Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
June 25, 2009

Beyond Management: The Personal Learning Environment
In this presentation, I mix the presentation of the theory - chaos, complexity and mesh networks - with the practical technical development leading toward the personal learning environment. A second audio file is also available. Presentation by Stephen Downes, Ed Media, Honolulu, Hawaii,

Colleges Consider Using Blogs Instead of Blackboard
Summary of a Jim Groom talk to CUNY, in the Chronicle's usual restrained style. "The approach can save colleges money, for one thing. And true believers like Mr. Groom argue that by using blogs, professors can open their students' work to the public, not just to those in the class who have a login and password to a campus course-management system." True believers, hm? Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Blackboard Inc., Web Logs] [Comment]

e-Learning and 21st century skills and competences
This relates obliquely to my talk from yesterday. "Using technology for teaching is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for developing the knowledge and skills needed in the 21st century. It has to be accompanied by curriculum reform (the content), by changes in teaching methods that facilitate the development of skills in a particular subject domain, and by changes in assessment." I have addressed this with my own list in the past; maybe I should refine and extend it. Tony Bates, e-learning and distance education resources, June 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Assessment] [Comment]

Four Intellectual Traps for Understanding Learning
Three great points and a fourth that will need some explaining. Including: "School is not a useful model for learning." And: "Books, magazines, and movies are not a sufficiently useful model for capturing wisdom." Clark Aldrich, On Simulations and Serious Games, June 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Schools] [Comment]

School of the Future: Lessons in failure
Longish article (you can only read the first page, and must accept spam to read the rest - fortunately the comments are interesting) on the failure of the Microsoft-backed "School of the Future" in Philadelphia. "We naively thought, I guess, that by providing a beautiful building and great resources, these things would automatically yield change. They didn't." Couldn't anyone have seen this going wrong ahead of time? Incredible. Meris Stansbury, eSchool News, June 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Schools, Microsoft, Spam] [Comment]

Help List University-Based OER Projects
Jared Stein is collecting a list of university-based OER projects. Jared Stein, Flexknowlogy, June 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Open Educational Resources, Project Based Learning] [Comment]

My New Business Card for Enterprise 2.0 in Boston - Did You Get Yours Already?
A poken: I want one. "Pokens are fun! And they surely fulfil a need that most of us with a heavy presence in the social software world out there were missing out big time: a way to keep in touch with our new connections online and in our mutually shared social software spaces!" Luis Suarez, E L S U A, June 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Using Social Signals to Find Top eLearning Resources
Interesting. This list of the top 100 learning game resources was constructed using 'social skills'. "We decided that it would make sense to bring those great resources into eLearning Learning and then use the automatic categorization, filtering and social signals capabilities of Browse My Stuff to have it surface some of the better content." While I wince at that use of the word 'surface' I still find it an interesting exercise. Tony Karrer, eLearning Technology, June 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Ontologies, Gaming] [Comment]

New Literacy in the Web 2.0 World
New media creates new literacies by creating new opportunities for communication. Sounds obvious but still merits spelling out, as it is done in this presentation. Daniel Churchill, Slideshare, June 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Web 2.0] [Comment]

Apple App Store: Overpopulated with Apps Nobody Uses
A classic dysfunctional star cluster network. Unless you are one of the 'stars' being promoted by Apple. Stan Schroeder, Mashable, June 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Networks] [Comment]

Making Health Information Work Better for Canadians
Canada Health Infoway's current business plan. "More and more Canadians have come to expect access to health care information online as a way to make informed choices about care. Our Corporate Business Plan outlines how Infoway and its jurisdictional partners are working together to bring electronic health records within reach of all Canadians." I'm very wary of the impact of "private players" in this program - and optimistic about the potential to integrate personal health records with personal learning environments, centering the information of a personal server, rather than in some government or corporate database (where it would be stolen). Various Authors, Canada Health Infoway, June 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Information, Canada] [Comment]

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