No Cliché Left Behind: Why Education Policy is NOT Like the Movies
It's OK to criticize public policy, in my book. But when you say disparaging things about Star Trek, that's going too far! The supposed 'Star Trek' method is: "(1) set a goal; (2) tell subordinates—in this case, state and local education agencies—to “make it so”; (3) watch as they use powerful technologies to accomplish this goal; and (4) repeat as needed." Well, that would be a poor approach to educational planning, I agree. More...

The Learning Marketplace
Thanks to some generous contributions, my book is now available in PDF, Zipped HTML format, Postscript, and PDB for the Palm OS. Still no audio version. More...

Innovations in Online Learning: Moving Beyond No Significant Difference
Via Spartacus today comes a link to this longish presentation encouraging readers to think beyond the old paradigm (when the telegraph was introduced the Pony Express reposed by getting faster horses) and toward what is enabled with online learning, beginning with personalization. "As long as we continue to replicate traditional approaches online—and continue to treat all students as if they were the same—we will once again find the "no significant difference" phenomenon vis-à-vis quality, and we will make only a negligible dent in the access problem rather than taking full advantage of the networked environment." This is pretty much my position as well. More...

Defence Rolls Out E-learning Platform in Double Time
Deciding it couldn't wait, the Australian department of denfense converted its pilot program to a full fledged roll-out (albeit with some limitations in functionality). More...

World's Largest E-Learning Programme set to Benefit English Schools
Will English students soon begin talking with a Scottish burr? One wonders following this announcement that the Heriot-Watt SCHOLAR programme, currently used in all 432 Scottish secondary schools, will be deployed south of Hadrian's wall as well. SCHOLAR, according to this press release, "includes an extensive range of learning services such as staff development, tutor support and the creation of learning communities." It is also reported to have strong acceptance by both students and teachers. More...

Situated Software
Situated software, according to this article, "is designed for use by a specific social group, rather than for a generic set of 'users'." It can be contrasted with "web software", which is intended to serve very large user group. More...

Con-text? (An Inquiry)
According to this paper, people communicate online both verbally and non-verbally. "We will need to redefine not only our beliefs of what constitutes communication here, but also begin to assemble a new dictionary of online verbal and nonverbal communication codes, accents, cues and meaning." I am not completely happy with either theory used to frame this discussion, channel theory or process theory, but I do like the discussion, I like the whiteboard examples, and I suspect that as non-verbal authoring tools become easier to use we will see a lot more of this in online communication. More...

Five Key Privacy Principles
Brief article that outlines the core principles of privacy. The principles are: awareness, consent, participation, integrity, and enforcement. More...

Sensitize / Desensitize
Again, and let me stress, this is not a simple cause and effect relationship. It's not about killing monsters, and then going out and killing people. Rather, it is about shaping one's understanding of the world. More...

Learning Environmentalism
Seymour Papert: To save the schools, we have to break them. The current move toward standardization is a last gasp, "the last twitch of the dragon's tail" as the old system dies. More...