By Stephen Downes
May 23, 2003
World Education Market
It's the
final day of theconference here in Lisbon, a quiet day as
booths wind down and people prepare to leave. I was able to
get out
of the hotel and into the city for a bit yesterday evening,
finally, and
last night had my first good and (mostly) uninterrupted
sleep since
my arrival here. This link is to a few photos; I will add
to this page
when I get back. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, May 23,
2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Free University Education
The
link isn't up yet (as I look Friday morning) but it will be
shortly to
this disussion of the Canadian industry minister's
assertion that
higher education should be free. While critics dismiss the
proposal
as unaffordable, Dave Annand writes, in this opinion piece
for CBC,
that the provision of tax credits for distance learning
would effectively
achieve this objective without costing any more than we
currently
spend. "The net result of providing free university
education, at a
distance, is that costs would be held down, students would
be
encouraged to learn online, and universities would have a
powerful
incentive to accommodate them." I agree with this
assessment, but I
don't agree with the use of tax credits. Tax credits never
did a thing
for me as a student because, in order to make use of a tax
credit,
you have to have a taxable income. Tax credits reward only
those
who already have money coming in: to be fair, we need a
system
that allows everyone, regardless of income, to access
higher
education. But that said, yes, distance learning is the way
to go, and
should governments ever realize how much they could save,
the
traditional university would find itself very quickly in
crisis mode. This
day is a lot sooner than most people think... By Dave
Annand, May 23, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Wondir
From a link passed on by
James, "there are thousands of
organizations, corporations and service providers, and
millions of
individuals throughout the world who want to help others by
providing
information, guidance and expertise. There are many people
who
need their help. But despite all the advances in the
internet,
communications and search technology, it is still far too
difficult for
these forces to connect. That is why we're creating Wondir.
The
Wondir information service will strive to be a simple yet
effective way
for people with an information need to ask a question and
get a
good answer from those sources who are out there, ready to
help." It
sounds like a great idea - but my first reaction is, where
would I get
the time to contribute? I also worry about the eventual
rise of
Wondir-spam. But hey, these concerns don't mean the concept
shouldn't be tried. Of course it should be tried! By
Various Authors, May, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Learning to Read And the 'W Principle'
Provocative discussion of educational theory as
instantiated in
American educational policy. In a nutshell, the argument is
that the
direct instructional approach proposed under the Bush plan
is not an
effective pedagogy. The author argues that the proposed
plan is
"cruel" and is driven by ideology, not pedagogy. The
article raises,
in my mind, a more general concern: as has been the case in
other
disciplines, it seems that scientific research itself has
taken on a
political dimension. This is making it increasingly
difficult to make
decisions of society-wide importance. There is such a huge
stake in
the result of this research - politically, socially,
economically - that it
may be impossible to hope for independent studies anymore.
But if
we lose our ability to rely on research... what then?
Thanks, Mitchell,
for the link. By Gerald Coles, Rethinking Schools, Summer,
2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Web Shaman Fights His Demons
More
on the W3C's new patent policy. The key message is this:
"The
patent policy is a formal statement of what had been a
generally
accepted principle: Any technology adopted as a standard
should
be freely available to anyone who cares to use it, without
the fear of
being slapped with licensing fees." Call me a sceptic: I
still don't think
the proposal is strong enough, and I think we will see the
day when
some company manages to sneak a royalty-bearing patent
through
the W3C standards process. To the detriment of us all. By
Michelle Delio, Wired News, May 22, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Now what do I do?
David
Carter-Tod raises that age-old question: now that I have a
blog, what do I do with it? Some good links to others'
(including
teachers') reflections on the same question. The discussion
drifts
(yes, that is the right word) into the question of personal
privacy and
public writing. And the question of a personal and
professional
points of view. I think these questions are faced by any
person
working in a public sphere - this includes teachers, who
wrestle with it
every day. Can I be seen to be making a mistake? When I
have a
bad day (like, say, yesterday) and I write about it, a
world-wide
audience of thousands gets to see me trite and petty and
just not
very likable. Totally unprofessional. But... perhaps I am
unique, but I
cannot conceive of separating the personal and the
professional.
Sure, it lets people see my mistakes and errors of
judgement. But if
my profession is separated from my thoughts, values,
ambitions and
even my mood swings, then it becomes something artificial,
sterile.
People talk a lot about 'taking responsibility' but they
won't invest
themselves in their work. "It's just business," they say,
as though
there could be no personal dimension. Or to put the same
point
another way: I cannot hope to understand this field, much
less write
about it, if I don't know how it affects people's lives. I
need David's
personal, as well as professional, thoughts in order to do
my work
well. And I live in the belief that my readers, too,
benefit from the
personal, as well as the professional, assessment of the
work in
review. By David Carter-Tod, Serious Instructional
Technology, May 21, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
BlogTalk
BlogTalk presentations.
I can't read PPT or PDF with my current
set-up (too long a download, too unreliable an interface),
but with
this list of presenters I know there's some stuff worth
looking at in
there. By Various Authors, May, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Nation's Leading Universities Launch
Consortium...
