Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
April 20, 2009

The Open Education Community Is Here
Zaid Ali Alsagoff links to the Open ed Community website. I must say, I love the sliding bar on the main page - it stirs that urge to redesign in my again (no... must.. not... no... time...). You'll find links to the Open Ed Conference, the Journal of Open and Distance learning, and more. The site authors could probably use some help filling out the resources and should maybe actually link to their featured resources, people, etc. Zaid Ali Alsagoff, ZaidLearn, April 20, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning] [Comment]

Open Learning in Groups, Networks and Collectives
Nice to hear Terry's voice again, and this podcast is a nice overview of his thoughts on groups, networks and collectives. Terry Amnderson, Virtual Canuck, April 20, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Networks, Podcasting] [Comment]

JG Ballard
My reading of JG Ballard was exclusively of his earlier work, specifically, The Drowned World, The Wind from Nowhere, and The Drought. Ballard brought a personal realism to post-apocalyptic writing and evoked for me a clear idea of what life might be like in a world where technology and environment have both collapsed. I think people of my age, raised in a world that might descend into nuclear madness on any given day, needed some way to grapple with that prospect, and Ballard, from a unique perspective, was able to provide that. Obituary, BBC News, April 20, 2009 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Oracle Buys Sun
OK, it's not April Fools (I already got burned on that, on Aptril 13, no less) and it's on the Oracle website, so it must be true, right? "The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems," said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. "Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system - applications to disk - where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves. Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up." The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion. Press Release, Oracle, April 20, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Security Issues, Enterprise Software] [Comment]

Podcast: Sounds of the Bazaar LIVE From Educamp
My talk via Skype at educamp 2009 in Ilmenau wasn't very good, but I guess some of the stuff there was. Here are preview recordings from the conference. The conference was broadcast live on Mogulus. You can view the Mogulus recording of my own presentation. Hurtin, hurtin. Graham Atytwell, Pontydysgu, April 20, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Audio Chat and Conferencing, Online Learning] [Comment]

Jopml & FeedForward
Scott Wilson has created an interesting service - a website that ;looks up, then gives you an OPML, of RSS feeds for online journals. This has been integrated with his PLE application, FeedForward. Here's a list for 'learning or education'. Here's the OPML for the list. Upload that into your RSS reader and you have a pretty definitive list. Scott Wilson, The FeedForward Blog, April 20, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Academic Publications, Academic Journals, RSS, OPML] [Comment]

New Look 'E-LORNing' Gateway Launched
Many of the learning object repository projects launched over the last few years are beginning to take form, including this one, called LORN, based in Australia. "LORN connects training providers with free or low-cost learning resources from around the country, through a central online source." Look for the download URL way over on the right of the screen (it's hard to find, and I kept downloading license information instead of the resource until I figured it out). The system offers a federated search of various Australian repositories, with no harvesting or syndication features that I could discover. Press Release, Australian Flexible Learning Framework, April 20, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Content Syndication, Learning Object Repositories, Project Based Learning, Learning Objects, Australia] [Comment]

Fully Automated DMCA Processing
Very interesting slide presentation describing how Columbia University has automated its process for dealing with DMCA takedown notices. What's interesting toi me is the use of DHCP to identify individual computers through their MAC address. If you think you are anonymous online - trust me, you're not. Now, I have to ask, with all these resources, why can't they do anything about spamming and phishing? Joel Rosenblatt, EDUCAUSE, April 20, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Patents, Spam, Copyrights, Patents] [Comment]

togetherLearn Is Online
Jane Hart, Harold Jarche, Clark Quinn and Jay Cross launch togetherLearn. Jay Cross, Informal Learning Blog, April 20, 2009 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Free Quiz Results Tracking System For ELearning
William Peterson contributes, "QMS (also known as Quiz Management System) is one such easy and free system which helps instructors or teachers who're using QuizCreator track, analyze and report test results without any hassles. It enables users track data for answers, questions, quizzes and participants and present data into chart reports for quick view and insights. You'll never need an expensive corporate learning management system, and you'll never worry about frustrating and unnecessary complexity." William Peterson, Eduforge, April 20, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Thomson Corporation] [Comment]

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