By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Heather J. Ruskin and Ray Walshe[Edit][Delete]: Emergent Computing, ERCIM News [Edit][Delete] January 23, 2006

[link: Hits] As the editors summarize in this introduction to this special issue of ERCIM News, emergent computing is "highly complex processes arising from the cooperation of many simple processes, ie high-level behaviour resulting from low- level interaction of simpler building blocks." If you are wondering about the sort of theoretical background I am thinking of when I am thinking of learning networks, this is it (won't fit on the two page project approval template, though). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 50+ RSS Ideas for Educators, Teaching Hacks [Edit][Delete] January 17, 2006

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Bruce Schneier[Edit][Delete]: Real Story of the Rogue Rootkit, Wired News [Edit][Delete]Wired news [Edit][Delete] January 11, 2006

The office is shut down for our big move (which is no joy for me, but that's a different story). So this morning it was down to the dentist, where my results were unusually happy. So, in a slightly less gloomy mood, I walked across the street to the mall, went to the Sony store, and complained about the Sony rootkit to a sales clone. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Teemu Leinonen[Edit][Delete]: (Learning) Nodes are Here - Still and Again, FLOSSE Posse [Edit][Delete] January 13, 2006

Teemu Leinonen points out that the current bout of scepticism regarding learning objects is a continuation of a longer-running discussion. And the idea of 'object' or 'node', he writes, is already well-enough entrenched on the web. "There is maybe nothing new in the LO thinking. We already have the Web where content is as reusable and modular as it can be. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Tom Hoffman[Edit][Delete]: My Blogging Resolution for 2006, ESchool News [Edit][Delete] January 9, 2006

Tom Hoffman pledges to be honest about his biases in 2006, a good thing, and while pointing to the mostly worthwhile philosophies of the Coalition of Essential Schools he makes most clear, I think, his disdain for some more recent (or as he says, "ersatz") theories of learning. He writes, "Nothing, not a single damn thing I've learned about technology has changed what I've always believed about teaching and learning by humans". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Christopher D. Sessums[Edit][Delete]: The Beginnings of a Manifesto for Reforming Education in the U.S., January 9, 2006

I don't see why the author would limit his attention to the U.S., but this short article starts off on the right track, I think. Sort of. This bit is good: "This political movement requires âxoeemergence,âxx where change is initiated from below, not handed down from above." But this isn't: "For the act of teaching and learning to change at both an institutional level and an active, social level, teachers need to join together and form a unified vision of working conditions and compensation." No. More...