OLDaily

By Stephen Downes
July 15, 2005

On The Cutting Edge-ucation
Another new blog. "We're building a repository of instructional ideas and strategies for using podcasts in schools. Feel free to post any ideas you have, whether they're brainstorms or refined activities and units. Any ideas are welcome, even if they may seem difficult to implement." Via Albert Delgado. By Various Authors, On The Cutting Edge-ucation, July, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Longhorn to Require Monitor-Based DRM
Let me ask you, is there any consumer demand for monitors that don't work? I thought not. Howabout software that breaks your monitor? No? How, then, does it make sense to do this: "if Longhorn detects that your monitor is not 'secure' enough, then your premium video content won't play on it until you buy one that is. Who gets to decide? The content providers of course." Someone needs to send Bill Gates a memo to remind him who his customers are. Because I have to say - Longhorn won't find itself anywhere near any computer I use. Not if it does this. By Mr_Silver, Slashdot, July 15, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Atom 1.0
The successor to RSS is, according to Tim Bray, "cooked and ready to serve." The question of whether it is widely adopted still depends on the users, but most (if not all) aggregators will support both. Here is a list of the differences between Atom and RSS 2.0. Here are the people who worked on the spec. By Tim Bray, Ongoing, July 15, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

The Habits of Judgment and Authority
Something to think about. A librarian quoted by Will Richardson says, "I've been a librarian for ten years and I have to tell you, I feel like a fraud. I don't really know where to start when it comes to figuring out whether a site is believeable or not." Ken Smith comments: "she has, I think, put her finger on one of the central failures of our education system." I think I need to say more about this, and I will. By Ken Smith, Weblogs in Higher Education, July 15, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

LiteFeeds
Nifty. From a Vancouver start-up: "LiteFeeds provides a custom mobile RSS reader for any Java Phone/SmartPhone, Blackberry, Palm or PocketPC which synchronizes with your online subscriptions. Just import your subscriptions (OPML) to the website and choose which feeds you want mobile enabled." By Webpost, July 14, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Seven Principles of Social Networking
Dave Pollard outlines "a set of principles which might provide some clues on how to develop Social Networking Applications that really do work."
- "the existence of mutual trust, respect, context, and self-disclosure between the parties."
- conversational ice-breaking
- physical appearance as an icon of our identity
- a way to observe the other person's environment (I wonder whether a 'web space' would count here)
- doing something together, collaborating
- recognition that each of us is in a (separate) network
Pollard follows his list with a series of challenges for social software. But we need to remember: it's not just a matter of replicating a personal network in a virtual space. The technology allows us to have a richer textured network of relationships. By Dave Pollard, How to Save the World, July 14, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Users Confused About Blogs
Konrad Glogowski has grasped and expressed well what I also have been trying to say. "What we all need to acquire is the kind of perception that reflects the kaleidoscopic and multi-centred world around us. What we need, in other words, is to ensure that education becomes spherical and acoustic rather than linear, that it focuses on discovery rather than compartmentalization of data." Do follow the links in this item for a wealth of background and elaboration. And see also his follow-up post, The Kind of Evaluation that Matters. By Konrad Glogowski, Blog of Proximal Development, July 12, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

List of Blog Networks v2
It was natural, I suppose, that blogs would form more formal networks over time. This allows them to link to each other and push up their ratings. Many blog networks drive a lot of traffic and pay their writers. This site lists the major blog networks. I consider Edu_RSS to be a blog network, but not of the same sort as the commercial blog networks. But this sort of clustering, whether organized or not, was to tbe expected. Via CyberJournalist.net. By Undated, The Blog Herald, June, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

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