By Stephen Downes
November 11, 2003
Creative Destruction and Disruptive
Innovation
I'm still at AACE in Phoenix. Web
access has been a bit spotty, especially in my hotel room.
So the newsletter may be disrupted a bit. Today I offer one
item from the conference, a summary of Wayne Hodgins's
keynote this morning. "Consider," suggests Hodgins,
"Personalized learning experiences for every person on the
planet...? Just for me and just right: time, place, amount,
medium, way, on demand, adaptive, in all forms, formal and
informal, and not just online. Is this possible?
This dream isn't new. But what is new is that this is now
possible. And what would it mean if it were possible?" By
Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, November 11, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Web Search: How the Web has Changed
Information Retrieval
The author sent me a nice
note and this, a link to his most recent paper on the
semantic web, which I pass along. The underlying premise is
that a web page isn't an appropriate medium for metadata -
a web page should be thought of, at best, as a 'snapshot'
of an information resource. But I don't think that the
answer to this is the closed web, as the author seems to
imply in places. Rather, what it requires is a rethinking
of our understanding of online resources, moving away from
the document metaphor entirely, and thinking instead in
terms of data feeds. By Terrence A. Brooks, Information
Research, April, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Berklee’s Lessons for
Everyone
Planning on selling music lessons
online. Better rethink your business model. Via Olga
Francois: "Today, the Berklee College of Music has released
Berklee Shares, a site offering free music lessons for
download. All content is available under a Creative Commons
license, including mp3s embedded with CC licenses. Free
lessons for musicians, and a valuable lesson for the rest
of us. Bravo." By Lawrence Lessig, Lessig Blog, November
10, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Looking Back with an Eye on the
Future
Slides from Stephen Marsh's presentation
in Moncton Friday, which I unfortunately missed. PPS
format, which means it won't run in Firebird (ran fine in
Internet Exploder). Marsh discusses ACORN, a system of
'cafés' that can be visited by InfoAgents to exchange
information. He also discussed 'quality of experience' in
the ACE videoconferencing environment - we have set one up
in Moncton, and I must say, it's a much different
experience talking with human-sized humans online. Finally,
Marsh had some good observations about trust. Yup, I really
regret missing this. Also worth a view is a talk from
October called 'The Design of the Everyday' - this and
other talks are available on his presentations page. By Stephen Marsh,
November 7, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Responses to Thoughts on
PSU/Napster
Summary of commentary on Penn
State's agreement to purchase Napster access for its
students. Good point: "PSU/Napster does nothing to stop
people from using P2P. Because of its limited artist
selection and computer platforms (Macs and the iPod, in
particular), many students will have no use for this
system." By Derek Slater, A Copyfighter's Musings, November
10, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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