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OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
April 29, 2009

Blackboard Files Lawsuit Against D2L in Canada
This is getting beyond belief. The latest lawsuit is based Canadian patent 2378200: "A system and methods for implementing education online by providing institutions with the means for allowing the creation of courses to be taken by students online..." At least we know it won't be heard in a coutroom in East Texas. This follows a report yesterday that it would pursue its claims here.

I guess if there's any colsolation to be had, it's that Blackboard continues to falter in popularity. "Blackboard's downward trend continues. According to this year's study, Blackboard's market share among ITC's constituents is 59%, down from 77% percent the previous year." The big winner in this, besides the open source platforms, has been Angel. Jeff Bohrer, BohrerED - notes about academic technology, April 29, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Desire2Learn, Patents, Canada, Copyrights, Blackboard Inc., Patents] [Comment]

Social Networking Chapter
Terry Anderson follows my lead and posts his chapter for the forthcoming STRIDE handbook for The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). In this bit on social networking he describes three major motivations for its use in education: socializing, sharing, and sojourning ("To sojoun means to travel or work with others"). Terry Anderson, Virtual Canuck, April 29, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Books, Networks] [Comment]

Why "Share" and How Can OER and OCW Benefit People in These Difficult Economic Times?
Curt Bonk is wrtiting a new book on open educational resources, and this quick post is a good introduction. "Open education and open educational resources (OER) continue to explode. OpenCourseWare (OCW) from MIT is well known but just a small percent of all the course material now available for free." In this item, he talks about the reasons some individuals and institutions share, and the reasons for using open educational resources. Curtis J. Bonk, TravelinEdMan, April 29, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Traditional and Online Courses, Books, Open Educational Resources, OpenCourseWare] [Comment]

End the University As We Know It
Following close on the heels of the David Wiley's 'end of the university' interview comes a less-informed but more widely circulated (isn't that always the way?) copycat article from the New York Times. But while Wiley goes in one direction, speaking of a muich more distributed and learner-centered world, Mark Taylor takes a much more managerial approach: "If American higher education is to thrive in the 21st century, colleges and universities, like Wall Street and Detroit, must be rigorously regulated and completely restructured." It`s an interesting argument - but the problems facing education are more like the problems facing newspapers and broadcasting, not the problems facing finance and manufacturing. There's a lot more commentary on this, including posts from John Connell, Dan Coleman, Crooked Timber, Daniel Lemire. Mark C. Taylor, New York Times, April 29, 2009 [Link] [Tags: United States] [Comment]

"Where Do You Learn?": Tweeting to Inform Learning Space Development
This is kind of neat: it describes a study in which participants are asked to send Twitter messages instead of recording the information in a diary. Of course, the interesting part about this isn't Twitter - they could use any instant messaging service. It's the use of mobile services to collect data on the spot, instead of trying to retrieve it (on paper) later. Thanks to Mitch Weisburgh for the link. Elizabeth J. Aspden and Louise P. Thorpe, EDUCAUSE Quarterly, April 29, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Twitter, Instant Messaging] [Comment]

A Whole New World of Studying
Here's another example of the use of new media in learning. "When students open the video, they can hear Stannard's voice commentary as well as watch him going through the process of marking. The resulting feedback is more comprehensive than the more conventional notes scrawled in the margin." Thanks to Jon Harman for the Facebook wall comment. Lucy Tobin, The Guardian, April 29, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Assessment, Video, New Media] [Comment]

Guy Kawasaki: The Art Of The Start in Scotland
Often I don't like Guy Guy Kawasaki's lists, but this one speaks to me. "Have the courage to create the product or service that you would want to use. Some people will hate it and some people will love it. If you try to make something that makes everyone happy then you'll make something mediocre." And a lot more great stuff in this post, the sort of post I want to clip and save. Ewan McIntosh, Weblog, April 29, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Great Britain, Scotland] [Comment]

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