By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Music File Sharing to be Offered Legally
In an experiment worth watching, an ISP is bundling the cost of music file sharing with the cost of internet access. While there are good reasons to be wary of access providers also acting as content providers, this approach nonetheless seems infinitely better than the current mechanism that involves broken CDs and suing your customers. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Understanding Meaning
George Siemens links to this column (actually a series - see the navigation links at the bottom of the page) by Michael Bayler. This particular item is a nice outline of the concept of meaning. I don't agree with all of it (for example, I'm not sure I want to ascribe the moral dimension to meaning that he does). More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Future of Technology in Schools
The writers at Slashdot look at this two-part article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (which, stupidly, requires a registration to view). Some of the comments in the discussion may surprise you. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. More Colleges Strike Up Music-Sharing Deals, Despite Lukewarm Response in Dorms
The students don't want it. So why are colleges purchasing download services? Well part of the reason is that music publishers might sue them otherwise. "Legal downloading deals 'may be a self-protection mechanism,' he said. 'Colleges can say, well, at least we have this, so we're doing something to stop piracy.'" Buy our product or we'll sue you. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Stellenbosch Declaration
A forward-looking document, addressing not only the importance of universal access to lifelong learning but also framed in a recognition that governance, including governance of learning, is changing. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Sharing Learning Contexts Within A Distributed Conversation Model
Scott Wilson takes us on a fascinating romp through a variety of technologies to see whether they offer "a way of constructing and sharing context." None of them really does the job, he writes, though FOAF groups stands the best chance. Tom Hoffman interprets this as a technology problem, arguing in essence that RDF would do the job nicely. I see it more as a definitional problem. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The End of the Paper Syllabus
Just an example of what you can do once professors get past the idea that handouts have to be on paper. "The dean... told professors that — for financial and educational reasons — they should put their syllabuses online, and stop distributing them on the first day of classes." Savings. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Blackboard
Blackboard doesn't have a blog or an RSS feed or any of that other newfangled technology, at least, not that I know of, so I missed this announcement when it came out last week. Eventually it did circulate through University Business, and so, I pass to you the information that Blackboard has a new website. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Curriculum Leadership
The August 19 issue of Curriculum Leadership is online (here is another prime candidate for an RSS feed). One entry that caught my eye was 'Critical, analytical and reflective literacy assessment: reconstructing practice' by Heather Fehring, however, the link to the Australian Journal of Language and Literacy (AJLL) where the article should be takes me to a page that hasn't been updated since 2002. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Future of SVG and the Web
The author begins with a discussion of scalable vector graphics (SVG), an XML-based image file format, but he doesn't end there, roaming instead into a sweeping discussion of the role of XML in redefining the web. Syndication, the editable web, ubiquitous personal content, domain experts - all of this is in the future, explained with clarity and earnestness and with some great turns of a phrase ("We spend billions of dollars making the web editable in proprietary ways. More...
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