Edu_RSS
Should Web Content Be Free?
Edward Wasserman has a thought-provoking article today at the Miami Herald (annoying and counter-productive free registration may be required) entitled
There's no such thing as a free Web. Wasserman makes a strong start by pointing out: The notion that Internet content is generally ''free'' is one of the cyberworld's most cherished lies. In... From
Brain Frieze on November 1, 2005 at 10:51 p.m..
The looky-loos
That's a nickname for the people who just watch, who follow the fads, who want to be entertained, and who grow tired when the new is rubbed off the latest sensation. It comes from an essay by Dave Hickey, "Romancing the Looky-Loos," from his 1997 book Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy. Several times I found myself writing "blogs" in the margin beside passages where he is talking about the work artists do to create communities that respond... From
Weblogs in Higher Education on November 1, 2005 at 10:47 p.m..
Day 6.1: Zulu hour
And here's a play-by-play of how the wedding went: 2 PM Arrive back at hotel room. Received irate "Where were you?!" call from Silverlotus. I assure her that the wedding is at 5 and my afternoon is still open and we can still, you know, get married, if she wants. 3 PM Called the front desk. I am looking for my dress shirt, which I sent to the rush laundry service two days ago. "Two days is rush in Mexico," the concierge said. 4:15 PM Shirt arrives. 4:30 PM Call Shell and Woofer because I can't get the cuff links into the cuffs of my shirt. We spent many minutes waxing philosophy abou From
silentblue | Quantified on November 1, 2005 at 8:56 p.m..
No News Like Leonor News
These days there is no more relevant news in Spain than the birth, yesterday, of the first daughter of Prince Felipe. The baby, named Leonor, is second in line to the Spanish throne after her father. Right now, men take precedence over women in the line of succession in Spain, so to allow Leonor to reign the Constitution should be reformed in the future. The succession debate, the details of the delivery, the historical nuances of the name of the child, and more are monopolizing the news as well as bloggers' activity. Although the Royal House was very good at (...) From
Poynter E-Media Tidbits on November 1, 2005 at 7:55 p.m..
TV News on the Web: The Advertising Strategy
So,
as Online Media Daily reports, MSNBC.com is beginning to put the NBC Nightly News program online each night at 10 p.m. for on-demand viewing, sans the TV commercials that are attached to the broadcast version. What? No commercials?! ... Actually, that makes perfect sense. Just as "shovelware" is not the best idea for online editorial content, shoveled TV commercials aren't either. For one thing, an online version of Nightly News c From
Poynter E-Media Tidbits on November 1, 2005 at 7:55 p.m..
links for 2005-11-01
Creativity That Goes Deep - Businessweek Embracing design-shop approaches to problem solving means having to shed some key characteristics of how traditional companies work (tags: design_thinking) Tag Ontology Writeup The goal of this ontology is to model the relationship... From
Monkeymagic on November 1, 2005 at 7:53 p.m..
Enterprise information architecture in context (revised)
James Melzer has published a revised version of his enterprise information architecture diagram. To quote: Back at the beginning of October I spoke at the 2005 East Coast IA Retreat on Enterprise Information Architecture. The talk was about using the... From
Column Two on November 1, 2005 at 7:47 p.m..
10 Principles of Effective Information Management , Step Two Designs
I do not typically endorse lists of principles - usually there's something I object to - but this one has my seal of approval. I can think of instances where each of these ten principles has been violated, with unfortunate results. This is solid advice; print this article and nail it to the manager's door. Latin version optional. [ From
OLDaily on November 1, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..
Breaking with Convention , The Guardian
Interesting proposition: "UK universities are becoming confident in delivering degrees by distance learning thanks to lessons learned from the collapsed UkeU, the ill-fated government-sponsored project conceived at the height of the dotcom boom to exploit an expanding overseas market for e-learning." I don't see anything in the article that would constitute evidence that the proposition is true, however. My own view is that Britain has developed e-learning expertise in spite of UKeU, not because of it. [ From
OLDaily on November 1, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..
E-Health Resource Repository , University of Calgary
Gotta like this: "The Health Telematics Unit (HTU), University of Calgary... is creating and working to sustain a digital repository of e-Health resources to support research... it is committed to providing access to the most current and critical information for those working in the e-Health field." The repository is using DSpace, so contents can be harvested and syndicated, and the spirit seems to be to promote open access to these important materials. [ From
OLDaily on November 1, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..
