By Stephen Downes
June 10, 2003
Learning Objects in a Wider
Context
Slides from my presentation. I argue
that the traditional approach to using learning objects -
stringing them together into lessons and courses - is
misguided because it is a misuse of new media. I present
this argument by showing that new media should be regarded
as a new language, with its own semantics and grammar, that
informs how we should use the 'words' (learning objects) in
that language. By Stephen Downes, CADE 2003, June 9, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
mLearning Consortium
Still with
CADE: The authors presented the design and evaluation of
this project involving the use of PDAs (specifically,
IPAQs) to deliver accounting courses at Seneca College and
the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. Interesting -
though not surprising - was the result that PDAs did not
really improve student learning. Shocking was the fact that
Bell would have (had they not sponsored the trial) charged
each student an average of $13,000 in wireless connectivity
fees for the course. Click on the 'pilot project' link for
more info; results should be available on the site shortly.
By Judy Roberts, Elaine Soetaert, Naomi Beke, and Katherine
Janzen, CADE 2003, June 10, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
LearnAlberta
CADE coverage
continues... I saw a nice presentation from this
LearnAlberta project today (the presentation, which was
mostly a live demo, is not available). Some very good work
that really shows the potential of learning objects. These
are not available online yet, since they don't have a
proper repository for them, but some should be available by
September. Others, which involve the use of licensed
material, will not be available for public viewing at all,
raising the question of how the public can monitor what is
being taught in schools - relevant since the one National
Geographic clip we saw from the repository, about volcanos,
referred to 'mankind,' an obsolete term. It is worth noting
that it took 18 months of negotiations to license the
National Geographic content, and that LearnAlberta staff
have decided that it is much better to create - and share -
their own material, according to the presenters. By Louise
Bentley and Susan Schroeder, CADE 2003, June 10, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Open Service Interface Definitions
Released
From the press release: "The Open
Knowledge Initiative (O.K.I.) announced today the public
release of its Open Service Interface Definitions (OSIDs).
These interoperability specifications have been designed to
support infrastructure level interoperability for a wide
variety of enterprise applications, particularly
educational software and learning management systems."
Developers are encouraged to comment on these definitions
over the next 60 days. By Press Release, Open Knowledge
Initiative, June 10, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Data Calls
The IEEE Digital Rights
Expression Language (DREL) Working Group "is gathering
requirements that a standardized DREL must meet to support
learning, education, and training." The group states that
it is not seeking to create another rights expression,
creating a field for yet another batle betwwen proponents
of XrML (who will tell you that the language is free and
open, but will omit the fact that they have patents on
uses of the language) and backers of the Open
Digital Rights Language (ODRL). With wide input, though,
the field may shift as the group learns of more specific
educational requirements. At the very least, people should
write into the group to demand open and free languages and
software, so that digital rights online does not become a
proprietary - and monopoly - process. By Various Authors,
IEEE-LTSC-DREL, June 10, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Business Blogs Provide Edge, Present
Challenges
Take a perfectly good technology,
apply it to the corporate arena, and watch it get ruined.
I've seen this pattern before, and if this report from the
ClickZ Weblog Business Strategies conference is any
indication, I will see it again. Prepared and piloted
content, corporate and legal approval, the public relations
blog... all these are instances of the belief that bloggers
are "writing as represents the company." Sheesh. Don't they
get it? We have enough media representing the company -
even this newsletter I'm reporting from is owned by
Jupitermedia, the VP of which was the main speaker at the
conference. We want to hear from the people! Leave the
lawyers and the PR flacks out of it, for a change. By Colin
C. Haley, InternetNews.Com, June 9, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Grammar on the way back?
When
teaching logic I found I had to first teach my students how
to read. Oh sure, they could pronounce the words, but it
was easy to tell with slight questioning that they had not
understood what they had read: they couldn't identify the
points made, and they couldn't identify the author's
conclusion. As this article suggests, knowledge of sentence
structures is important, and that is why the teaching of
grammar is making a comeback. But more, knowledge of
formalism - abstract structures - is important. Students
should be able to see how abstract sentence structure,
mathematics and computer programming are all the same sort
of thing, and that this sort of thing can be applied in
other domains. By Paul Moses, Baltimore Sun, June 10, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Kids Bombarded With Spam,
Porn
They will, of course, ruin it for all
spammers, those mass mailers who deluge people - including
children - with material which is, to say the least,
inappropriate. "Four out of five children receive
inappropriate spam e-mail touting get-rich-quick schemes,
and almost half receive spam linking to pornographic
materials, according to a study released Monday by an
Internet security company." There being no real way to stop
the deluge, short of cutting off their email entirely,
parents and teachers can cope only through education.
Eventually, like the rest of us, they will stop using
email. By Reuters, Wired News, June 9, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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