Key Case in Future of School Choice
The United States Supreme Court will hear a case tomorrow concerning an issue that is dividing educators: the question of school vouchers. Spurred by the institution of a voucher system in Cleveland, the court will hear arguments to the effect that vouchers promote school choice, and thereby, better schools. More...

Supreme Court to Hear Digital Copyright Case
The question the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Tuesday: support the extensions to copyright recently passed by the U.S. Congress (to 70 years after the death of the author) or toss aside the extensions, thereby saving thousands of books from the 1930s that are disappearing because the publishers can't make any money selling them. More...

I Stand Corrected: Reading 4,934 Pages of Franzen as an E-Book
OK, a book that runs 4,934 pages may seem a bit daunting... until you are told that's an e-book being read on a Palm Pilot. A miserable experience, right? Not so, according to this author. More...

Empathic Instructional Design

Though it has some bumps and appears at first glance to be a little estoteric, this is a good article stressing the need to learn what people actually need to know before designing training for them. More...

A Software Development Process for a Team of One
What I like about this article is the way it demonstrates the thinking behind the planning and implementation of a small (one week, one person) development project. What I don't like about it is the way that it reminds me how slack so much of my own software development work is. More...

Technology Timeline

I read from time to time that nobody can really predict the future of technology. But while unexpected developments can and do occur, most of the big milestones can be identified and predicted. More...

Wal-Mart Trumps Moore's Law
OK, it's not exactly how I would make the point, but it's a point that needs to be made again and again - or so it seems - when talking with educators. It doesn't matter how much dazzle there is in your delivery if you price it out of reach of the WalMart generation. More...

Creating a Culture of Learning
With a title that promises oh so much more than this article delivers, the answer (it seems) to disappointed online learners is to (1) show them your best razzle-dazzle, (2) give them a paper-based manual, and (3) employ blended learning. More...

The Global Information Technology Report 2001-2002, Chapter 4: Ten Lessons for ICT and Education in the Developing World
Based largely on experiences with the World Bank's World Links project (use this link; the document contains the wrong URL) the author outlines ten 'lessons' for online learning in the developing world. Some are common sense - technical support, wireless access, community support. But some are no. More...

The Global Information Technology Report 2001-2002, Chapter 3. Rethinking Learning in the Digital Age
Nothing important is done in the field of online learning outside MIT's Media Lab. That, at least, is how this chapter reads. The chapter begins with the idea that learning is not merely information acquisition (aren't you glad you have MIT to tell you this?) and suggests that most people compare online learning with viewing the television. More...