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OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
May 8, 2009

The Eight Classic E-Learning Publications?
Tony Bates comes back with a follow-up to the eight classic books in distance education with a new list, this time focused on e-learning. Some of these are not available online, but at least one of them - Harasim's Learning Networks - happens to be sitting right here on my desk as I type this. Joannssen and Salmon are not out of place in the list either. The last three items are available online - the JISC Effective Practice with e-Learning publications, my own web site, and in particular, E-Learning 2.0, and George Siemens's Connectivism paper. Which makes me think. What would I want to see added to the list?
Tony Bates, e-learning & distance education resources, May 8, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Connectivism, Online Learning, E-Learning 2.0, Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)] [Comment]

A Post-LMS Manifesto
Reads like the title would suggest it does. "We must leave the LMS behind and the artificial walls it builds around arbitrary groups of learners who have enrolled in sections of a courses at our institutions. In the post-LMS world, we need to worry less about 'managing' learners and focus more on helping them connect with other like-minded learners both inside and outside of our institutions." John Mott, The End in Mind, May 8, 2009 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Elsevier Published Six Fake Journals
Michael Geist follows up on the most recent publishing scandal with Elsevier admitting that it published a total of six fake journals, not just the one outed earlier this week. Michael Geist, Weblog, May 8, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Books] [Comment]

Rewriting David Brooks
Darren Draper asks why I ignore K-12 in my discussions with Ddavid Wiley about open educational resources (OERs). My answer is: I don't. Or, more accurately, I don't exclude K-12. My arguments are inclusive of them. But you have to, in some instances, draw the connections yourself. Take, for example, the ongoing discussion about schools and poverty that I link to. Regular readers may even wonder why I spend so much time on this. It's because it's the same issue. To see this point, look at this post, from Doug Noon (via Tom Hoffman). Doug Noon, Borderland, May 8, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Schools, Open Educational Resources, Security Issues] [Comment]

Court Rejects Online Terms Of Service That Reserve The Right To Change At Any Time
Someone in a court has finally learned semantics, and specifically, that terms of a contract that "could change without notice at any time" are not, in fact, terms. Mike Masnick, TechDirt, May 8, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Semantic Web, Semantics] [Comment]

Are We Beyond the Two Cultures?
I have always considered it one of my strengths that I have a scientific knowledge that is almost the equal of my conceptual and philosophical knowledge. C.P. Snow emphasized the importance of this fifty years ago (when I was a child of 30 days): "At some point scientists had ceased to be considered intellectuals, Snow noted, and though any educated person was required to know Shakespeare, almost none knew the second law of thermodynamics." See also John Connell. My introduction to the idea was from Heinlein's Notebooks of Lazarus Long: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects!" (please don't write to complain about the reference; it's Heinlein and it was the 1950s. 'Nuff said). Unattributed, Seed, May 8, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Patents] [Comment]

Blackboard Hearts Angel
Barry Dahl channels his mother and comes up with a post that has nothing (directly) negative to say about Blackboard's acquisition of Angel. "What a fabulous move by Blackboard! Once again, the Blackboard suits in the white hats have pulled a marvelous coup in the LMS market. Current Angel clients should embrace the fact that they have now been adopted by the mothership." Funny. Barry Dahl, Desire2Blog, May 8, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Push versus Pull, Blackboard Inc.] [Comment]

Wikipedia Hoax Points to Limits of Journalists' Research
This article serves as evidence that readers should check the veracity of any report they read, even those published in reputable sources, because the authors of those reports may have simply copied their material from Wikipedia. And it's not just the Wikipedia cites. "Several studies have explored things in a systematic manner, and the results are pretty discouraging. Press releases, the raw material of a lot of journalism, don't always acknowledge the limitations of studies and, at least partially as a result, relevant information is missing from many press reports." John Timmer, Ars Technica, May 8, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Books, Wikipedia] [Comment]

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