Interesting. The purpose of the
consortium is to "give companies,
adult learners easy access to quality online degrees (and)
decision-making resources." Membership so far consists of a
dozen
universities offering 120 online programs between them. But
what's
interesting about this new organization is the focus. They
are
targeting the corporate market and they are playing the
quality card.
"Consortium membership requirements help ensure companies
and
employees are investing in an online learning environment
where
levels of quality and value are extremely high. The
Consortium
recently released its Online Education Guide, which
includes two
resources for intelligent evaluation of online learning."
By Press Release, Business Wire, May 21, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Moodle
From the website: "Moodle
is a course management system (CMS) - a software package
designed to help educators create quality online courses.
Such e-learning systems are sometimes also called Learning
Management Systems (LMS) or Virtual Learning Environments
(VLE). One of the main advantages of Moodle over other
systems is a strong grounding in social constructionist
pedagogy. Moodle is Open Source software, which means you
are free to download it, use it, modify it and even
distribute it..." By Various Authors, May, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Open Content - Open Learning
Set
of web pages with links for my presentation at WEM
yesterday...
given my health (or lack of same) it wasn't the best
presentation I've
ever done... after 16 hours sleep (beginning yesterday
afternoon) I
feel a bit better but I'm still
struggling with less than perfect health, computer problems
and a
general malaise, the sort of ill-will you feel toward the
world when
your mouse dies and everything takes longer than it should
and the
sites won't connect and your email program won't delete the
mountain of spam that is clogging your inbox... today I
worked the
trade show floor (there was one presentation I wanted to
see, but I
couldn't find it - it has been that sort of conference...)
- I discovered
that the Blackboard people get snippy when you talk to them
about
the hack and the gag order... that the main selling point
for LMSs at
these shows are their exclusive content libraries...
whiteboards are
everywhere... but this whole show could have been staged
last year,
or two years ago, and nobody would have raised an
eyebrow... it's
like the innovation has come to a complete and utter
halt... is what
the commercialization of e-learning means? No, it's
probably just
me. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, May 22, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Personal Webpublishing as a Reflective
Conversational Tool For
Self-organized Learning
On the one hand, we
have all the commercial applications here
(publishers, broadcasters, LMS, you know...). On the other
hand, we
have BlogTalk in Vienna. It's an interesting contrast - too
bad I
couldn't go to both. Oh well. To give you an idea of what's
happening in Austria, here's Seb Fiedler's BlogTalk paper,
now
much revised. The abstract: "This paper suggests that
personal
Webpublishing technologies and practices can be
conceptualized as
a reflective conversational learning tool for
self-organized learning.
Beyond the examination of the theoretical basis for such a
claim,
initial ideas for specific learning environment designs on
the basis of
a "conversational framework" are presented." By Seb
Fiedler, BlogTalk, May 17, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Interesting comments..
Jumping
into the middle of a conversation - James Farmer quotes
Lindon Parker saying, "the ground swell appears to be
having little
or no impact upon cheque signers... The more I look at the
EduBlog
space the more I think this is all falling apart through
lack of interest,
not on your or the other RSS/Bloggers part but on the part
of the
institutions that might want to implement them." There's
more, but half
the links aren't working from here, so you'll have to
follow them for
yourself. Anyhow. Who cares whether the cheque signers
support
this stuff? Oh, I'm sure someone will come along with
'enterprise
blog' and sell it for half a million dollars, but will that
prove its worth?
Of course not. If the tools work for you, use them. If not,
then don't.
But don't peg the usefulness of a technology to financial
or
institutional support. That, surely, is the road to
madness. By James Farmer, May 22, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Blogs - RSS - Wikis
Comprehensive
(but not exhaustive) list of links on these three
related subjects. Includes links to background readings,
examples,
commercial software and hosting services. Good resource.
By David Mattison, May 21, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
It's time to rebuild the Internet
I found myself nodding in agreement with a
number of the
suggestions offered by Ray Ozzie, the developer behind
Notes and
Groove. Something more dynamic, depending more on
structured
data, and less centralized. Email, especially, is in need
of a rethink -
here I am today wading throough mountains of spam, trying
to find
the odd item I actually want to read, and yet with no means
of
organizing this information. There must be a better way to
do person
to person communication... By Dan Farber, ZD Net, May 21,
2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
The Ivory Tower in the Real World
It bothers me that an educational system
characterized by a continual
declines in public funding is depicted as "real" - as
though the
alternative were somehow less than real. But that is the
message in
this PBS series - I haven't listed to the audio (it's just
not an option
with my connection here) but the text tells the story: "To
maintain their
elite statuses, schools like Michigan at Ann Arbor and
Wisconsin at
Madison -- the jewels in the crown of their respective
state university
systems -- are trying to wean themselves off of state
budgets to gain
more control over how they can do business." By Various
Authors, NPR, May 20, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
W3C Aopts Patent Policy
My first
reaction is that the W3C has caved to the patent people.
Well, I guess that's my second reaction too. The provision
allows the use of patented technology in W3C standards, but
with full disclosure and on a royalty free basis. But there
may be exceptions. At this point, I have to ask whether the
members of the W3C have ever heard the story of the camel's
nose... By Thor Olavsrud, InternetNews.Com, May 21, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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