By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Creating ePortfolios with Web 2.0 Tools
Helen Barrett consolidates some of her work on e-portfolios and Web 2.0. "One advantage of Web 2.0 tools is that many of them are free, although WikiSpaces may place ads on the page. There is some concern about security in a K-12 school environment, so care should be taken when using these tools with children." See also these audio clips from some of her e-portfolio presentations. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Help define digital literacy
W. Ian O'Byrne, 2019/02/11
Last week Ian O'Byrne wrote of work he is doing with  the International Literacy Association (ILA) and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) to define digital literacy. He was asked "why this work wasn’t being conducted in the open" and this post is the result. There's some annotation work being done with hypothes.is and he's using FlipGrid to solicit video-recorded opinions (this site is mostly empty, though). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Just Say No! A Few More Reasons for Universities to Foster Independent Mediated Voices
Some universities are caving to the RIAA's demands that they pass along information about student accounts - Purdue, for example, warned 40,000 students to "remove or at least partially disable any peer-to-peer file sharing software on their computers." On the other hand, some other universities - notably Nebraska and Maine - have had enough and are fighting back. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Social Networking As Professional Development
Links to Ning and in particular describes the Library 2.0 network created on Ning as well as the more recent Classroom 2.0 network. I look at that and say, well what, now, you own Classroom 2.0? See - I don't think it's a network if it belongs to someone, if it is created, if it is associated with a place. It's more like, what, a club or a group in such a circumstance. And that is the key difference between social networks such as Ning and the edublogosphere. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. I Just Don'T Get It Yet - Social Networks
Dave Warlick echoes my comments on Ning, including the 'club' remark: "I'm wondering if this sort of social network 'place' is really more for kids. Children need a clubhouse, a place where they can be themselves, pretend to be somebody else, make up their own rules, and dream of other places and times. But clubhouses have walls, as does Ning! It seems to be a container and less in the spirit of small pieces loosely joined. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Learning with Networks
Terry Anderson, who is well known for his discussions of "various types and function of interaction in formal (usually distance) education contexts," looks at what John Dron calls the interaction between the student and the group. Now again, the word "group" is used loosely here - "Downes' sense of fluid, unbounded networks relates directly to the multiple forms, size and purpose of informal distributed synchronous and asynchronous collections of individuals that Dron refers to as groups." But, as Anderson notes, access to a network from a formal situation works differently than in an informal situation. And so he cautions teachers about what to expect when they access the network: the quality of interaction with the network will vary greatly according to the skill and experience of the student. It will also fluctuate from dead silence to blizzards of activity. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why to Not Not Start a Startup
A very interesting read. The author is a (small) venture capitalist that provide (a tiny amount of) funding to potential startups. Many interesting bits. Including: "If you don't think you're smart enough to start a startup doing something technically difficult, just write enterprise software. Enterprise software companies aren't technology companies, they're sales companies, and sales depends mostly on effort." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. World Bank Head Speaks Out On Why Canada Is Needed in Africa
This article doesn't describe learning directly, though it is clear to me that Canada can play a role in this field as well. What the author, the president of the World Bank, stresses is that myths of African development - that "Africa is hopeless, aid to Africa is money wasted, and Africa can solve its own problems" - are no longer true. I don't know, one way or another. But I remain hopeful, and I certainly call for continued, and strengthened, Canadian investment in the future of Africa. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. TeacherTube
A bunch of people have mentioned TeacherTube recently - like YouTube, except for teachers. Some people have taken note of Mrs. Burk's 'perimeter rap' video - though I'm not sure 'chick' and 'nasty' are the most appropriate ways to describe what is really a nice video. More...