Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
June 28, 2010

Badges
Doug Peterson discusses my 'Free Learning' badge, which was created in response to one of his comments. "But, what does this mean?" he asks. "What am I supporting? ... All day yesterday, I kept thinking about this new badge as I was having my discussions with friends, old and new. It could be interpreted in so many ways. My focus is on the word 'free'. Has Stephen used it as a verb? Or, does it connect with 'learning' to be a noun. It seems to me that it takes on a different connotation depending upon how you use it." To me, it's fine no matter how you use it. I like the many meanings of the word free. I think they're intermingled and related. And the meaning depends on your perspective. I have no problem with that. Doug Peterson, doug – off the record, June 28, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Thomson Corporation] [Comment] [Tweet]

Get Schooled Corporate role in common core standards ought to be exposed. Who appointed Bill Gates Emperor of Education?
Standards are being created at all levels of education, not just at 'Common Core', and it's worth asking why. Cindy Lutenbacher writes, "In creating these standards, Achieve, the governors and the school officials ignored the vast body of truly independent research that shows such 'standards' and their inextricably linked standardized testing are worse than folly and are sending our children in the exact opposite direction of what they need. This group of very rich people ignored this body of research that shows that the single most powerful factor in education gaps is poverty and not standardized testing. Did they forget that the United States has the second highest rate of children in poverty of any industrialized country in the world?" Via Jim Burke. Maureen Downey, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 28, 2010 [Link] [Tags: United States, Schools, Tests and Testing, Online Learning, Research, Microsoft] [Comment] [Tweet]

NoSQL or NoJoin?
The topic of MongoDB came up in a meeting today, and here's Daniel Lemire with a post on it this evening. Not just serendipity, probably the sign of a trend. It certainly looks like everything I'd want in a database. It avoids join operations, uses Javascript and JSON natively, and scales horizontally. Daniel Lemire, Weblog, June 28, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Wikipedia] [Comment] [Tweet]

Need Your Help – unKeynote/Keynode
When we tried an unkeynote a few years ago it wasn't a great success, so my advice to Alec Couros and Graham Attwell as they prepare for their unkeynote is: don't do what we did. This won't be hard - actually planning anything will be a change from what we did, which was not not plan anything (great idea for an unconference, maybe, bad idea for a keynote). See also Graham Attwell's post. Alec Couros, Open Thinking, June 28, 2010 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment] [Tweet]

Document the World's Story on 10.10.10.
Oh, I like this, and there's plenty of time to plan how to be involved. "One Day on Earth is a documentary and new media project about the amazing diversity, conflict, tragedy, and triumph that occurs in one 24-hour period on Earth. More than a film, One Day on Earth is a multi-platform participatory media project. The flagship of this project is a 120-minute documentary to be released theatrically. Through the One Day on Earth platform we will establish a community that not only watches, but participates." The odds of any of my video ending up in the feature are probably nil, but that doesn't mean I can't make my own 120 minute feature out of whatever I like. Or maybe I should say, no reason why we can't make our own. Worth a thought. Dan Colman, Open Culture, June 28, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Video, New Media, Project Based Learning] [Comment] [Tweet]

Openness, Radicalism, and Tolerance
David Wiley gets a hearty "hear hear!" from me for his call for tolerance in the open content community. He asks, "Why must we, the 'open' folks, be in the business of ideological purging like the politicians? If someone has gone out of their way to waive some of the rights guaranteed them under the law so that they can share their creative works – even if that action is to apply a relatively restrictive CC BY-NC-ND to their content – why aren't we praising that? Why aren't we encouraging and cultivating and nurturing that? Why are we instead decreeing from a pretended throne on high, 'Your licensing decision has been weighed in the balance, and has been found wanting. You are not deemed worthy.' Why the condescension? Why the closed-mindedness?" David Wiley, iterating toward openness, June 28, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Open Content] [Comment] [Tweet]

Online Content: Still a Pain the SaaS
Interesting look at the use of Content as a Service (CaaS) in corporate learning. "Companies leverage Content-as-a-Service to purchase content with increased flexibility in timing, size, and levels. CaaS allows companies to purchase in a pay-as-you go model or with pre-paid cards." Lee Wright, IT Business Edge, June 28, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning] [Comment] [Tweet]

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