Self-archiving: Institutional Repositories
Something government funding agencies and foundations in other nations (including my own) should look at: the possibility of tying research funding to the provision of publications in an open access eprints archive. More...

Information and Communication Technology
Recommended on WWWEDU today was this resource offered by the Alberta government describing the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) curriculum in Alberta schools. More...

A Guide to Handheld Computing in K-12 Schools
Summary of a report on the use of handhelds in learning; the full report (which I haven't seen) is available for purchase. I know that some school divisions in Canada are planning pilot projects with handhelds. More...

Bundled Journals: From Big Deals to Fair Deals
Interesting presentation (in PowerPoint) from a pre-conference to LIBER's 2004 Annual General Confernce held in St Petersburg recently. The author surveys the impact of the practice of bundling by major journal publishers - this practice involves selling electronic access to a large number of journals for a single price, but typically requires a multi-year deal and restrictions against cancelling individual journals. More...

The Complete Guide to Isometric Pixel Art
I don't know whether you'll ever use this in your online course, but you might. This complete guide is a very nice exploration of a topic that doesn't get much coverage outside media design classes. More...

8 Tips for Administrators Using Handheld Computers
Pretty good article describing how school administrators can use handhelds with internet access to maximize their efficiency during or between meetings or while on duties that take them away from their desks. More...

New £12m Programme to Support Regional e-Learning Networks
Britain's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has announced a Distributed e-Learning programme that is intended to establish links between schools, colleges and universities to encourage progression into higher education. More...

Japanese Carrier Unveils Mobile-phone Wallet
Not what the headline suggests. The device is essentially a way to conduct wireless transactions - wave your phone at the scanner and the sale it deducted (accurately, one hopes) from your account. Fine. More...

Leicester E-Learning Conference
Kind of a neat analogy: "Terraforming the environment for sustainable e-learning life." We can talk about what counts as good e-learning by talking about what counts as good terraforming. More...

"Emergent Learning" Is an Oxymoron
This point is fundamentally correct (and should be closely read by people talking about social learning): "Almost by definition, if you have the kind of self- and group-awareness that is usually entailed when we use the word 'learning', you can’t have emergence. You can say that a colony of ants 'learns' what the best foraging strategy is, but it is the colony as a whole that 'learns,' not the individuals." And I like his take on the intuitive difficulty behind emergence. More...