Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
May 5, 2010

Let's build openly licensed, digital curriculum together – but where?
Don't you get it yet? There is no 'where'. No 'place' to put your open online curriculum with your Creative Common licensed resources. Put it anywhere - on your own website, on your school website, anywhere - and then make it available for RSS harvesting.

You know what would be really useful? A set of curriculum tags, that can be used to map any open educational resource with any curriculum entry. It would be a piece of cake: give each curriculum its own tag, and each entry in the curriculum its own tag. Then one tag to map them all. Like this:

#Curriculum:USDED:science4.5

How hard could that be? Then it's easy for anyone in the world to link any resource to any curriculum entry. (Got a problem with curriculum spammers? Harvest and search only data from your friends, something you could do with, say, Google Reader.)

The big problems aren't technical. They're social. And they always seem to stem from one person, organization or entity wanting to own all the content (or resources, or money (or to at least tell everyoneelse where they should put that content, resource or money)).
Wesley Fryer, Moving at the Speed of Creativity, May 5, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Schools, Google, RSS, Spam] [Comment] [Tweet]

Edufountain: Get Ready for MiFi in the classroom
We're not there yet (in Canada, with such poor mobile services, we might never get there). But it's close, at least in some parts of the world. John Fontaine writes, "4G networks are now available in many areas and are expanding rapidly.... This has enabled the cellular providers to provide a new gadget for your backpack: the mobile hotspot, or MiFi. These devices provide your growing array of WiFi enabled gadgets with a single broadband gateway and a local wireless network." I can just see it now, a teacher doing backpack checks to see who's running the illicit classroom area wifi network. Heh. John Fontaine, Fountains of Fontaine, May 5, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Wireless, Networks, Canada] [Comment] [Tweet]

No PLEs, but informal learning in Real World communities
A couple of good examples of informal learning, coupled with a point to debate about PLEs. Teemu Leinonen says, "What is common with the two projects is a strong community aspect in them... (I) have found the PLE and the DIY U problematic, because they emphasize individuals over communities. In them the individuals are considered to be in the center, with all the rights and the responsibilities to choose whatever he or she wants to study, when, where and with whom. The weak social ties in pure online communities easily results as opportunistic and no or only short-term commitments." I don't agree with his assessment but agree it's a discussion we have to have because community is something we can't just leave to whither. Teemu Leinonen, FLOSSE Posse, May 5, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Assessment, Online Learning Communities, Project Based Learning] [Comment] [Tweet]

PMO Issues The Order: Canadian DMCA Bill Within Six Weeks
I guess we all knew this was coming, because government does not serve the people, but as Clarence Fisher says, "this is an utter disaster." As Micheal Geist writes, the pressure from the United States for DMCA style law was the deciding factor (thanks guys). "With mounting pressure from the U.S. - there have repeated meetings with senior U.S. officials in recent weeks - the PMO sided squarely with Moore's vision of a U.S.-style copyright law." Anyhow, I'm very disappointed, not the least bit surprised, and more than ever sceptical that representative democracy can work at all in a world where influence is bought and sold. Michael Geist, Weblog, May 5, 2010 [Link] [Tags: United States, Patents, Canada, Copyrights, Patents] [Comment] [Tweet]

RDFa for the Eduserv Web site
Pete Johnston is looking at how RDFa can be used to link some useful data. "On the basis of the above sources," he writes, "I tried to construct some suggestions, taking into account both the Google and Yahoo guidelines, for descriptions of people, organisations and events, which I'll post here in the next few entries." I'll be watching for them (and you should too). Doing something like this is tricky - you want to make it expressive enough to be useful, but simple enough to be used. Very few initiatives have succeeded. Pete Johnston, eFoundations, May 5, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Resource Description Framework, Google, Yahoo!] [Comment] [Tweet]

When a good memory works against you
I've relied on a good memory throughout my life, but there are cases where it's a liabilty. Here's a good one, spotted by Doug Johnson. "If the support person does not go to the database but relies on memory instead, it will result in a negative performance evaluation. Things change so quickly in the field that not checking for the most recent "fix" is irresponsible." I'm sure there will always be a place for memory, but no doubt there will be a longstanding debate about when it makes more sense to use the tools instead. Like, say, remembering calendars and appointments (I have already heard about that at the office), passwords and user information, contacts and friends, and anything complicated and dynamic. Doug Johnson, Blue Skunk Blog, May 5, 2010 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment] [Tweet]

Leadership Envy
Terry Anderson describes the 'leadership envy' he feels when visiting forward-looking New Zealand. "New Zealand is doing a great job of supporting the development of high quality teaching and learning in tertiary education," he writes. "By contrast in Canada we have no National support for teaching and learning at any level and none of the provinces come close to matching the resources and services available in New Zealand." I will add that the next time a Canadian government wants to spend $85 million on education, they should talk to me (of course, they never will, because I actually would make some changes). Terry Anderson, Virtual Canuck, May 5, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Canada, Quality, Leadership] [Comment] [Tweet]

