Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
February 8, 2008

The Sorry Eduspaces Saga Rolls On
"Besides the issue of the domain name change, there now is some doubt over the future platform. Most of us had assumed the eduspaces would continue to be hosted on the elgg Open Source platform. But TakingITGlobal has previously used a proprietary platform for its networking activities. The lack of any communication must lead to speculation that they will in fact not use elgg but will transfer accounts to their own platform." Oh yeah, and you have to click a form to agree to whatever change they're making before you can see anything or do anything. Graham Attwell, Pontydysgu February 8, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Networks, Domain Names] [Comment]

Try It First in Web 2.0
According to this short article, professors are increasingly trying things for the first time using Web 2.0 technologies. Or, at least, what the magazine calls web 2.0 technologies. Oh well. At least they're trying things. Via Liberal Education Today. Trent Batson, Campus Technology February 8, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Web 2.0] [Comment]

SciVee
It's pure dissemination-mode communication, similar in a way to TeacherTube, but SciVee is nonetheless an initiative to be applauded as it puts the practice of science into the hands of viewers for free. The content is licensed under Creative Commons. Jane Hart, Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day February 8, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Is the Open University Making the Right Content Open in OpenLearn?
Citing recent criticisms, Seb Schmoller notes "you get the impression that the OU [Open University] has been cautious about what to make open, allowing its laudable experiment to take place with only its more mundane content." Seb Schmoller, Fortnightly Mailing February 8, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Desire2Learn V Blackboard - Who Wins?
The big trial begind monday. Barry Dahl expresses the concern, "This case will be decided by people who have no idea what they are doing." That may be. But considering that the original patents were approved by experts, and that armies of expert lawyers and lawmakers have put us into the situation we find ourselves today and who continue to make bad decisions,, I would hardly say that bad decisions are the exclusive domain of people who have no idea what they're doing. Barry Dahl, Desire2Blog February 8, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Desire2Learn, Patents, Copyrights, Blackboard Inc., Patents] [Comment]

Syndication Is for Suckers
Brian Lamb struggles with the agony of aggregation as he ponders how to set up student feeds for easy reading. I'm sympathetic - much of the work I've done with Edu_RSS has had to to with caching and otherwise optimizing feed aggregation - the idea that you can just write some aggregator code and have it read an parse an indefinite number of feeds is quaint, but false. Brian writes, "Maybe Stephen Downes's impending release of Edu_RSS will do the trick" - just so you know, I'm doing my best on that, but the bureaucracy moves ponderously slow. Don't miss the many good comments added to this post. Brian Lamb, abject learning February 8, 2008 [Link] [Tags: RSS, Edu_RSS] [Comment]

Miller'S Kill All the School Boards - Just a Provocative Title?
I linked last week to Matt Miller's article in The Atlantic, First, Kill All the School Boards. This post from the Open Education weblog argues that it is centralized control, not localized control, that has been the cause of decline of education. Thomas J. Hanson, Open Education February 8, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Schools, Web Logs] [Comment]

Students Plan Virtual Rescue
Another example of real learning: students travel to the island to simulate a rescue plan for Montserrat volcano survivors. "As the students get comfortable in their roles, the one thing I notice is there is a lot more collaboration as they depend on themselves rather than the adults," she said. "They get into it so much that they are worried about these people and are happy when they find out how many people they evacuated safely." Josh Duke, Indianapolis Star February 8, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Adult Learning] [Comment]

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