By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Tendrils of Learning - Draft Slides for Bogota Preso
It's hard to believe that it has only been a year since I first visited Colombia. Now Jay Cross and Nancy White are enjoying Bogota's hospitality. Christian Stracke, Tony Bates and Christopher Dede will also be there. I wish I were there! But at least I have - via the conference website - access to a live streaming video feed of the morning sessions. Diego Leal writes, "We will transmit the morning sessions through the Colombia Aprende educational portal. We will have an english video/audio signal available, so if you are interested in any of the subjects scheduled, please feel welcome to follow the online transmission. The streaming URL will be active on Wednesday. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Collaboration Tools and Web 2.0
I also have a video recording of this presentation, which I will be posting later. Presentation by Stephen Downes, Council of Ontario Universities, Online to Toronto, [Link]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. One Laptop Per Child, Reviewed by 12-Year-Old
Pretty good review. The author, a 12-year old with previous comoputer experience, puts the computers through its paces before writing. While satisfied with the programs and the usability, he complains that the computer is too slow and the battery doesn't last long enough. Don't skip the comments, as the (adult) readers alternate between being impressed by the review and not believing that a 12-year old wrote it. It's worth remarking (again) that children today spend their days reading and writing on the internet. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. DC-Education Application Profile
Dublin Core (DC) wiki page linked to the most recent draft of the DC-Ed Application Profile. "This draft gives an overview of the background and purpose of, and requirements for, the AP. It lists the metadata elements for inclusion in the AP, along with IEEE LOM correlations, and notes aiming to make a start on guidance for use of the elements involved." The authors are asking for feedback, but users can't edit the page, not even if they create a profile; development discussion is presented and discussed on the DC-Education discussion list on JISC Mail. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Fact-Testing On the Britannica Blog: Analyzing Internet Search Skills
In a recent Britannica Blog post contributor Gregory McNamee advised, "Trust not the first answer the search engine turns up." Not because the first result is usually an ad - I assume he meant the first reault after the ad. But because "it will usually be wrong or, if not outright wrong, not the answer you really need." This, of course, is nonsense - the first results are often useful. Search for me, for example. But McNamee adds, "too few students know even to go beyond the first couple of hits that come back from a Google search." Is this true? This article checks the facts - and it turns out that while most users (62 percent) don't look past the first page of results, the overwhelming majority (82 percent) attempt to refine their search - a rather sophisticated strategy, I would say. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Court Ruling Gives Novell Copyright in Unix System
Today's big news is a ruling against SCO in its ongoing lawsuit to obtain royalties for Linux, the open source operating system. According to the judge, the rights claimed by SCO are actually owned by Novell, and were only licensed to SCO. Groklaw triumphs, Court Rules: Court Rules: Novell owns the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights! Novell has right to waive! Well, maybe. But is better for Linux to be owned by Novell? Well, mostly - Novell has pretty clearly licensed the software as open source. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Fear
L3RN is a pretty nifty system for uploading and displaying audio and video educational content, based at Seattle Public Schools. This video tells you more. But it seems to be the subject of something else. Mark Ahlness writes, "The departure of the two people responsible for the development of L3RN last week has shocked and rocked me." So, what's the story here. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Group Membership and OpenID
Yes, this is a good idea. I can think of a number of ways passing group membership information (in a distributed environment) would be useful. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to join, say, the 'edubloggers' group without having to sign up on Ning, or Facebook, or whatever? I am meanwhile working on OpenID implementation for edu_RSS, but the installation of Crypt::dh stalls (at "t/01-dh... ok 15/18" if you're wondering) - ack, the worst part of Perl is Perl Modules. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. UK and Irish Schools Need to Educate, Not Ban, Now
Given the importance of social networking (and similar technologies) in schools (read more) it seems odd that a school ministry would ban them. But this is just the case in school boards now as administrators think that the students are up to no good. And they may be. But banning, rather than teaching, is rather like, well, this scene from Harry Potter. See also Ewan McIntosh's remarkable three part series on adopting social networking in schools. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Who Owns What: Media V2.0
If you wonder why so many Web 2.0 apps are, um, rather less open than they should be, it could be because of the concentration of ownership in the Web 2.0 space that tends toward walled gardens. This post nicely illustrates this trend with a chart (which, btw, is incomplete - as I don't see Flickr's name under 'Yahoo') of Web 2.0 owners and apps. More...