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by Stephen Downes
July 23, 2010

Moncton 2010 IAAF World Jr Championships


We are hosting the world this week in Moncton as the IAAF World Jr. Track and Field Championships are in town. I am sunburned, windblown, and after yesterday, rain-soaked, but I have been faithfully chronicling the event and have hundreds of photos to display. What is especially significant to me is that I think these are the only freely licensed photos of the event (there's no shortage of professional photos recording proprietary content, of course). The other thing is that these are the people we write about every day in our blogs - these are basically young people from around the world - and as Andrea was saying to a neighbour yesterday, these are the sort of role models we want to share. Not because they're athletes, but because they know and exemplify as well as anyone that you really have to work hard to achieve something of value, and they do work really hard, and the evidence is plain for all of us to see.



And Moncton has been magnificent, the city of Moncton, the people, all week. They've filled the brand new 10,000 seat stadium, they've been incredibly professional volunteers, they've been open and welcoming to people from all over the world, they've staged a Mosaiq international festival downtown, they've shown good humour on streets packed with thousands of extra vehicles, and they've been genuinely enthusiastic.




Stephen Downes, Flickr, July 23, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Branding, Flickr, Web Logs] [Comment] [Tweet]

Controlling your digital identity is as easy as 1-2-3
Who is managing your online identity: Google or you? It's a good question, and I like this approach helping people create and protect their online identity. "Dean Shareski recently presented at #BLC10 on ideas for managing and manipulating what Google says about us. To do this, first it makes sense to 1) Get in touch with what your digital footprint says about you, 2) Determine if that is what you would like your digital footprint to say and if not, determine what you do want. 3) Start establishing your digital footprint." Be sure to look at the slide show. L. Nielsen, The Innovative Educator, July 23, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Google] [Comment] [Tweet]

Forget Social Strategy, Think Social Philosophy: Hippie 2.0
The hippies of the 60s didn't really follow through with their philosophy. Today they're retiring and cashing in their bonuses, leaving the rest of us to pay the bill. But the philosophy of sharing and community was a good one. Later, less self-centered and less selfish generations have lived by the values of sharing and community, and these values will eventually permeate the last bastions of previous generations, our institutions and businesses. Luis Suarez writes, "in order for social networking (and social media for that matter) to sink in within our corporate world, and be part of every business' DNA and provoke such sustainable growth where knowledge sharing, collaboration and, specially, innovation will be key, we need to forget about social strategy, and think more around social philosophy... Are you ready? Will you join the Hippie 2.0 movement? Not to worry, take your time. Whenever you are ready, we will be waiting for you … With open arms, wanting to continue making a difference. For everyone. Not just for your business." Luis Suarez, E L S U A, July 23, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Networks] [Comment] [Tweet]

Five Reasons Social Media gets Gamed
I've been reading more about spam and phishing in abbreviated links (and hence, Twitter) and I think that social media in general is becoming more and more spam-filled every day. "I think we're all aware that there are an especially large number of hucksters out there," wites Ian Delaney. But why? It's easy to fake, you can easily fake click counts, reads and comments, you can scare the uninformed with them, and people keep falling for 'easy'. I like that last point the most. "You wouldn't stand for a ‘top five reasons why' post in your favourite newspaper, so why are these silly lists continually at the top of social media tracking charts? I think it's because we all want easy rather than hard, even though hard might be better for us." Actually, you would stand for those silly lists in newspapers; we see them all the time, and even sillier 'easy' items like poll results and celebrity tracking. We've always had spam and phishing in traditional media, it's just that we called it advertising and telemarketing. Ian Delaney, twopointouch, July 23, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Twitter, Marketing, Spam] [Comment] [Tweet]

Open Education and Sustainability
This is the approach to sustainable open educational resources I agree with: "I suggested that the ideas of ‘student as producer', ‘pedagogy of excess' and ‘teaching in public' are attempts to not only change education at the university so that it is sustainable (among having other positive attributes), but can also be usefully adopted by advocates of open education and help develop a wider framework of sustainability for the ‘revolutionary' changes in education which proponents of Open Education keep referring to." Joss Winn, Expedient Means, July 23, 2010 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Paradigm Shift] [Comment] [Tweet]

India Reveals Linux-Based $35 Tablet, We Reveal Why It's Likely Fake
India's minister for HR Development has announced "our answer to MIT's $100 computer", a $35 tablet. This article from Fast Company, an American publication, is mostly about why the claim must be false, based on costs cited for the iPad. While there's no doubt Apple can afford the cheapest labour possible, India nonetheless can claim numerous cost advantages, which in turn casts doubt on Fast Company's scepticism. Addy Dugdale, Fast Company, July 23, 2010 [Link] [Tags: United States, Apple Inc.] [Comment] [Tweet]

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