eBusiness in Education: Case Studies on the Effective Use of Electronic Business in the Education Sector
From time to time I suggest in this newsletter that there is a link between e-business and e-learning. Not that anybody doubts that, I suppose, but the connection between the two is drawn in rigorous detail in this comprehensive report on the use of e-business practices by leading educational institutions in Australia and around the world. More...

The ASTD E-Learning Handbook

Jay Cross trolled this nifty little site in support of Allison Rossett's ASTD eLearning Handbook. Looks like a Jeopardy game (no questions, though, just answers - which is what I suppose people want). More...

What Will it Take for E-learning to Reach Potential Market Size?

Heh. This little list is exactly what e-learning vendors are not doing. What will it take. More...

SyncStream 1.3
Seton Hall University is distributing free software that helps faculty produce multimedia presentations. Called SyncStream, the software allows users to synchronize an online slide show with a RealVideo streaming video format. More...

Online Training in an Online World
You will want to have a look at this report - or the detailed executive summary, at least - because the survey itself is quite good and the results reveal trends within the online learning industry. I would not offer all of my support for the fifteen recommendations at the end, but only because they are vague, not misdirected. More...

Get Rid of SAT, Similar Tests

Fallout from the suggestion that the College Board vevise the U.S. based SAT I test includes the suggestion that the apptitude tests be scrapped altogether. More...

The "No Significant Difference" Phenomenon: A Literature Review
The 'No significant difference' phenomenon, catalogued through dozens of research studies over the years, is the observation that distance or online learning is at least as good as (if not better) than traditional in-class teaching. This article, though, is a thorough review of the oft-cited studies. More...

Philosopher's Critique of Online Learning Cites Existentialists (Mostly Dead)
I missed this one when it came out. Just as well (speaking as a philospher). The cynicism aside, the article does a good job of placing Dreyfus's critiques of online learning into the wider context of Dreyfus's thought generally: "Dreyfus also draws on 20th-century existentialists such as Martin Heidegger and especially Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who argues that the body plays a crucial role in all elements of life, from perception to politics. Without physical bodies, people can attain only intellectual competence in skills." This is the gist of Dreyfus's criticism of artificial intelligence generally, but I believe it is misplaced, not because the knowledge Dreyfus talks about can be acquired by cognition alone (I am not (and never will be) a rationalist), but because we need to think of of the computer and computer networks in an important sense as an extension of the body. More...

Howling Mad Over Hollings' Bill
More on new copyright legislation being proposed to the U.S. government. This is a useful sketch because it details the impact of the legislation on the average user (so it's not some abstract debate about litigation between faceless corporations). More...

International Project: Virtual Novels
From the website: "Students and teachers from more than 30 different countries play virtual characters. Once a month, they interact by writing stories and sending pictures to the France Telecom Education web site. More...