By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Scott Wilson[Edit][Delete]: More standards? Which? Why?, June 30, 2006
Scott Wilson reacts to Michael Feldstein's defense of standards as a way of enabling long tail applications. All very fine, but as Wilson notes, a defense of standards in principle hardly equates to a defense of standards as they have actually evolved: "IMS has a huge back catalogue of released specifications. Some were developed far too early for their target problem space... Some developed too slowly to keep pace with general technology... Some doesn't seem to solve a real problem at all... Some are now in direct competition with lightweight web specifications". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Brian Lamb[Edit][Delete]: Summer Listening and Viewing From UbuWeb, Abject learning [Edit][Delete]Abject Learning [Edit][Delete] June 29, 2006
Some good stuff here. Sites like Ubuweb are what's great about the net. Brian Lamb picks up on the site's Glenn Gould CBC shows; what caught my eye was the link to FluxFilms compiled by George Maciunas. I went to a Fluxus exhibition in Copenhagen when I was there in the spring and actually put some photos and videos on my website. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Andy Carvin[Edit][Delete]: Angus King: A Brief History of Maine's Laptop Program, June 23, 2006
We could have done without the Canadian joke, but I enjoyed this frank retrospective of the Main laptop project. "A reporter then asked a question we hadn't thought of - will the kids or the schools own the laptops? I had no idea. I could have said I don't know, but I blurted out, 'the kids.' Wrong answer. Huge political mistake. People hated the idea that the govt would give these tools to kids. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Cory Bergman[Edit][Delete]: MySpace Tightens Security Measures, Lost Remote [Edit][Delete] June 23, 2006
More MySpace news - I'm sure you're all breathless. The big news is that MySpace users who are over 18 will now have to know the email or first and last name of any 14- to 15-year-old member they're trying to contact. It's actually a pretty good strategy if the danger to minors comes from strangers. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Stephen Downes[Edit][Delete]: Communities of Practice and Wrap-Up, Half an Hour [Edit][Delete] June 23, 2006
My blog notes from Day 2 of the Canadian Council on Learning conference. This second day was mostly a day of discussions, with the participants breaking into four groups (which in our case in turn broke into small groups). I've never been a fan of this group-and-report format, since it can be a way of filtering the views of the participants through a lens provided by the organizers - the 'reports back' never seem to carry the same sort of edge contained in the participants' actual views. Just my perspective.
Anyhow, what emerged for me as the major theme of the day was the generally anti-technology nature of the participants. My computer was one of two open during the conference. Still, several groups recommended the provision of tools (I mentioned JISC but that didn't make it to the plenary floor). I also felt many practitioners see themselves as offering services and bringing activism to the people, though some delegates did emphasize the need for people to manage their own learning and to organize themselves. So there's a bit of a generational change happening in the field, I think.
That said, I think the CCL has a challenge before it. There seems to be a disconnect between its approach and methodology - which is focused on, shall we say, measurable results and return on investment, and that of the practitioners, which is focused on, shall we say, social justice. And in the middle somewhere, with a technological edge, comes personal empowerment and informal learning. The fact of multiple agendas (and multiple methodologies) is inescapable - but is CCL ready to acccept that? [Tags: Canada, Web Logs, Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)] [Comment]. More...