Hell Freezes Over
Ken de Rosa accepts, and works with, my 'induction' model of learning, and I offer a reply. Where he differs is with regard to my scepticism regarding the transmission of content. "Certainly some 'recipes' are more effective than others for getting the same output," he writes. This may be, but in most tests, and especially simple tests, the occurrence of false positives is a significant problem. That's why I note in my reply that it is only through complex assessments, such as practicums or internships, that we can reach a high degree of confidence that a person understands the material, and is not simply gaming the system. Ken de Rosa, D-Ed Education, May 5, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Assessment, Gaming] [Comment] [Tweet]

Color Survey Results
Finally, proof that indigo is totally a fake colour and that the spectrum really does have six colours. Now, you scientists - return Pluto to planet status, or the bunny gets it. "Over five million colors were named across 222,500 user sessions." Randall Munroe, XKCD, May 4, 2010 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment] [Tweet]

New Ning Plans: The Good, The Bad, and the Unknown
Details on the Ning clampdown, and interesting news that "a major education company will be sponsoring Ning Mini Networks for educators in primary and secondary education." Steve Hargadon notes, "I can imagine more than one large educational company whose providing Ning Mini networks for free would be looked upon with suspicion." Some other good things from the announcement: no more advertising, and the potential for a better sign-on system. Steve Hargadon, Weblog, May 4, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Networks, Marketing] [Comment] [Tweet]

So why do we need apps anyway?
Interesting statement, on many dimensions: "Ebooks don't cut it: everyone wants an app." It makes me think back a couple hundred years when I played with the idea that content would come with it's one content player attached (this would be in pre-internet days). So you wouldn't need an application like MS-Word or PowerPoint; you'd just play the content. I still think it's a good idea, but oh so inelegantly executed by Apple. Ben Werdmuller points tio the way forward: "If the ePub standard was updated to allow HTML5, it would evolve into a format for self-contained, multi-platform apps that could be sold in the same way as ebooks, music, videos, or apps in something like the iTunes App Store. Except app publishers would only need to build once to support many different kinds of mobile platform, thereby reducing the barrier to entry." Ben Werdmuller, Weblog, May 4, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Books, Video] [Comment] [Tweet]

Nonfiction Unit of Study
Some interesting discussion of nonfiction as an object of study, as Angela Maiers describes a series of classes. I like the presentation a lot. In day one she observes her students interacting with nonfictikn material. In day two she creates "a list of things we want to notice as readers of non-fiction that would reveal to us insight into the writers thinking and decision making." These are, as she quite rightly suggests, clues (not definitions, categories, essential features, etc.). In day three she refines that list, looking for unique characteristics. Then in day four she turns it around and talks about having a plan. Each of the four days is presented differently, each with different resources (a drawing, a photo, a video) appropriate to the discussion. Great work. Angela Maiers, Weblog, May 4, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Ontologies, Video] [Comment] [Tweet]

Nonfiction Unit of Study
Some interesting discussion of nonfiction as an object of study, as Angela Maiers describes a series of classes. I like the presentation a lot. In day one she observes her students interacting with nonfictikn material. In day two she creates "a list of things we want to notice as readers of non-fiction that would reveal to us insight into the writers thinking and decision making." These are, as she quite rightly suggests, clues (not definitions, categories, essential features, etc.). In day three she refines that list, looking for unique characteristics. Then in day four she turns it around and talks about having a plan. Each of the four days is presented differently, each with different resources (a drawing, a photo, a video) appropriate to the discussion. Great work. Angela Maiers, Weblog, May 4, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Ontologies, Video] [Comment] [Tweet]

Slideshows
This is an interesting idea: teaching the same basic lesson in six different ways. The point, writes Andrew Watt, was to show (at least in part) that there's no such thing as a digital immigrant. "The part that drives me crazy is this. Sometime over the weekend our school server must have gone down. None of the students on campus can access the Internet at all, nor could they." And I can just picture the wails the next day: "The internet was down! We couldn't do anything!" But it's like I said yesterday in my talk: what's new is the way of thinking. The internet shows us this, makes it accessible, but is not indispensable to it. Andrew B. Watt, Weblog, May 4, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Schools, Accessibility] [Comment] [Tweet]

Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook
Are people headed for the Facebook exit door? It's too early to call it a trend, but I can sense a gathering momentum. The author of this post explains why he is closing his Facebook account. "This is part altruism and part selfish. The altruism part is that I think Facebook, as a company, is unethical. The selfish part is that I'd like my own social network to migrate away from Facebook so that I'm not missing anything." Via Alexander Hayes. Dan Yoder, rocket.ly, May 4, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Books, Networks] [Comment] [Tweet]

Study Period on Virtual Experiments
The eLearning Standards Advisory Council of Canada (eLSACC) has issued another call for use cases. This request informs an ISO standardization project. "Virtual experiments may be provided as a local application or within a distributed environment. In order to be successful across multiple technology infrastructures, it is essential to ensure that the components of Virtual Experiments, the relationships between the components, and the underlying technology infrastructure requirements are clearly identified to ensure effective deployment on a client within a wide range of different scenarios and systems." Access the web page or the request (MS Word Doc) directly/ Various Authors, eLSACC, May 3, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Canada, Project Based Learning] [Comment] [Tweet]

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