MIT iCampus Outreach Initiative
This is a set of tools developed at MIT in collaboration with Microsoft. This site, just launched, "seeks to disseminate" the tools - it doesn't seek very hard, though, as you have to go through an email exchange with the MIT iCampus Outreach Director in order to even see them. More...

Techno tag team
The response has been overwhelming, but I'm not sure I'd like the job. This article describes a program at USC whereby tech support is offered by 'live-in' tech support people. More...

Intranet Trends to Watch For
Some good observations on the short-term future of corporate intranets, including the increasing role of lawyers (sheesh) and the return of intranets to departmental control. More...

Blocking Moodle
The people at Bath have been running the open source learning management system (LMS) Moodle through its paces. This article describes the addition of a 'block' on Moodle that can import an RSS feed. More...

Educhaos: Facilitating the Unpredictable!
This item arrived in my email yesterday morning via Rod Corbett's Best Practices in E-Learning Newsletter just in time for me to include the link in my presentation. More...

How Social Is Computer Supported Collaborative Learning?
I got this item in my email, and I thought I'd pass it along with my comments. The emailer writes: "If I take Intro Computing Science from ABC University, I do not care one bit about the 'social' aspect of it. If I want to learn Socialization 100 there are social science courses I can take." My response outlines the role of 'socialization' in computer science and learning. Short. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, September 4, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...

ITI: Stephen Downes Keynote
Today is a bit of a catch-up day as I recover from the intensive ITI conference in Utah. This item summarizes my presentation - my slides and an MP3 audio version will be available next week when I get FTP access to my server again. More...

A Solution to Plato's Problem: The Latent Semantic Analysis Theory of the Acquisition, Induction, and Representation of Knowledge
I don't really like the term latent semantic analysis but that's about the only thing I disagree with in this paper. To me, this is an important paper, a spectacular find (thanks to a comment posted on the Semantic Web mailing list). More...

Principles of Resource Sharing in Online Self-Organizing Social Systems
This very enjoyable presentation looked at informal learning, as exemplified in places like Yahoo Groups, from the perspective of self-organizing systems. What results is some very useful documentation of the fact that learning, a lot of learning, does occur in these groups, and that it is managed without a central authority or even a school. This article is a summary of the presentation by Erin Brewer at the ITI conference in Logan, Utah. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, September 2, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...

Obstacles in the Path of a Blogging Initiative
Light look at some of the obstacles faced as a fictional history professor decides to start a blogginitiative for his class. Summary of a presentation by Trey Martindale at ITI in Logan, Utah. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, September 2, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...