November 1, 2006

OLDaily

Stephen Downes[Edit][Delete]: Understanding Learning Networks, November 1, 2006
[link: Hits] PowerPoint slides and MP3 audio from my talk in Spain. While covering some of the topics common to my recent discussions I was able to contrast my own position to that offered by Rob Koper. [Tags: ] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

Stephen Downes[Edit][Delete]: Round the World Photos, Flickr [Edit][Delete] November 1, 2006
[link: Hits] I have finally completed uploading all the photos from my recent trip around the world. I hope you enjoy them; here they are (click on 'slide show' for a nice slide show version).

Frankfurt, Germany [slide show]
Bloemfontein, South Africa [slide show]
Lesotho [slide show]
Kruger National Park [slide show]
Cape Town, South Africa [slide show]
Manley, Australia [slide show]
Dunedin, New Zealand [slide show]
Stewart Island, New Zealand [slide show]
Christchurch, New Zealand [slide show]
Whangarei, New Zealand [slide show]
Tutukaka, New Zealand [slide show]
Auckland, New Zealand [slide show]
Desert Highway, New Zealand [slide show]
Bulls, New Zealand [slide show]
Wellington, New Zealand [slide show]
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Stephen Downes[Edit][Delete]: The Future of E-Learning, November 1, 2006
[link: Hits] PowerPoint slides and MP3 audio from my talk at the CGA educators' meeting in Toronto. The sound in the audio is a bit faint for the first speaker, Mark Bullen, an Associate Dean from BCIT. I speak after him and discuss blogs in learning, aggregation, connectivism, and learning networks. This is a short and breathless statement of the major trends as I see them at the moment. [Tags: , , , ] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

Mark Cuban[Edit][Delete]: Some Intimate Details on the Google YouTube Deal, Blog Maverick [Edit][Delete] November 1, 2006
[link: 1 Hits] Support for some of the speculation I offered the other day about the Google purchase of YouTube - yes, it is a way to deal with the problem of uploaded commercial content. According to this item, the purchases revolved around a deal to compensate the networks, but without requiring that they in turn compensate the artists. The deal also works for Google because the networks then turned around and sured other video uploading services, giving Google free reign in the domain. Google gets its monopoly, the networks get to clamp down on uploading, and the artists and users get... well, nothing. Yeah, these guys are the ones lecturing us on morality. Via Lost Remote. More from Scott Karp. Ironically, the big problem in online video? Search. [Tags: , ] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

Steve Hargadon[Edit][Delete]: SupportBlogging's New Google Custom Search Engine, November 1, 2006
[link: Hits] Another attempt at an edublogger custom search in Google, this one hosted by Support Blogging. Again I searched for 'downes', again I got incorrect results. Why? My best guess is that my site wasn't listed among the edublogger sites selected, since no results from my site showed up. Now not to praise myself too much, but: who would create an edublogger search and not include downes.ca? [Tags: , ] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

Dean Shareski[Edit][Delete]: EdTech Posse Podcast 2.3 - Communities, Open Source in Education, Ed Tech Posse [Edit][Delete] November 1, 2006
[link: Hits] Some audio discussion of my recent critique of K12Online and the responses. Folks, this should have been a very minor thing; it was just a casual remark on one small post. But as this link points out, many of the comments in response "seemed more like they would be heard in a junior high class." From my perspective, this vindictive response just reinforces what I have been saying recently about groups and networks. Group members mutually reinforce each other and they respond with hostility to any perceived threat from the outside. [Tags: ] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

Alex Ragone[Edit][Delete]: 21st Century Learning #20: Bill Fitzgerald on DrupalEd, Ed Tech Talk [Edit][Delete] November 1, 2006
[link: Hits] With Drupal 5.0 just released (in very Beta) this discussion of the education-specific verion of Drupal, DrupalEd, is timely. "A distribution for Education will mean different things to different people: a set of tools to support classroom blogging, a set of tools to support teacher professional development, a set of tools to allow a school to track student progress (aka a SIS), a public-facing school web site, an internal teacher professional development site, a personal learning space (the PLE), to say nothing of the library sites, the LMS's, etc, etc, etc." Also worth a look is the Drupal Groups feature generally. And be ready for big changes happening here over the next month... [Tags: , , ] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

Andy Powell[Edit][Delete]: The Importance of Being Open, eFoundations [Edit][Delete] November 1, 2006
[link: Hits] I have started uploading some of my PowerPoint slide presentations into Slideshare and am sympathetic with the observations in this post. "It is hard not to be tempted to make simplistic comparisons between JORUM and Slideshare and the other social tools... but I wonder how the 1200 resources deposited into JORUM over the last 11 or so months compare with the rate of presentations being deposited into Slideshare currently (even while it is still in beta)?" Why is this? It's hard to say, but the author suggests, "I think we fell foul of being too rigid in the use of a particular set of standards." Also, "Does JORUM's current registration process indicate a trust in the end-user?" When you create an online service, making it hard to use and restrictive makes it less likely people will use it. And raises the question: why bother? [Tags: ] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

Guowei Jian and Leo W. Jeffres[Edit][Delete]: Understanding Employees' Willingness to Contribute to Shared Electronic Databases, Communication Research [Edit][Delete] November 1, 2006
[link: Hits] This paper looks at factors contributing toward an employee's willingness to contribute to a community online, and offers a tripartite explanation. The paper prompted a response from me looking in more detail at the three elements and suggesting a more finely tuned analysis. Via Joachim Niemeier. [Tags: ] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

Dave Munger[Edit][Delete]: What Is The Resolution of the Human Eye?, Cognitive Daily [Edit][Delete] November 1, 2006
[link: 42 Hits] "If the human eye was a digital camera, how many megapixels would it have? The answer: 576 megapixels." [Tags: ] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

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Stephen Downes

About Me
Bio, photos, and assorted odds and ends.

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Stephen Downes

Copyright 2006 Stephen Downes
National Research Council Canada

Contact: stephen@downes.ca

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I want and visualize and aspire toward a system of society and learning where each person is able to rise to his or her fullest potential without social or financial encumberance, where they may express themselves fully and without reservation through art, writing, athletics, invention, or even through their avocations or lifestyle.

Where they are able to form networks of meaningful and rewarding relationships with their peers, with people who share the same interests or hobbies, the same political or religious affiliations - or different interests or affiliations, as the case may be.

This to me is a society where knowledge and learning are public goods, freely created and shared, not hoarded or withheld in order to extract wealth or influence.

This is what I aspire toward, this is what I work toward. - Stephen Downes