By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. South African National Curriculum Wiki
Will Richardson reports on this remarkable wiki, a website containing pages for each subject area in each class for the South African grades 10-12 curriculum. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Development of Socialization in an On-line Learning Environment
What I like about this item is that it is an application of Gilly Salmon's five stage model of moderation. The context of this application is a set of e-moderator courses designed to train on-line tutors. According to the study, if Stage 1 of the model - "access and motivation" - is effectively designed and facilitated, then socialization follows. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Overcoming the Biggest Barrier to Student Success
According to the abstract, "life interruptions are common for students and that more fixed seat time in courses increases the probability of student failure. Redesigning course schedules is critical to increasing student success." Reasonably short PowerPoint presentation that makes the case. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. In Praise of Sharing
The author argues, "we should reject the notion that we, or our institutions, own ideas. Even though much of what we do can be made to fit an ownership model, this is the wrong model for the long haul." Moreover, "we should resist the temptation to think about our endeavors in commercial terms." And we should reward sharing. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Now Grading Your Student Essay -- A Computer
There have been numerous articles and commentaries about this item. For myself, I consider it a trivial distraction. Not because I am opposed to the use of computers to grade essays - I'm not. Not because this program does it well - it doesn't. But because the use of computers to grade essays is old news and because the use of any instrument (up to and including blind mice) to grade essays would be about as fair and consistent as the current practice. More...