By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Scott Jaschik: Outsourced Grading, Inside Higher Ed September 22, 2005

You can be sure academics will respond, as one commenter already has, that grading is an integral part of teaching. But there comes a point, as it did for me when I taught, when grading comes to be measured in vertical feet, and represents a burden, not an opportunity. Anyhow, this pilot, launched by Kentucky's community colleges this fall, may represent the thin edge of the wedg. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Andy Carvin: Online Communities: From BBSes to Blogs and Beyond, Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth September 22, 2005

Andy Carvin is offering a mix of blog posts and podcasts from the Scottish Learning festival, including talks by Marc Prensky and Robin Blake. I have thought of podcasting others' talks, in addition to my own, but issues of permission, quality and hosting have deterred me. How long before the conference podcast becomes standard and before people routinely start posting the audio of their talks on their own websites. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Julien Pain, et.al.: Handbook for Bloggers and Cyberdissidents, September 22, 2005

An outstanding work for activists, the Handbook for Bloggers and Cyberdissidents not only tells you what tools to use and how to blog well, it also tells you how to blog anonymously, route around censorship and to keep your email private. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Susan Walsh Veronikas and Michael F. Shaughnessy: The Quiet Crisis, University Business September 22, 2005

Interview with author Peter Smith, who offers his own analysis of the crisis in American education: it's the universities' fault. "The problem, he says, is not that millions of lower-income and minority students lack the capacity to learn, but that colleges and universities lack the capacity to educate". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Mitch Weisburgh: How International High School Students do in the US, PILOTed September 22, 2005

More commentary on the state of learning in the U.S. (it seems to be a theme these days). Mitch Weisburgh observes, "When my sisters and I were in high school, our family hosted kids from Sweden, France, and Chile. The students from these countries were not able to keep up with the honors classes at our high school and enrolled in easier classes. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors: SearchFox September 22, 2005

This application is still in beta (write to esteban@searchfox.com for access, indicating your preferred username). What it does is aggregate your RSS feeds (you can import your list of feeds using OPML (it's a bit hard to find - click on “Manage My World” in the “Resources” menu or click on the pencil next to “My World”). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Judy Baker: Span the Silos for Comprehensive Distance Education, EDUCAUSE Blogs September 21, 2005

The author taps into a common problem: departments that operate independently tend to remain insular, and staff within those departments remain unaware of the nature and work of the other department. The solution proposed - job shadowing, wherein an employee from one department shadows one from another department for a day or so - is less satisfactory. It takes too much time and is too disruptive, with too nebulous a gain, for most employees to contemplate. More...