Teaching the Fourth
They're calling it the fourth 'R' but if you ask me, it's the big 'M': marketing. I think it's good that Elsevier is providing selected science high schools with free access to ScienceDirect, though it seems to me that the selection - "based on measures of student achievement in science and math, such as their number of AP students, National Merit Scholars, and winners of leading science competitions" - is an instance of the rich getting richer. More to the point, one wonders why these high schools don't direct their students toward open access research From
OLDaily on November 1, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..
ePortfolio with FOAF and Atom -- Proof of Concept , EDUCAUSE Blogs
Scott Wilson pondered, "I'm interested in finding out WHY something more complex [than FOAF and Atom] would be necessary." This project concludes: it's not. "Scott's conjecture that FOAF and Atom are sufficient for making an ePortfolio seems well founded." [ From
OLDaily on November 1, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..
A Nomad's Guide to Learning and Social Software , The Knowledge Tree
Useful article that delivers what its title promises, but without the wandering. After a look at social software - which interestingly includes things as old as MUDs - the author considers the tension between online social networks and those we form offline. The true potential of social software, he argues, "lies in helping us figure out how to integrate our online and offline social experiences." [ From
OLDaily on November 1, 2005 at 7:45 p.m..
Video Tech Enthusiasts Discuss the Panasonic Weblog
Just a quick note to follow up on my earlier coverage of Panasonic's DefPerception character blog, which is "authored" by the fictional character "Tosh Bilowski"... Whenever you try something new in online media, it helps to pay close attention to what your target audience thinks. If your communications are working well for them, it's time to revisit your strategy. Fortunately, there's a very well established online community of video tech enthusiasts. They discuss every conceivable aspect of video technology in several popular forums. Here are some links to some of their curr From
Contentious Weblog on November 1, 2005 at 5:49 p.m..
Wikipedia's long tail
I recently read someone (but now I've lost the reference! [Found it, thanks to a commenter: It's Peter Morville.] ) talking about Wikipedia's long tail, by which the person meant (I think) the articles that are rarely read or edited. The question was whether the quality of those articles is as good as that of the oft-edited ones. It's a great question. The obvious guess is that, if you believe the wisdom of crowds saves Wikipedia from inaccuracy and mediocrity, then long tail articles ought not to be as good as head of the tail articles. But I find little... From
Joho the Blog on November 1, 2005 at 4:49 p.m..
A Little Sense of Humor
OK, I zinged the
Motley Fool a few weeks back for a delayed follow-up on a correction -- so it's only fair that I post a small blog item when they make me smile. I hit a
link today for a Fool article, and, although the link was bad (at least it was when I hit it; it's since been fixed), the site has a sense of humor about it. The first time I clicked it, I got this haiku: Wiley little File From
Poynter E-Media Tidbits on November 1, 2005 at 2:55 p.m..
Session Two UNESCO--Perspectives of the Providers
Session two, week two begins with a background note provided by major providers of open educational resources: Anne Margulies from MIT's OpenCourseWare; Richard Baraniuk of Rice University's Connexions, Candace Thille of Carnegie Mellon University's Open Learning Initiative, and David Wiley of Utah State University's Center for Open and Sustainable Learning. ____JH From
EduResources--Higher Education Resources Online on November 1, 2005 at 2:47 p.m..
Open Access Articles about Sleep Research
I follow Peter Suber's Open Access News closely because he is indefatigable reporting what is happening about opening up access to resources on the Internet. This particular item caught my attention because I used to do sleep/dream and psychophysiological research . Among the articles available, I was especially interested in Tore Nielsen and Phillipe Stenstrom's "What are memory sources of dreaming?" The availability of resources such these from Nature, for both scientists and non-scientists, is priceless. _____JH "A continuing obstacle to proving whet From
EduResources--Higher Education Resources Online on November 1, 2005 at 2:47 p.m..
Citizen Journalism By Another Name
Over at
New West (winner of two Online Journalism Awards, as noted here yesterday), the term "citizen journalism" appears to have gone out of favor. The site, which offers coverage of news and trends in the Rocky Mountain West, has a "citJ" component -- in the past promoted with a "Citizen Journalism" link in the main site navigation. Now that moniker has been swapped for the slightly more obtuse "
Unfiltered," which is a blog to which anyone can
Poynter E-Media Tidbits on November 1, 2005 at 1:49 p.m..
Blogging vs. Journaling Update #384
USA Today says "Teens wear their hearts on their blog." Isn't that special. Just 'cause I don't think it can hurt anything to make the point again, what follows are not descriptions of blogging: "...mostly they simply relay the details of their daily lives." Not blogging. "Girls, who dominate blogging, use it especially to talk about personal feelings." Not blogging. "Rypkema uses her blog to communicate with friends and as 'a way to pour out my emotions.'" Not blogging From
weblogged News on November 1, 2005 at 12:47 p.m..
Google's security breach
Something strange happened today. I received an email to my Gmail (
t d f)-address that was not intended to be sent to me. What Google (
t