Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time
"Google, which runs the Web's premier search site, has purchased Pyra Labs, a San Francisco company that created some of the earliest technology for writing weblogs, the increasingly popular personal and opinion journals. More...

At the Online Library
Is this what we should be doing: "building large digital resources that require a keen understanding of complex licensing and copyright agreements with publishers?" This, in part, is the new role for libraries described in this article. More...

Learning Quotes Screensaver

I've had this screensaver running for the last couple of weeks and I'm still not tired of reading the more than 400 quotes that flash by. More...

IMS Open Technical Forum
Today's newsletter is significantly early because in about ten minutes I will be getting on a plane and flying to Vancouver for the IMS Open Technical Forum. Newsletters for the rest of the week will be late as I will be on Pacific time, four hours later than usual. More...

Netscape and Powered, Inc. Collaborate to Launch New Online Education Service
I don't really know what to make of this. A couple of weeks ago, Netscape was essentially dead. But here today we have Netscape lunching an online learning service. More...

Welcome to Murry Christensen
This is an interesting use of a blog - Mark Oehlert uses the comments area to conduct an interview with Murry Christensen, e-learning specialist for Goldman, Sachs & Co. The discussion ranges from William Gibson to the future to learning objectives, and more. Writes Christensen, "At a very simple level, the idea of "Learning Objectives" needs to be re-thought. More...

If I Wanted to Make Money in Elearning...
George Siemens offers this light look at potential business models in e-learning. Some of the ideas are better than others. I'm not sure how much money there is to be made creating a portal, for example. More...

Build It, But Will They Come?
This article looks at learning object development projects such as Merlot and MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) and asks whether the effort and expense is worthwhile. According to the author, the massive quantities of objects being made available have not been assessed and that efforts should instead be focussed on providing only those materials that have been shown through research to improve outcomes. More...

Elsevier proposes PRISM module for RSS 1.0
This is significant because of the source. "PRISM, Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata, defines a vocabulary for syndicating, aggregating, post-processing and multi-purposing magazine, news, catalog, book, and mainstream journal content." More...

Merlot RSS Feeds
I heard from several sources today and over the last few days - including people placed in Merlot and in a position to know - that Merlot will be launching RSS feeds "within a week or two". This link is to Merlot's current RSS page, though the feed displayed is the infamous "faux Merlot" feed, not the real thing. More...