OLDaily

By Stephen Downes
September 16, 2004

New Students, New Learning
Greetings from Canberra. This issue of OLDaily is a little short, but having landed just yesterday and given a longish presentation today, I'm dead tired. This item is the slides from the presentation - originally intended to be two separate talks, one on e-learning quality, one on the new student, but mixed and mashed into one quite long presentation. I have audio, but rather than inflict 130 megabytes of download on you, will try to get it compressed first. Meanwhile, enjoy the slides. Readings associated with the talks may be found on my wiki, here and here - feel free to add your own resources or comments. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, September 16, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Firefrss, Your New RSS-enabled Browsing Buddy
The big news on the web this week is the long awaited release of Firefox 1.0, the first 'production' version of the popular open source web browser. And the big news with this new release is the integration of RSS right into the browsing experience, something that not only vaults RSS into the mainstream but which means that designers may well realize their goal of a million downloads in ten days. Still have doubts about Firefox? Read Jay Cross on the subject. By Giles Turnbill, O'Reilly, September 15, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?
Reading the review was probably enough for me, as it depicts what seems to be a pro-intellectualist rail against what it is today's intellectuals (including myself, if I may be so bold) are actually saying. The reviewer summarizes, "'Student-centred learning' assumes that the student's 'personal experience' is to be revered rather than challenged. People are to be comforted rather than confronted. In what one American sociologist has termed the McDonaldisation of the universities, students are redefined as consumers of services rather than junior partners in a public service. This phoney populism, as Furedi points out, is in fact a thinly veiled paternalism, assuming as it does that ordinary men and women aren't up to having their experience questioned." If this sort of caricature is what the author believes constitutes being an intellectual, then we are in a sorry state indeed. By Terry Eagleton, New Statesman, September, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

ERPANET Persistent Identifiers Seminar
Cecil Somerton summarizes this site as follows: "All of the documents from the ERPANET Persistent Identifiers Seminar are now available. This is one of the most comprehensive collections of material on the subject. Of particular interest will be Die Deutsche Bibliothek presentation and other URN topic presentations. The presentation on the 'Info URI Scheme' is also pertinent as it describes how the 'info' Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) scheme for information assets that have identifiers in public Namespaces such as the LLCN, NISO and OCLC Worldcat Control Numbers have become part of the URI allocation." Haven't had a chance to look at this, but the item is relevant with respect to ADL's CORDRA initiative - see Larry Lannom's paper. By Various Authors, ERPANET Persistent Identifiers Seminar, September, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Prevention & Treatment (1997–2003) R.I.P.
Interesting commentary on the demise of an online journal. "The other struggle was getting submissions of sufficient quality and quantity to meet the high standards of the editorial board.... I am not wise or knowledgeable enough to diagnose why the paper journal still holds sway—readability, tradition-bound tenure committees, inertia, the dangers of cybercascades—but it does." Thanks, Dean, for the submission. By Martin E. P. Seligman, December 19, 2003 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

E-Learning Framework
This was pretty much the consensus picture being presented at various conferences over the summer. The E-Learning Framework web site provides a clear list of the major architectural components of what Dan Rehak calls 'next generation' e-learning. Each item in the diagram is a link to a page describing the component in question. There are three major layers of services depicted: user agents, domain services, and common services. Following the links take you to a lot of blank pages, but that's OK, the ideas are well documented elsewhere and will be spelled out in good time. Via Seb Schmoller. By Various Authors, September 12, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

eCornell Research Blog
Seb Schmoller points to this useful blog from eCornell. Good listings and, as Seb says, "well structured, frequently updated, broad, with no interpration or judgements, and with a large number of links to e-learning resources world wide." Gee, he makes it sound like "interpretation or judgements" are a bad thing. ;) By Ulises Mejias, September, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

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