By Stephen Downes
March 23, 2004
ePortfolios and Weblogs: One Vision For
ePortfolio Development
Speculative paper
discussing how the use of webogs and e-portfolios could be
combined. Quite strong on the tech side of things, and I
appreciated seeing an actual (proposed) e-portfolio XML
example. In many ways, the e-portfolio described here plays
the role of FOAF in distributed social networking services.
By David Tosh and Ben Werdmuller, March 15, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
I'm Blogging This: A Closer Look at Why
People Blog
Via Weblogg-Ed, this article casts a
wide and interesting net over the subject of blogging. I
really like Will Richardson's summary, which will do until you have the
break time to read the much longer article. But do read the
longer article. By Bonnie A. Nardi, Diane J. Schiano,
Michelle Gumbrecht and Luke Swartz, March 23, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
PEI (Pigeon Enabled Internet) is FASTER then
ADSL
One of the very first links I ever ran - it
even predates my current file system - was regarding the
CPIP (carrier pigeon internet protocol). It was eleven
years before this important protocol was implemented by the
Bergen Linux Users group. Today, it was
established that carrier pigeons are faster than ADSL. "The
bandwidth achieved by the pigeons is significantly larger
that that available through broadband Internet connections:
about 2.27 Mbps (Mega bit per second)." What a world we
live in. By Ami Ben-Bassat, March 12, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Confused on the Trail to the Learning Objects
Summit
If you found the instructions on how to
access the Learning Object Summit a little confusing
(and to judge by my email, many did), then check the
comments on this post. Basically, it's like this: if you
intent to show up in person, please call ahead (that's so
we know how many Tims to order (*)). If you participate
via Interwise, you don't have to phone us,
but you have to register with Interwise to use Interwise
software (and if you are doing this, do it early,
since I have found it to be, um, tricky). But if you simply
access the video feed, you don't have to sign up for
anything anywhere.
(*) Does not imply an offer of actual Tim Horton's coffee
(though it would sure be nice). By Alan Levine, CogDogBlog,
March 23, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
What's Going On
I was going to
link to the Strategy+Business item on Power Laws and
complexity, but they wanted me to fill out a form demanding
to know everything but blood type (which they probably have
on file from Microsoft), so I decided to link to Jay
Cross's discussion instead, which requires no registration
and is probably more accurate. Anyhow, Jay gave me some
lemons when he came to visit the other day. "Why has
complexity become my recurring obsession? Perhaps because
complexity challenges the bedrock of Isaac Newton,
rationality, cause and effect, an ordered universe, and
faith in logic. The worldview I believed in for the first
fifty years of my life does not explain the world I live in
today. Some things will never be figured out. Prayer does
not assure salvation. Anything could happen. The world
defies logic." Now it's not as madcap as all that, and
Cross knows this. I remember when Francisco Varela demonstrated to us a
screen of static, pure and utter chaos, and said, there's
order here. Complexity doesn't defy order, or get in
the way of order. But it doesn't contain order: the order
comes only from the context, from having a point of
view. Ride the wave, man. By Jay Cross, Internet Time,
March 17, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
The Guerra Scale
You will notice,
at the very bottom of the Guerra scale of levels of user
experience, at the worst level possible, is PDF. So of
course I'm going to cite this paper, no matter what
else it says. After PDF, we get things like page turners,
online tests, movement in text and graphics, multimedia,
and eventually, full immersive simulations or virtual
reality. By Tim Guerra & Dan Heffernan, Learning Circuits,
March, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Confessions of an Early Internet
Educator
The paper in a nutshell: recent studies
have shown that learning outcomes from online learning are
as high or higher than the traditional form, and this is
because of "the shift from institutions of instruction to
institutions of learning, building of the online community,
training of faculty teaching online, and emphasis on
orienting new students." Via Syllabus. By Jack Goetz,
Distance Education and Training Council, February, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Want Some Springsteen With That Big
Mac?
This is getting mainstream, and I will soon
stop covering further instance of this (though no doubt
people will continue to question my take on this well into
the next decade). McDonald's has made a deal with music
distributor Sony where "those songs would then be offered
to McDonald's patrons for free with the purchase of certain
menu items, with customers receiving codes they can use
online for the downloads." As I have been trying to say for
a long time now, it's another case of content being used to
sell a higher value product. Think about it: if the free
song is the giveaway that accompanies the 99 cent
fries, how much can the song be worth? How much is
content worth? By Reuters, CNet News.Com, March 22,
2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
It's A Blog World After All
Blogs
are now solidly mainstream, as this article describing the
corporate use of blogs illustrates. Some good description
of Robert Scoble's blog, which represents (quite well) the
Microsoft view of the world. Of course, the article also
contains some pre-meme hype: "Within the first six weeks,
10 projects were turned in early. Having a central
repository for information helped--but so did the added
scrutiny... [Also] Software maker Macromedia, one of the
first companies to adopt blogs for customer service, saved
tens of thousands of dollars..." Well, you get the picture.
Here's some reality: after the initial sheen wears off,
projects will be turned in late and Macromedia will
discover there are no more savings to be found. I am as in
favour of blogs as anyone, but it's disturbing to see them
hitting the hype cycle like this, because the claims in the
business press are nowhere near the reality, and yet
clueless venture capitalists are going to read this
coverage, lose their money, and then blame us. By Jena
McGregor, Fast Company, April, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Microsoft, America Online to Play MLB
Games
This is being reported as a content deal,
and of course it is. But look a little deeper and you
discover that the streaming video feeds are being used to
bolster Microsoft's software streaming service and content
networks. And it comes just after Real media ended an
agreement with the league (which, of course, immediately dropped support for the Real
Media format). Major League baseball may be selling
content, but their clients are these software and access
companies, who, while they (still) charge subscription
fees, are mostly using the content to sell other products
and services. By Jim Hu, CNet News.Com, March 22, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Novell Sets Sights on 'Complete Linux
Desktop'
Some people have been asking how my
Linux project is going. I have been meaning to write it up,
but you know how it is. My office and home desktops are
Linux, as is my wife's desktop. My web server is, of
course, Linux. My laptop remains Windows because no
wireless internet driver is available for the special Dell
built-in wireless PCI. The Linux is working pretty well.
But it's not all gravy. For example: I wanted to access a
service on NHL.com a couple of days ago. It requires that
my browser have the Java plugin. Click here - so I did.
Software downloads and installs, just like it's supposed
to. And then - nothing. The plugin is probably somewhere on
my computer, but nowhere I - or my browser - can find it.
This sort of thing is typical of Linux - and I know, having
configured a number of these units by now. Some plugins are
tricky (Flash), some require extra stuff be installed, some
are just plain weird (Real Media), and some don't exist at
all (QuickTime, Windows Media). To make Thunderbird launch
the Firebird browser properly, I had to write a shell
script. So this isn't turnkey yet. Anyhow. Novell hopes to
change that. "We're focusing on building a complete Linux
desktop as an alternative to what you've been using," they
say. Good, go for it. The software's all there - it's just
the user experience that needs tweaking. A lot of tweaking.
By Stephen Shankland, CNet news.Com, March 22, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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