5 juillet 2019

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Unattributed[Edit][Delete]: Relational Database Normalisation Process, databasedev.co.uk [Edit][Delete] July 17, 2006
In some senses, the Semantic Web is like a big distributed database. This applies equally well to less formal instances, such as the RSS network. As such, there are basic, well-known, principles for its design. One set of these falls under the heading of 'normalization'. The idea of normalization is that you don't needlessly duplicate data entries. That's why I wince every time I see an author name entered into an element as a string instead of as a reference (or link) to an author record. This article explains database normalization and offers some examples. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Alan Levine[Edit][Delete]: Rendering RSS inside Media Wiki, Cogdogblog [Edit][Delete]CogDogBlog [Edit][Delete] July 17, 2006

This idea has been around for a while, but has often been difficult to implement. Don't know why, it just has. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Mark Oehlert[Edit][Delete]: Continuing to Play Around With Webtops, E-Clippings [Edit][Delete] July 17, 2006
I think Mark Oehlert has a point here when he says they are the interface of the future, and not only because webtops are so similar to the old Netscape Netcenters. No, rather, it's because what we are seeing in the commercial products - 30Boxes, PageFlakes, ProtoPage, Goowy - is remarkably similar to what we are seeing (in concept, at least) in personal learning environments. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Miles Berry[Edit][Delete]: Elgg and Blogging in Primary Education, July 17, 2006

Short and fairly basic article about using ELGG to have students create profiles, blog, and comment on each others' entries. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Helen Barrett[Edit][Delete]: WebCT Conference, E-Portfolios for Learning [Edit][Delete] July 17, 2006
Helen Barrett offers her reflections on WebCT's new approach to e-portfolios and (more importantly, in my view) links to the latest version of her ongoing e-Portfolio slide show. The presentation covers a lot of ground, of which I think the section on 'reflection' (near the end) is the most useful. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Wade Roush[Edit][Delete]: Marvin Minsky on Common Sense and Computers That Emote, Technology Review [Edit][Delete] July 17, 2006
Marvin Minsky gets at what is in my view the core problem with most mechanistic (and virtually all rule-based) theories of learning: " the kinds of AI projects that have been happening for the last 30 or 40 years have had almost no reflective thinking at all." Right. You can practice all you want, but if there is no means to allow this to actually change your understanding, the practice is of no use. But what does 'reflection' amount to in a rule-based system? Especially one where rules are 'innate' or hard-wired in the mind? If you are told what to do, or told what is true, where is the mechanism for changing this. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jeremy Hiebert[Edit][Delete]: Jere Brophy, HeadsPaceJ [Edit][Delete] July 17, 2006
As Jeremy Hiebert writes, "most educational research on motivation implies coersion -- basically trying to answer the question: 'how do we get people to do something they otherwise would not?'" This is because, as Jere Brophy states, "Schools are established for the benefit of students, but from students' point of view, time spent in the classroom is devoted to enforced attempts to meet externally imposed demands." But what would students learn if simply left to their own devices. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. David Maister[Edit][Delete]: Why (Most) Training is Useless, July 17, 2006
I'm going to modify the presentation (which is overly business centric) to allow the author to make the point more generally: "Bringing about change is immensely difficult. It requires that managers schools address questions in four key areas:

• Systems: Does the company society actually monitor, encourage, and reward this (new) behavior knowledge?
• Attitude: Do people want to do this? Do they buy in to its importance?"

He concludes, "that's what I focus on - primarily trying to get people excited about the topic, so they will leave the session school actively seeking out the new learning for themselves. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Kathleen Fitzpatrick[Edit][Delete]: Introducing MediaCommons, Institute for the Future of the Book [Edit][Delete] July 17, 2006
"We imagine MediaCommons as a wide-ranging network with a relatively static point of entry that brings the participant into the MediaCommons community and makes apparent the wealth of different resources at his or her disposal." The commen ts are supportive, which is niced, but I would ask along with cel4145, "Installing and configuring a content management system website is the easy part. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Miles Berry[Edit][Delete]: Becta/Futurelab Innovation Workshop, July 17, 2006
Miles Berry blogs the recent Becta/Futurelab Innovation Workshop (Day One, Day Two). The best bit is the shared vision distillede from the first day by facilitation team: "To create an ecosystem and processes, fuelled by the ever changing needs and ideas of all learners, nurtured by the people that support them and delivered to help individuals achieve their full potential". More...