By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Rob Reynolds[Edit][Delete]: Five Laws of Product Development for Education in the 21st Century, XplanaZine [Edit][Delete]XPlanaZine [Edit][Delete]Xplanazine [Edit][Delete] February 13, 2006
Some principles (it's a bit much to call them laws) that sound good but still reflect an 'us delivering to them' mentality. I'd be more interested to know how 'products' (if you will) can empower students to teach themselves. I am sympathetic with the tone Christopher D. Sessums' commentary. Stop thinking in universal principles or laws. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Marc Canter[Edit][Delete]: Ruckus is Now - Free, February 13, 2006
Well isn't this interesting. According to this report, Ruckus - the music downloading network marketed to university campuses at $3 per month per student - is now free. Marc Canter observes, "I guess the record labels and publishers feel that this money is free money - and that these kids would just go steal the music anyway." Well, that or listen to it for free on the radio, like they've always done. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors[Edit][Delete]: Site@School, Sourceforge [Edit][Delete]SourceForge [Edit][Delete] February 13, 2006
From the school-discuss mailing list: "Site@School is a Content Management System (CMS) to manage and maintain the website of a primary school. It is Open Source Software, licensed under the General Public license." Manage a website without technical knowledge using Word-like editors. Students and teachers can have personal pages on the website. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Alan Levine[Edit][Delete]: If I Had More Time..., Cogdogblog [Edit][Delete]CogDogBlog [Edit][Delete] February 27, 2006
Alan Levine's timing today wasn't a whole lot worse than mine, and like me he has a nice audio recording to show for his efforts, a Podcasting, Schmodcasting demo at GateWay Community College. Oh, and his MP3 files are bigger than mine. Heh. More links and plans for the talk. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Joseph Hart[Edit][Delete]: Rick Reis's Tomorrow's Professor Blog, EduResources [Edit][Delete] February 27, 2006
Rick Reis's Tomorrow's Professor newsletter has been running for years now - it's very popular and often a great read, but the website was so badly (and so mysteriously) updated it was impossible to pass the contents along. But Reis has finally adopted today's technology and launched his newsletter as a blog. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. From EduBlogs to the Collective Consciousness
I'm at the ASTE conference in Anchorage, Alaska, where I conducted an all day seminar yesterday (the "Director's Cut") and a keynote address this morning. For the seminar I created a Jot wiki. Here are the PowerPoint slides from the keynote. I also have audio from the seminar - Part One, Part Two, each about 18 megabytes. And audio from the keynote, about 9 megabytes.[Tags: Podcasting] [Comment]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors[Edit][Delete]: Odeo, February 28, 2006
I have mentioned Odeo before, as a place to create podcasts. Ruth Vilmi also writes, on ITForum, "Other useful and simple to use programs are Podomatic. This is very easy to use for online recording, and there are ways to improve the quality. Then there is BubbleShare where you can give a running commentary (photocast) of your picture shows! Some have free demos, and some remain free for the moment. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors[Edit][Delete]: iEARN, February 28, 2006
iEARN - the International Education and Resource Network - is "the world's largest non-profit global network that enables teachers and young people to use the Internet and other new technologies to collaborate on projects that both enhance learning and make a difference in the world. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Tony Karrer[Edit][Delete]: Does eLearning 2.0 Make a Difference?, eLearning Technology [Edit][Delete] February 28, 2006
It's interesting to note that the people at the Brandon Hall discussion area have picked up on the e-learning 2.0 theme. Some good discussion summary in this article, highlighting, for example, the emplasis in 2.0 on ease of creation, seamless integration (or better: connection), fine-grained tools, dynamic composition and content, and software as services. Now of course the whole idea of 2.0 is beginning to morph as vendors take interest. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Pieter Boeder and Mirjam Struppek[Edit][Delete]: Urban Screens: Discovering the Potential of Outdoor Screens for Urban Society, First Monday [Edit][Delete] February 9, 2006
I remember Derrick de Kerckhove talking about urban screens - "interactive, dynamic digital information displays in urban environments" - a few years ago at a conference in Edmonton. It was one of those gee-whiz presedntations full of hope but with no discernable impact. But I'm not surprised to see the concept emerge again; it's too alluring to let go. But I think urban screens should be more personal. I have proposed repeatedly that we try something like that at NRC - ambient wall-screens connecting offices between cities (after all, we're on CA*Net 4, so we have the bandwidth). Because the idea is to connect people, not cities (and certainly not propaganda). More...