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OLDaily

OLDaily is currently being produced by Barry Dahl, Harold Jarche, and Gary Woodill.

by Stephen Downes
June 24, 2008

New Research Lifts Lid On "Highly Misleading" USPTO Re-Examination Stats
I received a link to this post over a month ago and then promptly forgot about it. While catching up on some reading today I realized that this info is potentially very important regarding the Desire2Learn v. Blackboard debacle currently in progress. There are some pretty sad stats related to Inter Parties reexams at the USPTO, such as A) "Despite a mandate for "special dispatch", the time required to complete an inter partes re-examination is much longer than commonly believed. B) Without appeal, the average pendency period for inter partes re-exam is 43.5 months, much longer than the 28.5 months reported by the USPTO, C) Although no inter partes re-exam has ever been completed after being appealed, the average pendency for appealed inter partes reexams is 78.4 months." Wow, doesn't that just fill you with optimism about the future of the D2L-BB battle? -BD Joff Wild, Intellectual Asset Management Magazine, June 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Desire2Learn, Blackboard Inc.] [Comment]

Blackboard's Contempt(Ible) Comments
Desire2Learn posted their replies to numerous questions that they've received about Blackboard's Motion for Contempt and Blackboard's Chief Legal Officer Matthew Small's public and private comments about the motion. Suffice it to say that this is getting uglier with each passing event/motion/response/etc. -BD Desire2Learn, Desire2Learn Patent Info Blog, June 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Desire2Learn, Blackboard Inc.] [Comment]

A Conversation with Jean-Claude Bradley About Open Notebook Science and the Educational Uses of Second Life
One of the many stories about Einstein is that one year a group of students complained to him that he had given the exact same exam questions as the previous year. "Yes," he replied, "But this year the answers are different..." I thought of this story while reading Jon Udell's post about "open notebook science" using blogs and wikis, and the educational philosophy of Jean-Claude Bradley of Drexel University. Prof. Bradley has little use for the classroom, prefering one to one interaction with students, and virtual worlds for group discussion. Having been in the academic world for much of my career, I know that this is radical stuff. -GW Jon Udell, Strategies for Internet Citizens, June 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Second Life, Books, Academia, Interaction, Web Logs] [Comment]

Create An Online Interactive Multimedia Magazine From Any Document With Calameo
This tool looks very useful in improving the publication of online magazines. One of my pet peeves is that we don't pay enough attention to the design of online materials, and that good design makes a difference in reader acceptance of what we all publish. The basic version of Calameo is free, and the Pro version doesn't cost very much (190 Euros per year). I'm going to have a closer look at this. -GW Robin Good, Robin Good Blog, June 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Books] [Comment]

The Education Grid On Sun Wonderland Opened
My colleague Tom Werner, who keeps close tabs on educational uses of immersive environments such as Second Life, has a post on a new open source initiative called The Education Grid. It is unusual in that the environment is hosted across the servers of four organizations, and is open for development in both education and business. It remains to be seen if this new immersive environment breaks the hegemony of Second Life. -GW Tom Werner, Brandon Hall Research Blog, June 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Second Life, Open Source] [Comment]

Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
Interesting article on the effects of Internet use on the brain. I don't believe that the Internet is making us stupid - that's just hyperbole to sell magazines - but I do think that it is having an impact on how we learn, think and express ourselves. I know that my writing style has changed into short chunky bits rather than long essays, just like these posts in OLDaily. But the Internet is not the only factor here. Our speeded up lives almost requires us to skim read and try to make sense of huge amounts of information in a short period of time. It is a real luxury to be able to sit an read a deep book for a day or two. -GW Nicholas Carr, Atlantic, Julu/August 2008, June 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Books, Google] [Comment]

What Is the Question to Which Hierarchy Is the Answer?
Mark Federman refers to a move by several German towns to remove all traffic signals, forcing motorists and pedestrians to co-exist and negotiate each interaction without a higher authority. The result is a more civilized shared space. Mark then states that "By giving up the presumed need to control, and focusing more on living, meeting (especially of minds), and truly communicating, the questions for which bureaucracy, administrative control, and hierarchy are the answers may lend themselves to far more interesting approaches." Couldn't this approach work in learning environments as well? Mark Federman, What is the (Next) Message?, June 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Interaction] [Comment]

Social Media and Action Research
Christopher Sessums advocates an action learning approach for the use of social media, or let the learners do the research. "... it is my belief that school curricula need to be re-written to allow learners and educators to become researchers of, as well as producers of knowledge and information, and not just consumers thereof." This is not a new theme on the Web but one that makes more and more sense. It also reinforces the idea that in order to teach about social media one must use them. -HJ Christopher Sessums, Christopher D. Sessums :: Blog, June 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Schools, Action Learning, Research] [Comment]

Replace That US History Textbook
Clay Burell asks, "Can somebody remind me why, with free online resources like this, schools are spending tens of thousands of dollars on short-shelf-life textbooks, often dumbed-down and intellectually neutered (or worse, downright propagandistic) due to the textbook industry's fear of alienating their biggest markets in conservative Texas and California?" He is referring to the Biography of America series, a 26 part media-rich online resource sponsored by WGBS-PBS. Clay has recently followed the direction of his blog title and just "left schooling". -HJ Clay Burell, Beyond School, June 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Schools, Patents, Books, Web Logs] [Comment]

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