11 septembre 2018

Learning Communities Catalyst
Australia's Learning Communities Catalyst launches today, offering an impressive array of case studies, research reports, tools and more directed toward the concept of building a learning community. More...

The Crisis in Canada’s School Libraries: The Case for Reform and Re-Investment
This report, released last June, has been making the rounds. The central premise is that there is a positive correlation between well-funded school libraries and greater student achievement. The implication, of course, is that libraries should receive more funding to buy more books and other resources. More...

e-Learning Forum Wiki
The e-learning Forum has a wiki. A wiki is a site like any other website, but is unique in that anyone may edit and add to the contents. This wiki appears to have been around for a few months but most activity has been in the last few weeks. More...

Webcasters Slap RIAA With Antitrust Suit
The antitrust laws may be a joke, but the Webcaster Alliance is at least making a point with its lawsuit against the RIAA. More...

City Hall Rally Protests Policy of Firing Uncertified Teachers
There is really a lot going here that doesn't add up. According to this article, New York has fired about 10,000 teachers over the last five years (though the a Department of Education spokesperson says the number was only 3,000). The teachers, previously uncertified, had failed teacher certification exams. More...

With E-mail Dying, RSS Offers Alternative
Written mostly from the point of view of the content provider, this column argues that as email dies (and it is, without a doubt, very ill indeed), providers should look at RSS as an alternative distribution channel. More...

Principles and Strategies for the Reform of Scholarly Communication
This document outlines a publication system "in crisis" due to rising prices and narrowing profit margins for publishers, then outlines a set of "principles supported" by the Association of College and Research Libraries, including "the broadest possible access to published research and other scholarly writings," "fair and reasonable prices for scholarly information," and several more. More...

Video Games in the Classroom?
A good, intelligent discussion of the (potential) use of games in education. The participants avoid stepping on cliches and approach the topic with sound fundamentals. Many useful nuggets. Like this: "Games can teach facts well and certainly could be used for this without much change in schools. But the real potential of games is to get people to think, value, and act in new ways. A game like Civilization can get the player to see that history could have happened in different ways..." Some of the questions show that people still don't get it, though. More...

Sipping Merlot's RSS Feeds
The story of the day is MERLOT's launch of its RSS feeds - 20 in all, featuring new and reviewed resources in nine different subject areas. But the highlight of the day is Alan Levine's scathing criticism of the feeds. More...

Voucher Worries Lead to Inquiry
Another problem for the voucher system (as if it needed more problems): money that disappears into the void. More...