By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Yesterday's Tomorrows: Notes On Ubiquitous Computing's Dominant Vision
An interesting argument that I don't think can really be sustained but which is nonetheless certainly worth a look. According to the author, references to ubiquitous computing are focused on a certain vision of 'tomorrow', suggesting that it is not yet here. But it is here, he writes, it's just not evenly distributed (how original *sigh*). The city-state of Singapore, he writes, is fully wired, as is, arguably, the Republic of Korea. What these examples tell us is that the tomorrow-land of ubiquitous computing is not some seamless fully interoperable utopia, but a messy infrastructure of hacks and kludges; he writes about the auto maintenance system in Ghana as an example. While his argument stands against a certain version of ubiquitous computing - the pristine Semantic Web oft-criticized in these pages. But for the rest of us, the idea of 'more evenly distributed' (messy or otherwise) is at the heart of ubiquitous computing - indeed, there's not much point to it otherwise. Found on Dourish's website (do look, lots of stuff here) - no blog or RSS (tsk!) so its discovery was accidental. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Social Networking for Kids - Young Kids
It's pretty easy to miss these services targeted at young kids because we are outside the marketing window. But Will Richardson notes that both Nickelodeon and Disney are entering the social networking market, aiming their services at young children, joining established players such as Neopets and Club Penguin. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Open Educational Resources: Overcoming the Obstacles
This is a good discussion of the OECD/CERI Open Educational Resources (OER) discussion, I would say, though the objections I had at the time persist - there's too much of an institutional focus, too much of a sense of things produced 'by us' 'for them'. Paul Stacey's five-sided model, for example, doesn't even contemplate non-institutional production methods. That's why we continue to see an over-emphasis on licensing and business models, and no emphasis whatsoever on sharing and co-production. Similarly, the chart of 'policy issues' talks a lot about managing people and resources, and doesn't contemplate the eventuality that they might manage themselves. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. No More Pencils, No Print Books, No More Analog Backward Looks
I linked to this one just to be able to run the headline. Lauding mobile learning, Judy Breck writes, "If you are more the tempest type, you can join Todd Richmond in saying: the educational sector will be dragged into the future kicking and screaming by the next perfect storm." Or as Howard Rheingold says, "The tools for cultural production and distribution are now in the pockets of 14 year olds". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Thinking Like an Engineer
"Can games actually develop creative thinking and foster innovation?" asks Gina Svarovsky. "Yes. The data is in and this one does." She describes research work involving the game Digital Zoo and adds, "it turns out that, yes, by playing as engineers they learn to think about problems the way engineers do". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jerry Springer U.
This is pretty wild. A male student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill decides to break up with his girlfriend and invites her to 'The Pit', a meeting place on campus, for a "Valentine's day Surprise". Nothing unusual in that, but this guy advertised it on Facebook, and as many as 1,000 people showed up to record the breakup on video and hurl abuse at her. This article is a good account of the event and the phenomenon of online-initiated abuse in general, good because it doesn't automatically blame the internet but rather prompts us to ask what would make people think such behaviour is acceptable in the first place. More...