Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily

By Stephen Downes
November 29, 2002

Evaluation Report of the Becta Digital Video Pilot Project When I was at AusWeb 01 I spent most of the conference working on a video project (I never did get my CD - if anyone out there has a copy of the video we created, please send it to me so I can share it with the list), making it one of my more interesting conference experiences. This report summarizes the results of similar exercises with similar technology that took place in 50 schools across the U.K. In sum, the use of video editing was found to increase pupil engagement with the curriculum, to promote and develop a range of learning styles, and to motivate and engage a wider range of pupils than traditional teaching methods. But digital video is no magic solution. It did not automatically improve the quality of work or standards of attainment. Teaching remains the key factor in raising achievement, but teachers need to be clear about their role in the process and what counts as creativity in digital video. By Mark Reid, Andrew Burn and David Parker, (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, October, 2002 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Collaborative Representations: Supporting Face to Face and Online Knowledge-building Discourse It took me a couple of attempts to get the gist of this article (which I attribute to the use of a two-column PDF format, terrible for screen reading). But the main idea is to explore how the visual representation of information and online collaboration can be combined into a single system. It's a good insight and the diagrams on the third or fourth page show clearly how interaction and visual representation need to be integrated. Many more papers by the same group are available here. By Daniel D. Suthers, Proceedings of the 34th Hawai`i International Conference on the System Sciences , January, 2001 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Linkages Between Secondary and Post-secondary Vocational Education and Training in China and Australia As the title suggests, this book length PDF compares vocational education in the two countries. Perhaps the most telling difference is that the system in Australi is tied more closely to desired outcomes, while China's is based on a system of linkages.There is also more corporate participation in the Australian system, though their Chinese counterparts are expected to play an increasing role. If you don't have time to read a book, the table of comparisons on page 131 is a nice summary. By Josie Misko, et.al., National Centre for Vocational Education Research, November, 2002 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Information Superhighway Has Potholes and Pitfalls for High Schools Journalists sometimes like to be cute, and this sometimes results in the mangling of meaning. Thus while writing about the "information gap" the author in this case intends not to write about inequalities or access, as the phrase implies, but rather differences in the information sent from schools to parents and differences in the quality of their websites. By Karin Chenoweth, Washington Post, November 21, 2002 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

12 Kinds of Knowledge Workers George Siemens picked up this little item for elearnspace. There are some language and formatting issues, and I'm not sure I agree with this list (the categorizations are either too broad or too narrow, I'm not sure which), but it's worth the minute it will take you to read. By David Skyrme, Brain to Brain, November 23, 2002 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Open Journal System The Open Journal System is a nice piece of software that provides simple tool for the online publication of academic papes. OJS assists with every stage of the refereed publishing process, from submissions through to online publication and indexing. The software, available for download on the site, adheres to Open Access Initiative specifications. Written using PHP and MySQL. By John Willinsky, Public Knowledge Project, Undated [Refer][Research][Reflect]

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