By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. George Siemens: It's Not What It Is, It's What It Enables, Connectivism Blog September 27, 2005

George Siemens makes a good point, encapsulated in the title, with respect both to some of the new tools, such as blogs and wikis, and to connectivism itself. "What do they enable learners to do? They enable learners to connect, to dialogue." Why. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Aixa Almonte: Podcasting for Learning, ottergroup September 27, 2005
Personally, I wasn't that impressed with this article, though it has attracted a lot of positive commentary in the e-learning blogosphere. The author focuses almost exclusively on podcasting as offered through iTunes. And while some engaging (and very large) screen shots are offered, this article will not tell you how to podcast. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Radio Memories Network September 26, 2005

I mentioned this link last week - podcasts of old radio shows. Westerns, detective shows, big band, science fiction - it's all here. Radio never brought be the entertainment that this podcast does. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. D'Arcy Norman: RIAA: Greed, Defined, D'Arcy Norman dot Net September 26, 2005

D'Arcy Norman takes a nice (and well-deserved) swipe at the music industry. "Even though they have to spend roughly $0 to market music via the iTMS, and spend exactly $0 to sell music through it. And they spent exactly $0 to design, manufacture, market and distribute the iPod. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jerry Andriessen: Review: What we Know About CSCL and Implementing it in Higher Education, eLearning Reviews September 26, 2005
Some new reviews are out from eLearning Reviews The review of Stahl's chapter alone makes this book sound worth while. CSCL stands for computer-supported collaborative learning and the book as a whole is a collection of articles on the subject. Off topic: I have considered doing book reviews here in OLDaily - but I'd be limited, I guess, to the books I buy at Chapters (which, as I've mentioned before, is offering a smaller and smaller selection). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Richard Reeves: The End of an Era: Good Night News, Yahoo News September 24, 2005
The arrival of free content, even in print form (this article talks about the free tabloid newspapers being distributed to computers) marks the end of traditional newspapers as we know them. And while the author laments the days of 'fairness' and 'public service' (did such days ever really exists?) those in the industry should never really have expected anything else. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Clarence Fisher: Information Everywhere, September 24, 2005

Will Richardson links to and discusses this short post, a snapshot of the state of learning with technology, involving the use of games, podcasts (in microbiology!) and more. The author writes, "They are starting to realize they are swimming in it. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Understanding the Greasemonkey Vulnerability
If you haven't heard, Greasmonkey - a Firefox extension that allows you to write DHTML scripts that apply on remote pages - was discovered to have a major vulnerability. Never exploited (it was discivewred by Greasmonkey developers themselves) it is nonetheless serious enough to require that all Greasemonkey users update immediately. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Next Evolutionary Step in DVD Rentals: Redbox
The interesting thing about Redbox is not that it is offering one dollar DVD rentals. No, it is that it is a wholly owned subsidiary of McDonalds Restaurants. The rental cost, of course, is mostly for the infrastructure - the plastic disks, the retail outlets, the processing. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Birds Imitate Mobile Phone Ring Tones
So if a bird hears someone's telephone and learns to imitate the ring tone, and then you go out and record the bird singing that particular song, and then install the recording on your own telephone, is that piracy. More...