OLDaily
By Stephen Downes
April 30, 2003

Reusing Online Resources: A Sustainable Approach to eLearning
This special issue of JIME features chapter summaries and commentary directed toward the recently published book "Reusing Online Resources: A Sustainable Approach to eLearning" edited by Allison Littlejohn. The big frustration, of course, is that the book itself isn't online (and living in a small city, it's not like I can just pop out to the local bookstore and pick up a copy). But the summaries are quite good, and interestingly, are used to prime subsequent discussion of each of the chapters. Devotees of learning objects won't find a lot that's new here: the book is mostly an overview of current applications and issues. But that also makes it a good introduction to the field and a nice launch-point for further discussion. By Allison Littlejohn and Simon Buckingham Shum, JIME, April, 2003 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Web Site Where Gossip Posted About SoCal Students is Shut Down
Parents and some students are pleased that schoolscandals.com has been shut down. The site, which was used to spread rumours and gossip about classmates, had been the subject of numerous complaints. Now this content will shift to individual blogs hosted by Blogger, where it belongs. By AP, San Jose Mercury News, April 25, 2003 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

OAI Metadata Harvesting Workshop
This page is a set of position statements submitted by participants in the upcoming OAI Metadata Harvesting Workshop at the Joint Conference on Digital Libraries in Houston at the end of May. The issues here are remarkable consistent with those I see on the RSS-Dev or Syndication discussion lists. Right off the bat we have NSDL's Naomi Dushay commenting on the problem of inconsistent metadata from providers. OAIster's Katrina Hagedorn raises the possibility of automated repository discovery. The RSS solution was to do nothing, and to let each aggregator solve the issues in its own way. This, realistically, is also the only option for OAI. By Various Authors, JCDL2003, April, 2003 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Is E-learning Really the Future or a Risk?
This essay has a catchy title, but the PDF document (the HTML link supplied by ACM wasn't working) that follows is not a good read. This raises a dilemma: should I include such resources in OLDaily, or simply let them slide into oblivion. Usually I opt for the latter, but this one is glaring, especially coming as it does from a publication of some repute. The problem with this paper is two-fold: first, it doesn't really tell us anything new (organizations will opt for blended learning - now that's a surprise!); and second, it uses outdated and discredited resources (such as the thoroughly debunked 'modes of learning' graph, or two-year old (and thoroughly revised) IDC projections. I don't blame the authors, who, because they apparently do not use online resources (check the references), may simply have been unaware of the list server discussions or the reports carried in OLDaily. But the editors have a responsibility to catch stuff like this. By Charles A. Shoniregun and Sarah-Jane Gray, Ubiquity, April 29, 2003 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

MARTEC
The acronym stands for "Mentoring for Effective Technology Integration in K-12 Schools." Participants were selected by the New jersey Department of Education and interviewed about their experiences as mentors. This site is a compilation of the interviews, organized into eleven major categories. Very nice, though a bit of a pain to navigate - this is the sort of site that would really benefit from syndication technologies. By Various Authors, Regional Technology in Education Consortia, April, 2003 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

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