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OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
August 23, 2010

Learning, Innovatiuon and ICT
A 'lessons learned' report from that is at once enthusiastic about new technologies and still conservative regarding their role in the classroom. Recommendations include "A need for envisioning future learning that is more efficient, equitable, innovative and meaningful than it ever was in the past" and "Adapt teacher education and training as to embrace more open and flexible learning environments." Preface: "This Report presents the outcomes of the ICT cluster that the (European) Commission has set up under the Education and Training 2010 programme as part of the Lisbon objectives set for 2010." Lieve Van den Brande, Malin Carlberg and Barbara Good, PDF, August 22, 2010 [Link] [Comment] [Tweet]

2010 Horizon Report
The Horizon Report, 2010 edition:
Executive Summary
Key Trends
Critical Challenges
Technologies to Watch
The Horizon Project
One Year or Less: Mobile Computing
One Year or Less: Open Content
Two to Three Years: Electronic Books
Two to Three Years: Simple Augmented Reality
Four to Five Years: Gesture-Based Computing
Four to Five Years: Visual Data Analysis
Methodology
2010 Horizon Project Advisory Board
Various Authors, New Media Consortium, August 18, 2010 [Link] [Comment] [Tweet]

A Ghana XO Pilot Visit Strengthens My Skepticism of OLPC
I am often torn between advocating what I think is right and the prudence of conducting a needs assessment. I wonder sometimes if Nicholas Negroponte ever suffers from the same inner conflict. He must be reading stuff like this post: "I think what you are espousing here is precisely what is wrong with development. There are far too many programs out there in which organizations spend megabucks to spread what they think the world needs, without a proper, comprehensive, earnest needs assessment, and without a tailored-program to ensure both that the resource of the program will be used appropriately (if at all), that the resource will be used for any real period of time, or that there will be lasting results. You are espousing this model." Quite so - and the author is right - but what do you say when you think the needs assessment is going to get it wrong? That the people completing the needs assessment have a greater stake in keeping things the way they are - no matter how bad that may be - that in improving the situation for people? Ben Colmery, OLPC News, August 18, 2010 [Link] [Comment] [Tweet]

What the old economy wants
It's interesting to cast the sort of accommodations new technology advocates have to make in the cast of 'what the old economy wants'. For example, "The old economy wants us to trust providers, experts and professionals who are being opaque, secretive about their processes, closed to amateur inputs and protective of their private knowledge." And "The old economy wants us to blindly accept the hype, hypocrisy and hullabaloo of push models of production, corporations spinning off toxic externalities and institutions turning a deaf ear to constituencies." How often do we have to give in to these sort of impetuses, even when they drag like anchors behind innovation? Tom Haskins, growing changing learning creating, August 18, 2010 [Link] [Comment] [Tweet]

The Human Factor: Social Media as Mentoring Platforms
Social media can be used to support mentoring, according to this article. "In reality, knowledge management is just mentoring with a new name. Companies adopt social learning platforms with an eye towards providing a space where employees can share knowledge and experiences, and guide colleagues to lessons already learned." Mary Arnold, Learning Solutions Magazine, August 18, 2010 [Link] [Comment] [Tweet]

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