By Stephen Downes
April 22, 2003
Edu_RSS Upgrade
It was just like
old times, me and my cat, coding side by side (well, I did
most of the typing). By the time the week-end had ended, I
had rewritten Edu_RSS cover to cover, in the process
creating the basis of the prototype I want to use to
distribute learning objects. Edu_RSS automatically harvests
metadata from about 50 educational bloggers, displays the
results (updated hourly) and provides a database search of
all aggregated submissions. Code will be released shortly
once I've added some features and am sure it's stable,
under GPL, a gift from Pudds and me. By Stephen Downes,
Stephen's Web, April 21, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
A Model of Democracy
Think about
this: "have increasingly become more democratized. One of
the big reasons for that is the so-called knowledge
revolution. The individual practitioners who have
specialized knowledge or talents have taken on a much
larger degree of the organizational power." I have long
held that a society cannot consider itself to be a
democracy unless its institutions are democratic: its
schools and universities, its businesses and corporations,
its charities and foundations. This is beginning to happen,
but we are a long way away. This interview with Brook
Manville is a writer, consultant and Chief Learning Officer
of Saba Software gives me hope; the pointless questions
that begin about half way through take it away. By Unknown,
Ubiquity, April 21, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Schools Look to Wireless to Boost
Learning
Wireless connectivity has the potential
to improve educational activities while lowering costs. But
it will require an adjustment on the part of teachers. "'It
takes a tremendous cultural shift for (teachers) to start
thinking of giving students this power in their hands,'
Stein said, adding schools might also be overwhelmed by the
complexity of the technology and its rapid pace of change."
Prediction: teachers will fail to adapt, continuing to
communicate primarily by talking at groups of thrity
students at once. People will complain that wireless was
over-hyped and did not deliver on its promises. Both will
be true, and after some convincing demonstrations by early
adopters, wireless will slowly spread through various
school systems. NY Times; don't even bother if this link is
more than a couple of weeks old. By Reuters, New York
Times, April 22, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Blackboard, Students and Publishing on the
Web
The best bit in this article is near the
bottom where the author quotes from the PR flim-flammery
intended to be a student manual in the Blackboard system.
As with so many corporate websites, this general rule
applies: keep the public relations people (and their
useless adjectives) as far away from the actual product as
possible. The author's main point - that Blackboard doesn't
offer students any place to write - is also well taken and
reveals the way some LMS companies still think of education
as some sort of broadcasting. By Laura Gibbs, Xplana, April
21, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Low-End Media for User
Empowerment
I don't really like the title of
this article, since the main point is that simple media
(rather than low-end media) is better for readers. Of
course the two are often the same. But when it's simple,
high-end media often accomplished the same result: for
example, though I am not a fan of streaming media, I have
been listening to hockey games on NHL.Com rather
than reading the text-based play-by-play. I've said this
before: if people have to read the instructions to figure
out what to do, it's broken. By Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox,
April 21, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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
at
http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/website/subscribe.cgi
[
About This NewsLetter] [
OLDaily Archives]
[
Send me your comments]