By Stephen Downes
July 31, 2003
Design, Standards and
Reusability
In order to use a learning design
with a set of objects, the learning design must specify the
objects to be used, and if the objects to be used are
specified, then the learning design is not reusable. By
Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, July 31, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
VET Learning Object
Repository
Australia is moving ahead very
quickly with learning objects and this Green Paper -
undated except for the year - looks at the need to
establish eductaion and training guidelines for learning
objects and poses a series of questions related to the
design and implementation of such a system. The document is
a great read even if you are not Australian, since in
addition to looking at the Australian context it provides a
strong overview of many of the approaches and issues
generally. By Various Authors, Australian Flexible Learning
Framework, July, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
The Blogging Process
Via Seb, this
item is a detailed and pretty accurate look at the blogging
process. The diagram will grab your eye and focus your
attention, but read the commentary too. Note the time
estimates. "I budget 75 minutes/day for reading (the steps
in red), 60 minutes/day for writing (green), 15 minutes/day
for promotion (blue), and, on the weekend, 60 minutes/week
for blog community activities." This is pretty close to
what I spend, though I do more realing (especially of
email, such as mailing lists and subscriptions) and spend
less time writing. I don't have a 'to do' list (which
explains why I always miss deadlines). I do check referrers
and blog megadexes (such as Technorati or Feedster) to see
what people are saying, but I don't promote my blog and I
don't send email to A-listers (because I live in this
wonderful deluded little world in which I am one - Heh). By
Dave Pollard, How to Save the World, July 30, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
RDF: Ready for Prime Time
After
RSS, we will be hearing a lot about RDF (first we will hear
many more long debates about whether RSS should be
expressed in RDF, but never mind that). If you need an off
the cuff understanding of RDF, think of it this way: XML is
a way to ascribe properties to objects, while RDF is a way
to make statements about objects. Note that this is a very
loose characterization. Anyhow, this article responds to
the demand for tools and examples of how RDF is used. RDF
is still for the technically advanced, but it won't be long
now for the rest of us. Oh, and since this article doesn't
really say what RDF actually is, if you want some
background, you might want to have a look at my paper, Resource Descriptions. By Shelley Powers,
XML.com, July 30, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
A Look at Recent User Level Activity in the
RSS World
The point of this interesting survey
is to look at RSS adoption in the corporate and consulting
community. Thus we see technology analyst firms, such as
Forrester and Jupiter Research, using the format, as well
as publishers, magazines and businesses. Writes the author,
"Perhaps what's notable here is the shift in focus to
actually thinking about increasing the value to customers."
The item concludes with some links to speculation about the
future and long term impact of RSS. Good article, many
links. By James V McGee, McGee's Musings, July 25, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
New Study Shows Kids Who Use Net Get Better
Grades, Scores
I have seen this result
elsewhere, including a major British study. "Low-income
children who spend a good deal of time on the Web do
slightly better in school than children who don't." Not
everything improves, though. "Researchers didn't find
appreciable difference in students' math scores." What's
interesting about this study is that the students' use of
the internet was open ended. "Jackson said the kids, whose
average age was 13 1/2, spent some of their time looking at
pornography, playing online games and downloading music.
But their biggest uses of the Internet, she said, were for
researching school projects or hobbies and interests." By
Cox News Service, AZCentral, July 28, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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