By Stephen Downes
July 29, 2004
Barbarian Inventions
I think
there's a theme. There may be a theme. But don't spend time
looking for one; it's not written that way. It's about
newspaper registration, choice and cyberspace, unshaken
hands and cellphones, Dreyfus, and why people seem intent
on telling us what we should read and learn, how we should
do so, and that we are, in effect, barbarians. And does it
really matter if I spelled the title of Part Three
incorrectly? By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, July 29,
2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Child Psychology: Vygotsky's Conception of
Psychological Development
Overview of Vytotsky's
theory of development, with an explanation of why (and how)
Vygotsky believes that higher order cognitive phenomena are
of a different type from more instinctual phenomena. "In
cases of intellectualized psychological phenomena, the
subject knows what he is seeing. He knows that the thing is
a flower. Moreover, he knows that he is perceiving and
feeling the thing. In contrast, elementary reactions are
immediate responses to things and lack cognitive,
intellectual, linguistic meaning." More on Vygotsky. By Carl Ratner, R.
Rieber & D. Robinson (Eds.), The Essential Vygotsky, July,
2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Education Research in the Knowledge Society:
Key Trends in Europe and North America
Useful
and interesting report looking at trends worldwide in the
development of research strategies in online learning and
related subjects worldwide. Worth noting is the author's
characterization of the very different systems employed in
the different countries: the establishment of a national
centre in the university system (U.S.), the establishment
of a government research agency (France, Germany), and a
decentralized pluralist system with no focal point (U.K.,
Sweden, Canada). By Peter Kearns, NCVER, July 19, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Kurt Lewin's Change Theory in the Field and
in the Classroom: Notes Toward a Model of Managed
Learning
Cited in DEOS the other day, this paper
is an informative look at Kurt Lewin's change model and
what it has to say about the close relationship between the
notions of diagnosis and intervention. Something I need to
keep in mind: learning (at certain levels) "occurs by
taking in new information that has one or more of the
following impacts: 1) semantic redefinition--we learn that
words can mean something different from what we had
assumed; 2) cognitive broadening--we learn that a given
concept can be much more broadly interpreted than what we
had assumed; and 3) new standards of judgment or
evaluation--we learn that the anchors we used for judgment
and comparison are not absolute, and if we use a different
anchor our scale of judgment shifts." Now, reaching back,
it means that I will have different definitions, different
interpretations and different standards of evaluation or
judgement than someone I am trying to teach. Which, I
suppose, is what makes it so difficult for them to learn
from me. More change theories. By Edgar H. Schein,
Systems Practice, edited by Susan Wheelan, March, 1995
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales
Responds
Interesting interview with the creator
of Wikipedia as he discusses the editing process,
maintaining quality of content, advertising (it won't
happen) and a possible print version. Some good quotes.
"Was wondering if you view the Wikipedia as a competitor or
an additional tool compared to a World Book or an
Encyclopedia Britannica? Jimmy Wales:
I would view them as a competitor, except that I think they
will be crushed out of existence within 5 years. There's no
cost to switching from an outdated old encyclopedia to
Wikipedia -- just click and learn, and there you go. You
can switch before your friends switch, but the knowledge
you learn will be perfectly compatible." And "It is my
intention to get a copy of Wikipedia to every single person
on the planet in their own language. It is my intention
that free textbooks from our wikibooks project will be used
to revolutionize education in developing countries by
radically cutting the cost of content." By Roblimo,
Slashdot, July 28, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Proposal for SchoolBell
Via Tom
Hoffman on school-discuss: "The SchoolTool project has
posted the proposal/specs for the development of our open
source calendar server, to be called SchoolBell." There's
more stuff to look at on this site; "SchoolTool is a project to
develop a common global school administration
infrastructure that is freely available under an Open
Source licence." By Albertas Agejevas, SchoolTool, July 28,
2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Principles of Effective Research
By Michael A. Nielsen, Occasional thoughts by physicist
Michael Nielsen, July, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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