By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Mike Klonsky[Edit][Delete]: Pay for Florida Teachers Based On a Single Test--Bad Idea, February 21, 2006
I think that half the problems (maybe more) in educational reform is that those doing research and those making policy really do not understand the principles of cause and effect - not in simple environments, and certainly not in complex environment. Which results in policy being driven by myth and urban legends, rather than anything based in reality. I mean, why don't we pay our decision-makers according to poll results, or the quality of life index? Or better yet, pay them whatever the poorest person in society makes. Oh yes, there's be a lot of sputtering about 'multiple factors' and 'indirect effects' then. Sheesh. Want to help education. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Tim Stahmer[Edit][Delete]: Web 2.0 Is Anti-American, Assorted Stuff [Edit][Delete] February 21, 2006
This came out a couple of days ago, but I cannot resist passing along the (somewhat odd) opinion that Web 2.0 is somehow anti-American. That it is communist. Web 2.0 "suggests that everyone - even the most poorly educated and inarticulate amongst us - can and should use digital media to express and realize themselves." Why, that would be communism. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jeremy Hiebert[Edit][Delete]: Personal Learning Environment Model, HeadsPaceJ [Edit][Delete] February 21, 2006
I don't think I've covered this (sorry if I have) and I don't want to risk it passing by without comment. In this item, Jeremy Hiebert revises his Personal Learning Environment (PLE) model. I'm not quite sure I'm there with it. I like the idea of trying to get at the function, rather than the type, of applications involved. But a lot seems missing. Where is personal identity? Where is community? I want to see 'who am I' and 'who do I know' as prominant in such a diagram. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. David Wiley[Edit][Delete]: As We May Interact?, Iterating Toward Openness [Edit][Delete]Iterating toward openness [Edit][Delete] February 21, 2006
David Wiley asks, of Web 2.0 tools, "With the number of users of these tools, and the others in each of these categories, why on earth would we create a new tool in any of these spaces? When critical mass is the single most important part of a network, why would we build another 'walled garden' collection of applications?" Quite right, and the world does not need another walled garden. But I still think we need to explore and understand better the nature of distributed applications. Tools like Flickr, Friendster and Technorati each try to become, if you will, a destination for people, to aggregate as many users as they can. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Saul J. Berman, Louisa A. Shipnuck and Niall Duffy[Edit][Delete]: The End of TV As We Know It: A Future Industry Perspective, IBM [Edit][Delete] February 20, 2006
A good report, with advice that applies equally well to learning. "Invest in divergent strategies and supply chains for bimodal consumer types... Innovate business and pricing models by creating - not resisting - wider consumer choice... Develop, trial, refine, roll-out". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jeff Rice[Edit][Delete]: Serious Bloggers, Inside Higher Ed [Edit][Delete] February 20, 2006
The author argues that we should respond to the criticisms of academic blogging by being less serious in our blogs. Hyuk yuk yuk yuk yuk. OK, that didn't work. He has some good points, like this: "Writing a blog under a pseudonym is usually an argument that the only safe way for an academic to write publicly is to write anonymously." Which is sad. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dave Cormier[Edit][Delete]: The Best Damn New Media Curriculum Evah! Plan, Ed Tech Talk Wiki [Edit][Delete] February 20, 2006
As the page (currently) explains, "This is a plan for a mass curriculum project. Dave is going to post his work as a starting point, but everyone else is free to take part or all of the curriculum and create their own version or strand. What we're hoping to get is not one curriculum, where we've all had to concede things that are important to us in order to find consensus, but MANY different curricula that are all better for having been made alongside the others." It's a neat idea, intended to coincide with a seminar he's giving. I might have let it develop without too much publicity (so as not to disrupt the seminar), but Harold Jarche has already outed it, and well, you can never have too many wiki writers". More...