I follow my links from time to time on Technorati and I am surprised to find many quality blogs that have received no attention; as Technorati says, "zero links from zero sources". This special issue is attempt to redress that imbalance, to highlight some worthwhile blogs that are worth reading and linking to.
By Stephen Downes
August 1, 2004. More...
Making Syndicated Resource Feeds Fit for Human Beings
There's a lot more that needs to be said along these lines, but let me say for now that Derek Morrison is on the right track when he talks about styling XML so it can be read in a browser. More...
How to Avoid the Pitfalls of LMS Implementations
The first and most important point to note about this article is that there are pitfalls to installing and deploying learning management systems (LMSs), and pretty serious ones too. If we look at the assessment of LMSs by people who have actually installed them, for example, the satisfaction rankings rate barely a pass (and a failure in some areas). More...
Maine Classroom Classifieds
What gave me the most pleasure about this item was sending it to the Online News mailing list, where members have been vigorously defending their policy of more restrictive access to newspaper websites (by the way, for those of you who went to the Globe and Mail site and found it easily accessible, note that the Globe policy of registration triggers only when you've visited the site several times. See here). More...
Constructivism Versus Objectivism: Implications for Interaction, Course Design, and Evaluation in Distance Education.
Good overview and introduction to the debate between constructivism and objectivism. Drawing from the description in this paper allows me to draw the distance between my own thought and constructivism. More...
Personalisation in Presentation Services
This study, commissioned by the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), concludes that "personalisation is effective and feasible in situations where data is controlled and where there is a clear rationale or business case." However, "It identifies several impediments to using personalisation with uncontrolled data, including immature technology and lack of metadata." The meat of the report is found in Section 6. More...
Alt-i-Lab
I have numerous comments about the material presented at this important conference, most of which I read last night, but the expression of these will have to wait until I can do them justice. In the meantime, this main link leads you to the IMS summary of the event. See also Raymond Yee's Wiki. Scott Leslie also provides numerous links. From the Alt-i-Lab Forum I would like to highlight especially Robby Robson's (unfortunately incomplete) discussion of digital rights as well as the White Paper Plenary Presentation. More...
Education Research in the Knowledge Society: Key Trends in Europe and North America
Useful and interesting report looking at trends worldwide in the development of research strategies in online learning and related subjects worldwide. Worth noting is the author's characterization of the very different systems employed in the different countries: the establishment of a national centre in the university system (U.S.), the establishment of a government research agency (France, Germany), and a decentralized pluralist system with no focal point (U.K., Sweden, Canada). More...
Child Psychology: Vygotsky's Conception of Psychological Development
Overview of Vytotsky's theory of development, with an explanation of why (and how) Vygotsky believes that higher order cognitive phenomena are of a different type from more instinctual phenomena. More...
Barbarian Inventions
I think there's a theme. There may be a theme. But don't spend time looking for one; it's not written that way. It's about newspaper registration, choice and cyberspace, unshaken hands and cellphones, Dreyfus, and why people seem intent on telling us what we should read and learn, how we should do so, and that we are, in effect, barbarians. More...
