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by Stephen Downes
October 7, 2009

Model-Driven Mashup Personal Learning Environments

Another swipe at defining the ever elusive Personal Learning Environment. "I mainly introduced the concept of model-driven mashup development and presented PLEF-Ext as a service that leverages the Service Mapping Description (SMD) annotations of RESTful Web services to facilitate the automatic mediation and creation of client-based mashups." Mohamed Amine Chatti, Technology Enhanced Learning, October 7, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Personal Learning Environment] [Comment]

Tools to simplify meeting scheduling
"Doodle," writes Wes Fryer, "remains one of my all-time favorite web 2.0 tools, as a browser-based, platform independent scheduling tool to identify open meeting dates and times for any group. I recently learned about ScheduleOnce, which also offers a free, online scheduling tool." Stuff that's of interest to me. Wesley Fryer, Moving at the Speed of Creativity, October 7, 2009 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Media: Does Education Need An Angry Blogger?
Alexander Russo needs to get out more. "Part of me wishes that we had someone like Finke among the education bloggers - obsessive, hard-working, fearless in the face of all the money and power of those she's covering. Part of me's just as glad we don't." I can name half a dozen fearless and angry bloggers in education. Nobody Russo reads, though. He confuses "visceral and foul-mouthed" with sharp and critical. Tom Hoffman, for example, has been tearing the 'common core' initiative to shreds - not a peep from Russo, who pretends the criticism doesn't exist. Doug Noon, whose Borderland is sharp and insightful? Nary a mention. Bud Hunt, whose sharply worded post on blocking is up to 43 comments? Doesn't exist in Russo's world. And I haven't even hit the angry bloggers, people like Jim Groom or Leigh Blackall and the rest. I wouldn't care, but Russo writes in This Week in Education, a web front for a print publication, and purports to 'cover' the field - but what we get is nothing remotely resembling coverage, just a handful of his friends, and no explanation of why this would be so. Alexander Russo, This Week in Education, October 7, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Blogger, Online Learning, Google, Web Logs] [Comment]

Why the FTC's New Rules for Bloggers Could Hurt Publishers, Too
There is some opposition to the FTC's plan to require that graft payments to bloggers be made public. Not surprisingly, it comes from publishers. Laura Sell, a senior publicist for Duke University Press, writes in an open letter, "We send these books with the hope of a positive review, but with no agreement or contract with the recipient." This may be true, but misses the point. The selection process tells reviewers to play nice or lose out on the gravy train. They send review copies to friendly safe blogs but would never consider a more hostile source. Meanwhile, bloggers who are open and honest lose no credibility when they make it known that the book they reviewed was a freebie - though I guess the publisher doesn't want the question asked, why they picked one blog over another. the good, I think, that will come out of this is that we will see similar rules extended to the print media, which has long dispensed with any pretence or objectivity or openness regarding who pays them for coverage and who doesn't. http://chronicle.com/blogAuthor/Wired-Campus/5/Jennifer-Howard/9/, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 7, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Blogger, Books, Google, Web Logs] [Comment]

Campus resorts?
"Jay, given what you've just told us, what do you think will happen to colleges?"
"You mean the campuses? I think many of today's campuses will make swell resorts and hotels." Jay Cross, Internet Time, October 7, 2009 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

PBS and NPR Add to Trove of Free Online Lectures
According to this item, in a site called Forum Network, "PBS and NPR are now posting taped interviews and videos of lectures by academics, adding to the growing number of free lectures online," a "trove of free online lectures." Simmi Aujla, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 7, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Networks, Video, Academia] [Comment]

Intelligent Communities Summit - Day Two
Blog coverage from the second day of the summit, including a talk from a former Premier of new Brunswick, the current Premier, and a social media expert who worked on the Obama campaign, Rahaf Harfoush, who gave a really good talk on social media that educators could learn a lot from. Stephen Downes, Half an Hour, October 7, 2009 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Wannabe U
"Here's what matters: These and other treatments of grand trends insist that higher education is one of the last revered Western institutions to be 'de-churched'; that is, it is one of the last to have its ideological justification recast in terms of corporatization and commodification and to become subject to serious state surveillance," she writes. "Universities are no longer to lead the minds of students to grasp truth; to grapple with intellectual possibilities; to appreciate the best in art, music, and other forms of culture; and to work toward both enlightened politics and public service. Rather they are now to prepare students for jobs. They are not to educate, but to train." Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, October 7, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Patents] [Comment]

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