Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
February 18, 2009

Uh-Oh Canada: Obama Pledge Could Win Back Researchers
According to the Times, "The mood among US scientists is buoyant after Barack Obama used his inaugural presidential address to emphasise his commitment to research, promising to bring the curtain down on years of neglect under George W. Bush. But in neighbouring Canada, the future looks less certain, as President Obama's arrival has coincided with the stalling of public investment in research." John Gill, Times Higher Education, February 18, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Canada, Research] [Comment]

Facebook Backtracks After TOS Outrage
The headline says it all. Thord Daniel Hedengren, The Blog Herald, February 18, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Books] [Comment]

First Look at a (New) News Interface
I'm not sure I like it - and I'm not sure I don't - but huge props to the designers at the New York Times for taking the standard web design mode and smashing it into pieces. Megan Taylor, Weblog, February 18, 2009 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

New Website!
JISC-CETIS's Feed Forward project - a personal learning environment (PLE) has a new web page and downloads available. The most recent download is from a year ago, but "The M2 release is finally nearing completion after a pretty chaotic last half of 2008, and should be up on the site as soon as we're sure that this time it really, really will work on XP and Vista!" Various Authors, JISC, February 18, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Project Based Learning, Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)] [Comment]

Web Hooks and the Programmable World of Tomorrow
So here's what I wrote to Gary Lewis, who sent this link to me: "Not sure I've seen this slide show particularly but its content is familiar to me. I don't totally agree with the author - there is a great deal of utility in (what he calls) polling, for example - push systems are inherently vulnerable to spam, unless you whitelist the pushers, and if you whitelist the pushers you create isolated content federations. Not good. But most of what he describes here (and he describes far too much for a 40 minute presentation) is relevant and useful. Just - not the only way. All of that said - it's definitely worth passing along in my newsletter." Jeff Lindsay, Slideshare, February 18, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Newsletters, Spam] [Comment]

From Andragogy to Heutagogy
This is a very nice paper, cited by Barbara Dieu on the WikiEducator mailing list, describing the evolution of 'heutagogy' - self-directed learning - through developments in philosophy and educational theory. I like not only the overview of the principles of heutagogy but the way the discussion of power and democracy in learning comes to have wider social implications. Citing John Ralston Saul (whose work has informed my own thinking as well) the authors note, "there is an almost childlike way in which society avoids the reality of its situation, choosing instead to believe a fantasy perpetuated by a corporatist ideology." Sound familiar? Sound like recent reality? See also the Learner Generated Contexts wiki. Stewart Hase and Chris Kenyon, ultiBASE, February 18, 2009 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Introducing SpokenWord.Org
Well, since it's going to be all over the place: Jon Udell announces spokenword.org in this post. What this service does is aggregate podcast feeds and pass them along as a single feed. Presumably there's some customization available, though it's a bit hard to pull out from the patchwork of a sight (please, no more meaningless icon boxes!). Joho has also announced it because, you know, they all work together (not saying that's a bad thing, just that you should be aware that these are connected entities). Jon Udell, Weblog, February 18, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Customization, Networks, Podcasting, Push versus Pull] [Comment]

This newsletter is sent only at the request of subscribers. If you would like to unsubscribe, Click here.

Know a friend who might enjoy this newsletter? Feel free to forward OLDaily to your colleagues. If you received this issue from a friend and would like a free subscription of your own, you can join our mailing list. Click here to subscribe.