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15 mai 2019

Don't Dumb Me Down

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Ben Goldacre: Don't Dumb Me Down, The Guardian September 13, 2005

The author characterizes three types of bad science writing in traditional media: wacky stories, scare stories and breakthrough stories. He should have added a fourth, in my view: commercial messages disguised as science stories. According to this article, the proliferation of bad scientific writing is a result of the resistance from descendents of the Romantic movement, people who feel "everything in science is tenuous, contradictory and, most ridiculously, 'hard to understand'." And it is these same people who are responsible for writing, editing and approving copy. More...

15 mai 2019

Saving Secondhand Bookstores

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Thomas H. Benton: Saving Secondhand Bookstores, Chronicle of Higher Education September 13, 2005

Another article from the Chronicle pining for archaic technology, this time in the form of the used bookstore, and ending with the absurd proposal that "an endowment could be created to provide vouchers -- $500 a semester, maybe -- for graduate students, and possibly undergraduates, to purchase secondhand books." Yeah, or they could buy a computer and tap into the Gutenberg Project, Wikipedia and the Internet Archive. More...

15 mai 2019

Web Site Link Checker

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Scott Crevier: Web Site Link Checker, EDUCAUSE Blogs September 13, 2005

This isn't really a news item, I'm just saving the link because I'll need it later to help someone out. More...

15 mai 2019

Details on Marquette's Participation in BSA's "Define the Line" Program

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Eric Goldman: Details on Marquette's Participation in BSA's "Define the Line" Program September 13, 2005

Define the Line is an anti file sharing initiative launched by commercial software companies; last spring they announced a campus initiative, which this item update. The title is a bit misleading; few additional details are available, save for news about the distribution of posters, brochures and handouts, and the discussion of copyright infringement at a Campus Safety seminar. More...

15 mai 2019

Five Points of Connectivity

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Sarah E. Smith and Anthony Potoczniak: Five Points of Connectivity, EDUCAUSE Review September 13, 2005

"By connectivity," write the authors, "we mean the students' and instructors' ability to engage with the course materials in novel ways using technology to enhance the learning process." Which is as odd a definition of 'connectivity' as I have ever seen. More...

15 mai 2019

Class Project: Free Wiki Textbook

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Matt Barton: Class Project: Free Wiki Textbook, Kairosnews September 13, 2005

I applaud what the author calls "a rather risky experiment" (I don't see it as risky at all), "a semester-long class project whose goal is to create a free wikitext for use as a first-year composition textbook." I see no reason why more classes couldn't create their own textbooks in this way, and moreover, why classes in different institutions couldn't collaborate in so doing. More...

15 mai 2019

Seymour Papert Articles & Video

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Daniel Rivera: Seymour Papert Articles & Video, SEGA Tech September 13, 2005

Links and summary to some of the best of Seymour Papert. I first encountered Papert via his work (with Marvin Minsky) on artificial intelligence. But, of course, he has followed this up with some "radical" ideas in education (I don't see them as that radical, personally). More...

15 mai 2019

Reaching the Blogosphere

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Reaching the Blogosphere

September 13, 2005 Once again, my audio failed me, and so I have only PowerPoint slides of today's talk (I have since discovered that Windows was blocking the audio driver for my sound card, in some insane supposition that it was a virus). The talk covered familiar ground for readers of OLDaily - the rise of the blogosphere, RSS, writing blogs that will be read, distributed representation and principles of successful networks - all in less than a half hour. More...

15 mai 2019

Information-Rich Classroom

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dave Warlick: Information-Rich Classroom, 2 cents Worth September 12, 2005

Why do people think that schools should fully equip students? Why, for example, do they think schools should provide computers, email, blog hosts, and the rest? It's not that I don't think students should have access to these things, but rather, that, that I think such things should be permanent and personal. More...

15 mai 2019

E-learning Networks

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors: E-learning Networks, EdNA September 12, 2005

As the website says, "Twenty e-learning networks have been funded under the Networks Project and are now up and running! The e-learning focus of these networks varies across client groups, areas of discipline, type of registered training organisations (RTOs) and a range of technologies." I haven't actually joined any of these networks, so I can't vouch for them. More...

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