Entire North American internet suddenly slowed down today at 5:30am
Ned Hepburn, dt, October 26, 2012.

Nobody knows why, but the entire North American internet slowed down significantly for several hours today. The packet losses began around 5:30 am (eastern) and continued until just afternoon, with loss rates at around 32 percent. Akamai (a data caching service) reported significant outages as well in Europe and China. Tumblr was simply down. Outages also hit Dropbox and Google App Engine. More. Hacker News discussion thread. Mostly people didn't notice, but if packet losses get more serious it would become very visible in a hurry. Something to think about.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: United States]

Apple Stock Falls Below $600 For First Time Since July
Seth Fiegerman, Mashable, October 26, 2012.

Exactly as I said it would be. Maybe it's early, but perhaps not too early, to say I said so. But hey, it's a chance to make a really neat diagram (and I'd better do it quick, in case events prove me wrong - but until they do, I'm standing by my prediction). Also spotted today: " Apple has published a notice on its UK website, stating that the court has ruled that Samsung did not copy the iPad while designing its Galaxy tablet."

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Great Britain, Books, Apple Inc.]

The Obstacles to OER
Audrey Watters, Hack Education, October 26, 2012.

I'm using this post in a talk I'm giving next week so it seems only fair to list it here. Audrey Watters lists four major obstacles to using OERs: discoverability, supplementary materials, licensing issues, and technological formats. These are problems from the perspective of designers and instructors; it seems to me in addition relevant to list difficulties faced by students as well, ranging from the presentation of OERs in a static (traditional course) format, to compatibility issues (bandwidth, format, language), to relevance, to the emphasis on consumption (as opposed to creativity). These obstacles, interestingly (and this is what I will say next week) lead toward the design of the loose network of resources constituting a MOOC, as opposed to the tight integration of resources characterizing a traditional course.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Open Educational Resources, Traditional and Online Courses, Networks]

Google Authorship
Various Authors, Google, October 26, 2012.

I got a thing in my email today saying basically "you've added Google Authorship markup to your pages... You've established your Authorship, which means that your photo and a link to your profile can now appear next to your content in search results." Which sounds great, but when I checked out the listing imagine my surprise to find this website - and everything else I've created outside Google - expunged from the serach results. So here's the thing: authorship metadata is great only if it's multisite. Otherwise, it's just a fancy userid and pretty much useless in search and just about anything else. Tim Bray says there is no enemy in the identity debate - but I say, site-specific identity, that's the enemy.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Google, Metadata]

Listening is Hard
Dave Winer, Scripting News, October 26, 2012.

I've written a lot over the years, and one thing I've learned is that if it can be misinterpreted, it will be. Part of this is just bad writing on my part, and I do what I can to make my writing clearer. Part of it is the nature of language itself, as words underdtermine intent, and this forms a core concept in my own philosophy of language and meaning. But a large part of it, as Dave Winer points, out, is entirely outside the writer's hands - the reader needs to make an effort to undertsand what has been written. There are some well-trodden paths to misunderstanding: reading that you think is there instead of what is there, reading someone familiar to you rather than the actual author, skimming, taking what is written personally, and reading intent into the text. Good post - I liked it so much I made an image.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: none]

Will the Real MOOC Please Stand-up
Debbie Morrison, online learning insights, October 26, 2012.

Discussion  of Marginal Revolution University (MRU), which I pointed to on Wednesday. While making the point that "Coursera, Edx and Udacity are pseudo MOOCs" ("they are trying to apply traditional, old-school methods to a new format") the author argues that "the pedagogical principles in MRU’s course look to be grounded in the learning theory of connectivism developed by Downes and Siemens." I'm wondering about the model, especially for Cowen, who believes everything should be bought and sold. So this rings false to me: "the drivers don’t appear to be monetary but stem from a passion for education, economics and sharing." Jill Krasny points to the fame driver, the need to create impact in order to promote a demand for learning. Also, though Cowan has a nice university job, he poinst to growing distrust of institutions, and MRU is being developed outside the institution. And there's his view that "everywhere will be like the music industry."

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Connectivism, Schools, Online Learning]