June 16, 2011
Apple and a web-free cloud
Alasdair Allan,
O'Reilly Radar, June 16, 2011.
Apple's strategy: a web-free cloud. "Apple's new cloud platform is built for native applications, in an attempt to pull users into native apps designed for their platforms. This method also gives Apple the chance to sell hardware, applications, and content that will lock users into their platform even more firmly." This is why we see, for example, the T.S. Eliot The Waste Land on iTunes (which, incidentally, costs $13.99) instead of a web site (which, incidentally, is free).
[Link] [Comment] [Tweet] [Tags: Apple Inc., Push versus Pull]
WebVisions Portland Keynote
Douglas Rushkoff,
RUSHKOFF // Blog, June 16, 2011.
"So you may be our last best hope for peace," begins Rushkoff, looking at the dream of what people thought the internet could be, and at what it became instead. It was the psychedelic idea, the idea that something would become real if we imagined it. "Internet culture was reality hacking." In the beginning people thought it was impossible, that this internet thing would go away, like CB radio. Today the objection is that it's too hard, that programming is too difficult. And this resistance to creating it ourselves has resulted in the wrong people being in charge. "Angel investors, business plans... is that hacker talk?" So, says Rushkoff, "I've been stumping for 'programming' as a basic literacy." No so much to teach people how to be great programmers, but to teach them that it exists, that things are programmed, how (and why) they are designed, so they can at least understand the biases of digital technology. I'm liking this talk a lot.
Beyond Org Charts & Hierarcy: Leading for the Future
Jon Katzenbach,
Amplify, June 16, 2011.
Talks from the recent Amplify conference are now available and neatly listed by Ryan Tracey on the E-Learning Provocateur blog. I played this talk by Jon Katzenbach on Ed Radio this afternoon. He describes a set of factors that contribute to innovative cultures, talks about changing mindsets by first changing behaviours ("culture is not a rational animal"), and discusses 'viral' ("spread by contact") diffusion. The difference between peak performers and the rest, he says, is the help they get from their culture. So culture should be encouraged. But rather than just tell people about the culture, you have to demonstrate it (example of Al Gray reviving the Marine Corps culture). Good talk, quite interesting. See also his article, Spreading Critical Behaviors "Virally".
Using the VLE better - RSC SW Turbo TEL
James Clay,
e-Learning Stuff, June 16, 2011.
James Clay has been running a series on his blog, 100 ways to use a VLE. He's up to number 32. But as an outcome of this work he's produced a nice slide show with fifty of these tips.
The Three Most Important Questions in Education
Sam Chaltain,
Huffington Post, June 16, 2011.
Huffington Post article plus embedded TED Video (hence hitting all the major media) on the central questions of 21st century education:
1. How do people learn best?
2. What are the essential skills of a free people?
3. What does it mean to be free?
According to Chaltain, "we need a model for a new age -- the Democratic Age. And we need strategies for ensuring that young people learn how to be successful in the 21st-century world of work, life, and our democratic society." I agree, but the deeper question here is how we characterize that model.
The Rise of Informal Knowledge and the Teacher’s Evolving Role
William H. Zaggle,
educational technology & change, June 16, 2011.
I think William H. Zaggle could have drawn it out a bit more clearly, but what I really want readers to see is the video of a robot balancing on a ball. What's significant about this robot is not that it has been given instructions on how to balance, but rather has learned (by training a neural net) through trial and error. Which is exactly the same sort of effect we are trying to achieve with informal learning. "It is as if we can easily measure a person’s ability to balance standing on a ball, but still know that only practice and failure and experience and practice and some successes followed by more practice can ultimately make him or her better at it."
edna is to be decommissioned commencing 30 June 2011
Announcement,
EdNA, June 15, 2011.
EdNA - Education Network Australia - which was a huge factor in the development of online learning in Australia for more than a decade - is being shut down. According to the website, "This decision is the outcome of a recent review." Only two services will remain: edna Groups and edna Lists will become Education Services Australia branded services.
[Link] [Comment] [Tweet] [Tags: EdNA, Australia, Online Learning]
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