January 11, 2011
Stop The Meter On Your Internet Use
Various Authors,
Website, January 11, 2011.
From the website: "Bell Canada and other big telecom companies can now freely impose usage-based billing on independent Internet Service Providers (indie ISPs) and YOU.
This means we're looking at a future where ISPs will charge per byte, the way they do with smart phones. If we allow this to happen Canadians will have no choice but to pay more for less Internet. Big Telecom companies are obviously trying to gouge consumers, control the Internet market, and ensure that consumers continue to subscribe to their television services.
This will crush innovative services, Canada's digital competitiveness, and your wallet.
We need to stand up for the Internet." More from OpenMedia.ca
Via Rabble, which provides this clip from CBC:
More, from SaveOurNet.ca on net neutrality, OpenMedia on the CRTC decision, TV Versus The Internet by Steve Anderson, and the CBC report here.
Inside Higher Ed: An open, digital professoriat
Scott Jaschik,
Times Higher Education / Inside Higher Ed, January 11, 2011.
On the one hand, there's the idea that professors should be as famous as movie stars, athletes and business executives. That's what motivates this sentiment: "If scholars want the equivalent of being on the news-stand, she said, they just need to be open." But I think that fame - even academic fame - has very little to do with openness. Quite the opposite - the people trumped up as celebrities by the press are people you have to pay to access. Musicians, movie stars, athletes, CEOs - nobody gets to see them for free. And the relationship is symbiotic - the news media funnels an audience their way, and these same people, whether they're selling an album, a movie or a car, send some of their earnings back to the media. Open access artists break the cycle; they don't pay (or don't pay nearly as well) for publicity. So it should be clear that merely being open is not going to get you into the news stands.
You can be open, or you can be famous. Being famous means buying into the money machine that creates fame. But the money machine won't make you famous unless you're selling something, unless you can pay your way. Make no mistake about it. If you support openness, if you are, open, you are turning your back on fame.
Open Source eLearning Options for 2011
Kristina Schneider,
Workplace Learning Today, January 11, 2011.
I've mentioned a bunch of these in these pages, and will certainly follow the others, as these are all open source projects worthy of close attention in the educational technology community. Presentation by Christopher Pappas.
The Master Plan
Dan Stucke,
The Master Plan, January 11, 2011.
The 'Learning Without Frontiers' conference (hashtag: #lwf11) is just wrapping up as I write, and Dan Stucke has been blogging the sessions, including Jimmy Wales on evolving the dream, David McCandless on infographics and data, Stephen Heppell on new forms of learning (link to the Be very afraid school, where students teach themselves to play an instrument in a month), and more.
#LAK11 what about #privacy when using #data analytics to create #knowledge?
Inge de Waard,
Ignatia, January 11, 2011.
Inge de Waard posts George Siemens's presentation on the role of data analytics in learning and asks the question, "how do you cope with the privacy issues?" It's easy to say that people no longer care about privacy or that people should not be worried about the gathering of personal data. But as she notes, "privacy is more relevant to minorities and vulnerable groups, then any other groups in society." As David Lyon says, surveillance is about social sorting in order to treat groups differently. Outing a gay person can be fatal (and not just in Uganda). And, she notes, " if data is sold to the highest bidder, then the ethics of that highest bidder better be in sync with my interpretation of ethics." But when has that ever been the case?
Google Is Holding a Global, Web-Based Science Fair
Jolie O'Dell,
Mashable, January 11, 2011.
What's really nice about Google's science fair, which it announces today, is that it is open to students aged 13 to 18 from around the world working on their own or in a team of two or three. What's interesting about it is how an event like this can drive curriculum toward a more open-ended experimentally based type of learning.
Scridb Seems to be Successful in Enhancing Access to Papers
Brian Kelly,
UK Web Focus, January 10, 2011.
Brian Kelly reports that Scribd is enhancing access to his papers, this on the basis of comparative hit counts between Scribd and his own website. He admits, " I can't help but think that the usage statistics are flawed," as do I, and while there is not any direct evidence of this, there are some good explanations - hosting sites like Scribed are polled by search engines more frequently, spam services and bots are more likely to hit a hosting service, hits on pages with embeds may be reported as hits, even though the visit to the page is incidental. It is certainly not because Scribd provides a better reading experience - papers hosted on Scribd are almost unreadable, probably deliberately so as Scribd forces you to give them personal information if you want to download a copy.
My Twitter Bots: Tens of Thousands of Followers Can't Be Wrong
Neil Kodner,
Website, January 8, 2011.
This could be the beginning of the end for Twitter. I've commented on this before (see the diagram, above). This post shows how easy it is to create a Twitter account and have it automatically reply to Twitter posts of any description. At the very least, it greatly increases Twitter volume. At worse, it renders useless any search and fills your screen with 'replies' to your tweets. In the comments you can even find a Twitter reply bot written without a single line of code using Yahoo Pipes, Twitter Feed and Pastbin.
This newsletter is sent only at the request of subscribers. If you would like to unsubscribe, Click here.
Know a friend who might enjoy this newsletter? Feel free to forward OLDaily to your colleagues. If you received this issue from a friend and would like a free subscription of your own, you can join our mailing list. Click here to subscribe.