By Stephen Downes
October 8, 2003
The Aeffability of Knowledge
Management
My article has been published by
Ubiquity. An excerpt: "The challenge of knowledge
management, and hence of online learning, is to make it
work with the complexity and richness of actual human
communication." By Stephen Downes, Ubiquity, October 7,
2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Knowledge and Tragedy: Or Why We Shouldn't
Share Knowledge
I wouldn't be citing this paper
at all under ordinary circumstances, but it is just so
wrong-headed it merits a mention, if only as a
representative of a line of thinking that runs deeply
against my core beliefs. In a competitive world, argues the
author, asymmetries of knowledge are important, for such
asymmetries are what allow one side to triumph over the
other. And "the triumph is what we all seek... triumphs
drive the plot of our lives forward... we want to succeed,
and we want to succeed in competition with others." My
goodness. How could anybody, anybody, lead such a
small, narrow and petty life? If, at the end, I look back,
and all I see is triumph, as defined by this author, I
would realize that I have not lived my life; I would have,
in fact, wasted it. Oh, how many people have said this? The
value of a life does not lie in what we take, but in what
we give. The same applies more generally in day to day
affairs as well, but of course it takes a certain courage
to be generous in a world of thieves. By Patrick Lambe,
Straits Knowledge, October, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Whither Education: Human Rights Versus Trade
Law
This can get complex in a hurry, but
essentially, the argument here is that under the WTO,
"Liberalization increasingly converts education into a
tradable commodity, which directly undermines rights-based
education, namely as a 'public good' with governments
assuming the primary regulatory role. It threatens to
undermine progressive realization of the right to
education, which requires the enforcement of governmental
obligations, as required by international human rights
law." Now of course the WTO specifically excludes services
provided "in the exercise of governmental authority," which
one would assume covers education, but this exclusion is
very narrow: once fees are charged, the government is
deemed to be 'in competition' with private providers.
Moreover, "a conceptual shift towards characterizing
education as a 'property right' may be a precursor to the
subjecting of all education – including compulsory
education - to liberalization pressures." I haven't
addressed the WTO much in these pages - there are many
people who can do that with more authority than I can - but
my observation is that, under the WTO, human rights can and
often do take a back seat to commerce, a trend that should
concern us all. By Unknown, The Learning Channel, October,
2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Software Offers TiVo-like Recording At Lower
Price
The price - and especially the
subscription fees - have slowed the adoption of personal
video recorders (PVRs), devices you can use to record and
play back your favorite TV program on your computer. But
along comes some software that lets you do this essentially
for free (after paying a combined $140 to get set up).
There will be a significant hue and cry as the bottom falls
out of the televised video market. By Powell Fraser,
CNN.com, October 8, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Reuse: Patterns and
Antipatterns
We used to call it the "bad idea"
but now we have the "anti-pattern" - an idea that looks
good on the surface but turns out to be a bad idea when
looked at from a broader perspective. Applying this
thinking to what would promote or hinder the reuse of
software components (and, presumably, learning objects?)
the author suggests that "reuse thrives best on the forest
floor, not up in the canopy" and asks, "Is the
democratization of reuse perhaps an antipattern?" By Jon
udell, InfoWorld, October 7, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
The Potential of Personal Publishing in
Education II: How’s It Going & What’s
Working?
This look at the use of weblogs in
learning takes a close, critical look and the results
aren't all peaches and cream. The most telling link is to
the list of updated schoolblogs, showing (as of my reading)
that out of the 2,400 or so listed, the most recent update
was back in July. Farmer writes, "most of the people in my
blogosphere are pretty committed individuals, understanding
the medium, exploring what they can do and doing so after
consideration. Most people aren’t going to personal publish
like this." Quite right, and we need to understand this.
Weblogging is not something we should make everybody do.
And the impact of weblogs on education will not be that
everybody has a personal weblog. So what will it be? I
continue to view weblogs as a filtering system, a means by
which individuals gather, assess, comment upon, and pass on
items of value to a reader. The best weblogs are
niche-oriented, and these weblogs benefit specific
communities. By James Farmer, Xplana, October 7, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Future of SCORM 1.x Guide Published, Services
Top of The Menu
Two interesting things pop out
of this article. First is that there is no 'official' plan
for SCORM beyond 1.3 (quite the opposite of what I had
heard previously, in which we were told that the longer
term development of SCORM is well mapped out). Second, that
insofar as SCORM has a future, it will likely be in the
area of web services, in order to support (the previously
overlooked) distributed training environments. This article
is a description of Dan Rehak's proposed future directions
for SCORM. By Wilbert Kraan, CETIS, October 8, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Stupid Research Tricks
Well worth
noting: "we will conclude that it is not training games but
specific features of games (such as active participation,
score points, interaction among team members, and
competition across teams) that make a difference. It is not
videotapes in general, but the critical features (such as
realism, motion, and audiovisual capabilities) that make a
difference." By Sivasailam (Thiagi) Thiagarajan, Play For
Performance, October 8, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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