By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. eLearn Magazine
elearn magazine has launched a new look, with an RSS feed, sections and comments. The text-sizing is a bit funky, at least in Firefox. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Digesting Alt-I-Lab 2005
Summary of the plenary sessions at the recent Alt-I-Lab conference. Written with a bit of scepticism, the article describes the delegates' intent to resolve intellectual property issue and to look more closely at portfolios and personalization". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Can Video Long Tail Boost Learning And Educational Opportunities?
When we look back, we will say that the turning point was Live 8. No, not for African development; there's much more to be done yet. No, it was the turning point for online video - the live AOL coverage was widely touted as vastly superior to MTV's lacklustre effort and the concerts continue to be available online for download (something that will only enhance DVD sales). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Distance Education Course Taxonomy
I'm not sure whether it's possible to devote a whole blog to distance education course taxonomy. Then again, taxonomy forms the bulk of a lot of writing in the field. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Best of Australian Flexible Learning Community
Kudos to Rose Grozdanic who, over the course of the last few months, has pulled together this archive of the materials from the Australian Flexible Learning Community, which operated between 2001 and 2004. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Turning Wikipedia into an Asset for Schools
Some people think that potential inaccuracies in Wikipedia disqualify it for use in the classroom. Andy Carvin, though, argues that its flaws may be an asset. "When you go to Wikipedia, some entries are better referenced than others. That's just a basic fact. Some entries will have a scrupulous list of sources cited and a detailed talk page on which Wikipedians debate the accuracy of information presented in order to improve it. Others, though, will have no sources cited and no active talk pages". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. News Flash! MERLOT Peer Reviews 8 Year Old Project
The headline exaggerates a bit - the project has only been in the queue for three years. Nonetheless, I think the point is made: "It does make me wonder about the scalability of the oft-desired structured review process of learning content." I've argued for a long time that it is not scalable. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Learning Development Cycle: Bridging Learning Design and Modern Knowledge Needs
George Siemens weighs in with another significant paper. Starting with the premise, established elsewhere, that "learning today has moved beyond courses," he outlines a model of four distinct learning domains: accretion, transmission, acquisition and emergence. Each demands a different sort of learning (not 'instructional design') and Siemens accordingly offers a learning development cycle that takes this into account. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Workflow and Web Services
Just to keep you up in the rapidly changing world of e-learning frameworks, JISC and DEST have agreed to collaborate, the major result being (naturally) a name change - the E-Learning Framework is now joined by (replaced by?) the The e-Framework for Education and Research - and a new website. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Politics of E-Learning Standardization
Draft discussion of the role of standardization in e-learning. The authors explore the idea of "the function of standards as an instrument of justice" and in particular the nature of standards as understood by Actor Network Theory - that is, the idea that standards are not merely technnological black boxes but rather embody a host of social and cultural considerations. More...