By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Julie Amero Tragedy
I have covered the Julie Amero travesty earlier. Nancy Willard's report is required reading. "In a nutshell, it is quite evident in the case of Julie Amero, that the district's technical security was woefully and sorely lacking, Amero had not been provided with appropriate instructions on use of the computer and actions to take if inappropriate materials appear on the screen and was doing exactly what she had been told to do, and the investigation was not only inadequate – it was thoroughly and unconscionably mishandled." I think that whomever has the authority should intervene in this case immediately. And I think that we should ask ourselves how a free society could allow something like this to take place in the first place. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Questionable Conviction of Connecticut Teacher in Pop-Up Porn Case
It's hard to believe that this case is real, but I've read enough accounts to be convinced that it is. A substitute teacher is told not to turn off the computer (because she won't be able to log in again). Searching for hair styles, she or a student clicks on a link that launches adware. because the computer's security has been allowed to lapse, the adware installs itself and begins sending a steady stream of pornographic images. The substitute teacher is charged with willfully exposing minors to pornography. Investigators did not look for adware on the computer, and defense testimony showing how the adware was installed is not allowed to be presented in court. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. DOIs, HANDLE, CORDRA and Architectures of Control
After some discussion on this last week, Mark Oehlert through a series of emails interviewed me on these initiatives. What emerges is a pretty good overview of my feelings on the subject. I don't see the need for the handle system, nor do I think that it's a good thing that CORDRA, ADL's answer to the Open Archives Initiative, is based on it. Mark Orhlert and Stephen Downes, e-Clippings February 19, 2007 [Link]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Wikiversity, Wikieducator Please Join and Make Wikilearner
Leigh Blackall is forced by site outage to shift his attention from Wikiversity - a Wikipedia style online learning platform - to Wikieducator, a similar project set up in December, 2006, by the Commonwealth of Learning. "Wikieducator has made fantastic progress since last I looked," he writes. "Apart for a range of great tutorials, the key players in wikieducator have been more innovative and experimental in my view. They now have a web based IRC chat facility on the main nav - which is getting closer to Teemu's vision of a VOIP supported community learning network; they support media embedding, they use funky templates to play around with navigation and content layout, and they already have some significant contributions." Well good, but I wonder about his call for the two to join forces. More...