Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
July 25, 2009

It's a rare Saturday OLDaily, because I've been reading items and cleaning up email this morning, and there was too much really good stuff to simply throw away. Enjoy.

International Development of ePortfolio Model

I just want to say, the picture of e-portfolios is looking more and more like the picture of personal learning environments, a convergence that was probably inevitable. Helen Barrett, E-Portfolios for Learning , July 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Project Based Learning, E-Portfolios] [Comment]

Is Social Media a challenge for Higher Education?
A set of excerpts and links to reports dealing with the use of web 2.0 technologies in education. The author notes "The informal learning based on Web 2.0 exists and functions like a 'university in shadow' with possibilities of a borderless digital learning environment" and asks "So, why don't the educators present the power of social media for learning and better strategies for its utilization?" Good introductory package on materials on the subject. Malinka Ivanova, eLearning 2.0 Technologies and Concepts, July 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Web 2.0] [Comment]

In the Future, the Cost of Education Will Be Zero
Mashable rarely turns its attention to education, but I like it when it does. Author Josh Catone writes, "social media can drastically reduce much of the overhead involved with higher education - such as administrative costs and even the campus itself - and open source or reusable and adaptive learning materials can drive costs down even further." The examples chosen are well-known cases like University of the People, OpenCourseWare and WikiBooks. But the principles that impel these initiatives apply to an entire movement. Related: Techdirt asks, should copyright be abolished on academic work? Josh Catone, Mashable, July 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Open Source, OpenCourseWare] [Comment]

Tracking the Copyright Consultation Submissions - Brief Summaries (July 20, 21)
More from the Canadian copyright consultation. I have yet to write something myself. But in the meantime, they are receiving hundreds of submissions. That's great! Keep it up. This post, meanwhile, summarizes a bunch of the submissions. Michael Geist, Weblog, July 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Canada, Copyrights, Patents] [Comment]

EduApps: it's the environment, stupid
EduApps is a set of tools installed on a USB drive that allows students to have assistive technologies available to them on any computer. "EduApps extends the AccessApps philosophy of free portable software in your pocket to include bundles of applications specifically designed for teachers 'TeachApps' and learners 'LearnApps'. Currently we host over 90 open source and freeware software applications which can be entirely used from a USB stick on a Windows computer." Here is the full list of apps. Martin Hawksey, Kenji Lamb, Craig Mill and Sarah Price, Association for Learning Technology, July 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Open Source, Microsoft] [Comment]

Workgroup to propose policies and guidelines for WE Administrators
From WikiEducator: "The Workgroup for developing policy and guidelines for the WikiEducator Admin/Sysops users has developed a draft charter for its functioning. The charter is an internal management mechanism to regulate the functioning of the group including specific working objectives for the group, activity plan, discussion and approval procedures etc." Even if you're not a part of WikiEducator, the document is a good case study of how to manage a collaborative educational initiative online. Various Auithors, WikiEducator, July 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning] [Comment]

Inquiry in a Networked World - Designing, facilitating and experiencing networked inquiry
This is a book-length PDF from the Third "Learning Through Inquiry Alliance (LTEA) Conference: Inquiry in a Networked World." Good Saturday morning reading. The content is a bit uneven, but there's a lot of good material in this volume on the intersection of e-learning and enquiry- (or inquiry-) based learning. In particular, I want to highlight:

* David Hodge, et.al., on attributes of the student as scholar.
- active critical thinking
- research skills
- self-authorship
Also (table 2) the set of literacies expected of a 'student as scholar'.

* Brayshaw and Gordon's list of other learning approaches which are common in computer science

* Ivan Moore, et.al. on conceptualizing autonomous learning: "They can identify their learning goals their learning processes and how they will evaluate and use their learning
- They have well-founded conceptions of learning
- They have a range of learning approaches and skills
- They can organize their learning
- They have good information processing skills."

* Christopher David Thomson, et.al., on tools for managing enquiry-based learning (includes an analysis of the information required to be managed by these tools)

* Jamie Wood et.al. on the extensive list of skills learned through extra-curricular enquiry learning (it's worth, in my view, comparing these skills with what is tested in traditional standardized testing)
Via Twine Educational Technology thread. P. Levy and P. McKinney (eds), University of Sheffield, July 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Tests and Testing, Online Learning, Networks, Thomson Corporation, Research] [Comment]

Get your AP - direct

(Enlarge Image)
The general response to Associated Press's new plan to lock down its content with DRM and charge people for any use, even quotations of headlines, is to ask whether AP is run by idiots and ponder the implications of its suicide. Of course, if you really want open AP content, as Doug Fisher notes here, you could just go to its website. But really, I have to ask, is it worth the trouble? If I want politically loaded and slanted news coverage from a partisan point of view, I can get it directly from politicians. More coverage: from Buzz machine, on replacing AP; NY Times coverage of AP's actions; Journalism Iconoclast on AP versus fair use; CJR telling bloggers to relax; Doug Fisher , Common Sense Journalism , July 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Digital Rights Management (DRM), Web Logs] [Comment]

The Rant, I Can't, The Elephant and the Ant- On SlideShare
I found the slide show through the Web 2.0 Slideshare group, and the blog post so I could ask David Truss how he embedded the YouTube video inside the slide show. He responded, "This was the first time that I saw the video embed in Slideshare. It now has a Youtube embed tab when you edit your presentation. One nice feature is that this embed does not mess up your slide numbers, the video is sequenced between slides." It's a good presentation, and a nifty use of video. David Truss, Pair-a-dimes for Your Thoughts, July 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Web 2.0, Video, YouTube, Web Logs] [Comment]

(Free, libre and) open education needs humanities
As to the terms for "open education" or "free and open education" or "libre education" I use the phrase 'free learning'. I mean the word 'free' in both senses: gratis and libre. I also mean it in the sense of 'open' as in 'open learning'. As for the bit about language learning, I'll observe only that there are hundreds in the Web 2.0 Language Learning group along, and thousands of links to presentations that can be found in Google. Teemu Leinonen, FLOSSE Posse, July 25, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Web 2.0, Google] [Comment]

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