Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
December 21, 2009

Better Late Than...
Well - there's a first. Though I wrote some posts on Friday, I actually forgot to publish the newsletter and send the emails. First time ever. So, here it is, a couple days late, but intact. Enjoy.

Study: Inexpensive Games Improve Children's Reasoning Ability
An impressive result, if true: after eight weeks of gaming, reasoning scores were up 32 percent. Still, the result, reported in Newsweek, stretches credulity (it's placement as a product plug right before Christmas is suspicious). There's a lot of talk about brain plasticity, but if the result is believable, it's only because the children would have had almost no reasoning ability to begin with. Anyhow, the study won't be deemed relevant by the direct instruction crowd because the students don't learn anything on the test. Christine Cupaiuolo, Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning, December 21, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Research] [Comment] [Tweet]

RSS Reader Market in Disarray, Continues to Decline
Is the RSS reader market in decline? That's the argument of this post, though I must confess I am more inclined to agree with the readers in the long comment thread. Francine, for example, responds, "the rest of the world is barely beginning to notice readers... and I also would make a bet that most people don't think consciously of Twitter as a source for news." Richard MacManus, Learning and Technology: A Blog for Reflection, December 21, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Twitter, RSS] [Comment] [Tweet]

Becoming an Industry Expert: Watching Out for #1
There's a difference between being an expert and being perceived as one that this column does not draw. The advice, it seems to me, is centred almost entirely on how to be perceived as an expert. And, in my view, the last thing this field needs is more people who are perceived as experts, but who are not. It is a field, it seems to me, awash self-boosters and self-promoters. And when the author says, "others don't know that you are the expert in something unless you make it a point to say so," let me respond, if someone claims to be an expert, that's when I begin to doubt their expertise. Real experts do their talking through their work. Kyle James, .eduGuru, December 21, 2009 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment] [Tweet]

Did You Know Moodle 2.0 Will….?
Hans de Zwart surveys what to expect in the new version of Moodle. The most interesting thing about Moodle 2.0 to me is that ti will import external blogs. "Blogging should be done on a platform that is as open as possible. This way your audience can be as large as possible and that means the interactions and dialogue around your blog will be at its most valuable." Hans de Zwart, Technology as a Solution..., December 21, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Interaction, Web Logs] [Comment] [Tweet]

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