Ebooks Ready for Take-off as Sales Accelerate
As sales have nudged up slightly, a print publication (with, we observe, a vested interest) has once again touted the coming wave of ebook readers. It's an easier call to make today - witness the success of the iPod as a music-specific device. But with prices still hovering around ten dollars for a title and with the content locked down, we're not there yet. More...

Driving Higher Ed Institutions to an Enterprise Approach
The message in a nutshell: "Adopting an enterprise approach to e-learning results in systems and processes that are powerful, reliable, and, most of all, flexible enough to support all stakeholders and provide benefits across the institution." The author outlines signs that your institution is ready to move to an enterprise system, describes the major changes such a move entails, and offers practical steps toward moving in that direction. More...

In a Flash, the Latest Fashion in Computing
It occurs to me that I mentioned flash memory in passing yesterday without really saying what it was. Fortunately, Bonnie Bracey sent this link to WWWEDU today providing an overview. More...

Forecast: Song Costs May Fall Like Rain
See, it's not just me. As NewsScan Daily summarizes it, "The music industry is fighting a losing battle, says Newsweek columnist Steven Levy, who says the RIAA's legal tactics make about as much sense as trying to sue a hurricane." Yup.
And the music industry's problems may just be beginning. In this Wall Street Journal article (normally subscription, but Google cached a daily freebie) we read about a CD of free (and freely sharable) music being released by Wired. More...

More Australia Photos
In the usual location (I won't be able to create proper galleries until I get home) are many new photos from Darwin, Alice Springs and Uluru, in Australia. I'm in Adelaide now, where it's cool and rainy - just like it was in the Australian Outback. Go figure. The new colour scheme is based on my outback experiences; the masthead is a composite of various Aboriginal cave paintings I photographed. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, September 28, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...

My Birthday Red Egg to Her Birthday Party
Commentary on my talk in Adelaide. In the title item, Albert Ip illuminates my four ways the e-learning industry is wrong with a story of his own about eggs and birthdays. Scor Aldred launches a new blog into the world and links to his own presentation on blogs and wikis. More...

Newsflash! Technologies Can Support Online Collaboration!
The audio isn't ready yet, and there were no PowerPoint slides, but my afternoon workshop in Adelaide need not reamin a mystery any longer thanks to this content map Marty Cielens captured of the discussion. Today's newsletter comes to you from Strahan, Tasmania, Australia. More...

Designing Blogs for Education
It's written entirely in point form and readers must unfortunately deduce the links to look at the examples, but this presentation on the educational use of blogs is a fascinating exploration. See especially the sections on 'what is an education blog', 'issues', and 'features of my education blog'. More...

Learning Object Production and Implementation: UT Telecampus
The article appears to have an editing malfunction near the beginning, but stick with it as the people interviewed - Jennifer Rees and Michael Anderson of the University of Texas - offer some good insites on the practicalities of implementing learning objects learned during the course of a large scale course development project using learning objects. More...

The Future of Online Learning and Knowledge Networks
Slides from my presentation at education.au in Adelaide today (yesterday?). I outline the 'consensus view' (or perhaps, the 'orthodox view') of learning objects, repositories and federated search, outline why I think this view misreads the marketplace, technology, business models and convergence on the internet, and outline my own distributed search and management proposal. I have something like five hours of audio from yesterday; it too will be available in the future. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, September 29, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...