrow interests are sleepwalking toward a closed and commercial internet. Barbara Fister, ARCLog, December 15, 2008 [Link] [Tags: United States, Books, Web Logs] [Comment]

Renting Keys to Walled Gardens
The Pew Report is published from a strictly American perspective, but the implications of a walled-garden internet are of concern to all users. The prediction that "the mobile phone (or its descendant) will be the primary access point to the Internet by 2020" is of particular concern since the handset is controlled by the content provider, and this provider can (and will) remove applications or content that violates its (commercial) terms of use. This blog post looks at the Pew Report from the perspective of librarians and observes, "our libraries are full of enormously expensive walled gardens. How did we let that happen?" How, indeed. People looking at their own narrow interests are sleepwalking toward a closed and commercial internet. Barbara Fister, ARCLog, December 15, 2008 [Link] [Tags: United States, Books, Web Logs] [Comment]

Embracing the Future: Embedding Digital Repositories in the University of London
Martin Moyle summarizes in an email to a JISC mailing list: "RAND conducted a small series of interviews across three case study institutions (Birkbeck, LSE and UCL), with a range of repository stakeholders including researchers and lecturers, senior management and Heads of Department, External Relations, and Library and IT staff, to learn more about their perceptions and motivations. Obviously the report is only a snapshot, with a small and qualitative evidence base, but a fresh perspective may be of interest nonetheless." The report identifies a potential for repositories as well as difficulties posed by new technology and lack of incentives to post. Stijn Hoorens, Lidia Villalba van Dijk and Christian van Stolk, RAND, December 15, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Research, Learning Object Repositories] [Comment]

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