I’m Not in Love with the Word Empowerment
Bud Hunt, Bud the Teacher, 2014/09/22

I am generally in agreement with Bud Hunt's concern with the word 'empowerment' though I'm probably not going to stop using it. He says, "for me to empower you, especially when I hear the word used by others, I’ve got to have something that you don’t have, and I have to give it to you." In this sense, it is like 'giving freedom' or 'giving choice', as though these things wouldn't exist without your magnificence. But that isn't the sense in which I use the term - I think of 'empowerment' as supporting capacity. It's an act of helping rather than giving. But that requires first accepting that you had no legitimate power to give in the first place.

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Our open Geography textbook is alive!
Clint Lalonde, ClintLalonde.net, 2014/09/22

In many ways, British Columbia is leading the way in Canada in the support of open content and open learning. Here we have the launch of a Creative Commons licensed geography textbook. It is focused on British Columbia, not surprisingly, but people outside the province may also be interested in the details describing how the text was put together.

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Digital Literacy Is the Key to the Future, But We Still Don’t Know What It Means
Marcus Wohlsen, Wired, 2014/09/22

The best part of this article is the comment section, as the main text skips lightly through a fairly superficial understanding of digital literacy.

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