By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Stale State of Tagging?
People started tagging and got all excited by the idea, and then tagging became associated with certain brands, and then all of a sudden there were 140 different tagging engines, all of which were of course incompatible with each other. The article concludes with an outline of what 'enterprise' needs, which is exactly the wrong way to go, because what makes tagging work - when it works at all - is that it transcends boundaries - exactly what enterprise doesn't do. What we need is interoperability and portability. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Edublogs Blocked in China
OLDaily has not been blocked in China, to my knowledge, but it frequently sets off the filters in Australia, resulting in the email version being blocked from all of Queensland. Anyhow, Edublogs, the wonderful service offered by James Farmer, is blocked in China right now. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. OpenEd Week 1: Right to Education a Human Right?
If I could type better I would have offered my own thoughts on David Wiley's opening question in his Open Education course: "In your opinion, is the "right to education" a basic human right? Why or why not? In your opinion, is open *access* to free, high-quality educational opportunity sufficient, or is it necessary to *mandate* education through a certain age or level?" But my wrist is in a splint (and my knee is bruised and I have a black eye) as a result of a bicycle accident on Saturday. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Flavors of Open Access
Pretty light paper that sketches some definitions of 'open access', describes some paths to open access (somehow missing the now well-known 'green and gold' routes) and divides commentators into three schools: proponents, opponents, and observers. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. This Time Viacom Is Accused of Violating Copyright
You create a video and post it on your website. A big company - Viacom, say - copies your video without permission and uses it on a TV show. The big company then turns around and says your video violates copyright and must be taken down. Could it happen? Yes. In fact, it did. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Adding Arrows to Our Communications Quiver
I don't know why it is that if you add a Japanese name to something you get, almost automatically, a fad, but here it is again with Pecha Kucha. This post is pretty good discussion and extension of the idea (though I think that writing a book about it is a bit ridiculous). And I think that Wayne Hodgins captures the most important element - Pecha Kucha is a game, a silly game. It's fun. There's nothing inherently valuable about the rules - they could be (almost) anything. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Pedagogical Templates for E-Learning
Jane Hart links to this resource from the WLE Centre. "These 'pedagogical templates' are descriptions of models of how technology can be integrated into teaching and learning activities." I thought they were pretty basic - the most useful part of the document was the description of various 'pedagogical models in the literature' - and don't go beyond very simple blended and distance learning practices. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Innovate and Integrate: Embedding Innovative Practices Research
I sometimes despair of seeing innovation happen in the wider e-learning community and I sometimes try to simply forge ahead and let the community take care of itself. This report by Marie Jasinski explores the wider question, but one of her findings captures my dilemma nicely: "The skewed view of 'innovators' limits opportunities to embed innovative practice." Specifically, "Practitioners and managers nominated be their peers as 'innovators' tended to have one particular innovation style - Exploring." Anyhow, Jasinski looks at some case studies (Central Gippsland Institute of TAFE, Michael Coghlan and Carole McCulloch) to understand innovation in e-learning, and proposes a strategy for embedding innovation in vocational education and training (VET) by developing portfolios that include the four innovation styles: modifying, experimenting, visioning and exploring. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Plaxo Says Customers ARE in Charge of Their Data
I still remember the barrage of spam messages from Plaxo as the software urged me to send personal information to strangers who had me in their address books. So I'm a little bit sceptical of their new approach to social networking, trying to forge a single identity out of all those identities we have on our various social networks. "Plaxo helps you round up all that data you've been entering in your various social networks move it around as you wish." It's the 'open social graph' Brad Fitzpatrick and others have been writing about. Maybe. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Blog Day
So happy Blog day everyone, and in the tradition of Blog Day, five blogs that might not make my usual fare. Well, almost certainly would not, as I read them more for interest than for grist for this mill. Well, and maybe not blogs either, because I'm really bad at following rules:
- Edge - because this is the site that features the writings of Francisco Varela, a man who would be a blogger today - or at least, a regular read - if he were still around
- Ideant, by Ulises Ali Mejias. I've read a good part of his dissertation, Networked Proximity, and I'm pleased to say, I disagree with almost all of it. If I were Wittgenstein I would lecture him paragraph by paragraph about why he is wrong. But I'm me and I'm not sure what to do.
- Rabble - I send Rabble money to keep publishing because I think it performs an important service as a forum for alternative and progressive voices in Canadian society. When the police infiltrate the ranks of peaceful protests and incite riots by throwing rocks, we need someone to publish the other side and keep it real.
- Architectures of Control in Design - by Dan Lockton - currently displaying a blank screen; I hope it's back by the time you get to this. Everything I write is in one way or another about power and control (which has a lot to do with knowledge and perception). This blog not only offers a physical-world analogy, but also typifies the sort of thinking you need to be doing to see design from that different (and more important) perspective.
- Paleo-Future, by Matt. I have read a lot of science fiction over the years - thousands of books - and have seen futures come and go. This blog captures the 'futures that never were' and, on the way, the absolutely coolest things ever - like, for example, these wind powered robots (now I want to go out and make one). More...