By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Serious Games Discussion
Good summary of a discussion on the 'Serious Games' mailing list, and I like the way the conversation evolves. It begins with Clark Aldrich saying, "I am realizing that I don't have a good term for the 'interactive part' of a educational simulation/serious game" and continues with suggestions ranging from "gameplay" to "the Game." But then it takes a right turn with Kent Quirk observing, "This message just clarified for me what's been bothering me about this whole exercise: it's the attempt to legislate jargon... attempting to define a set of unambiguous terms for a very ambiguous environment." Right. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Changing Face of Workplace Learning
The article begins by talking about corporate podcasting but strives generally to say that the future of corporate learning is mobile. "Imagine that it's 1998 and your company doesn't have a website or an intranet... That's about where we are with mobility right now." Certainly this is a better alternative to the traditional classroom course, which "simply doesn't work for the mobile generation, which places a premium on autonomy." It's not just about the mobility, and not just about the time-shifting. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Birthplace of Blackboard Comments On Patent Issue
The birthplace of Blackboard, Cornell University, is considering its options. "When Blackboard announced their patent it did cause us to begin an assessment of whether we wanted to move away from Blackboard ... It did cause us to rethink whether we wanted to use their product". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Thoughts On Music
Steve Jobs lays the cards on the table. "If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store." This is pretty much inevitable. First, no DRM system has ever succeeded, because all DRM systems rely on something being secret, and secrets can always be leaked or cracked. And second, the music industry already sells ten times more music on CDs, which are DRM-free (their efforts to convert CDs to DRM formats have ended in failure and sometimes debacle). Maybe the music industry is waiting to see whether Vista succeeds in protecting content (it won't). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Students Freeze to Ice Tuition Hike
Congratulations to the Canadian Federation of Students for their Day of Action today. My interest in education today has its genesis in this sort of activism, and my argument of two decades ago is the same as the one taken up by CFS today. Said one student quoted in the story, "I'm looking at $42,000 in student debt after just four years and I was hoping to go to law school, but that could mean a debt of almost $100,000." And you know, it seems to me that any country that can afford to give billions of dollars in subsidies to corporations can afford to give students a break on tuition. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Time Out
Um... one wonders what to make of this. In EDNA groups recently: "As requested by our members we have now set up a 'Time Out' area..." Yes, this appears to be serious. Now I certainly understand why it has been done - I've seen examples of rude behaviour in the forums. What I wonder is whether this is an artifact of the forums being locked behind a subscription wall. And I wonder whether there's a better approach. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Relearning Learning-Applying the Long Tail to Learning
I couldn't play this (Totem plays utterly nothing and the whole system of dysfunctional media players is one of the most frustrating things about Linux) but I know people will want to see this. "Perhaps, Brown proposes, the formal curriculum of schools will encompass both a minimal core 'that gets at the essence of critical thinking,' paired with 'passion-based learning,' where kids connect to niche communities on the web, deeply exploring certain subjects". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Emerging Technologies Presentation
Interesting comment from Alec Couros: "my first instinct was to use a presentation tool (Apple Keynote). I got about 3 slides in when I realized that my brain no longer operates that way." Funny. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Polychrons in Our Classrooms
From World Wide Words: "Traditionally, cultures are divided into monochronic (where time is regarded as linear, people do one thing at a time and lateness and interruptions are not tolerated) and polychronic (where time is seen as cyclical, punctuality is unimportant and interruptions are acceptable)." Which means that teachers are monochronic, students are polychronic. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Two Kinds of Competency
Competence with and without concepts. A useful distinction? "There are also two kinds of incompetence. One kind arises from a lack of concepts or linguistic structures. The competent clerk who cannot troubleshoot a breakdown... The other kind of incompetence maintains an abundance of concepts without the ability to perform... Alfred North Whitehead referred to these linguistic structures as 'inert ideas'." Hm. More...