By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Joseph Epstein[Edit][Delete]: Friendship Among the Intellectuals, Commentary [Edit][Delete] August 10, 2006
I really didn't like this mean-spirited paper listed in today's ArtsJournal, but I spent enough time with it to merit passing it along. I am torn between wanting to disparage the author's off-handed swipes against socialism (by equating it with Stalinism) and wanting to show disdain for the offhand manner in which the author supposes that he is an intellectual (and therefore qualified to talk on the subject of friendship among the intellectuals). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jay Rosen[Edit][Delete]: The Pros Gonna Blog You Under the Table, PressThink [Edit][Delete] August 9, 2006
Could a professional reporter replace me? Of course one could. I have a lot of distractions; a professional could blog full-time (and would probably have spell-checking software). But here's the question: what is the market for a professional blogger who specializes in online learning? Pretty slim, I would say. And would such a blogger feel comfortable opposing the recent patent of potentially the largest advertiser on the site? Not so likely. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Michael Feldstein[Edit][Delete]: Is Prometheus a Big Problem for Blackboard?, E-Literate [Edit][Delete] August 11, 2006
Michael Feldstein asks, is Promethius a big problem for Blackboard? "Almost none of the prior art listed in the Wikipedia entry was in Blackboard's patent filing. It^'s remarkable, really, since they are legally obligated to list any potential prior art of which they are aware at the time of filing."
Feldstein suggests that the flurry of anti-Blackboard patent posts will slow down, which is not surprising. This will be a slow business. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Charles Nelson[Edit][Delete]: Poverty, Attitude, and Complexity, Explorations in Learning [Edit][Delete] August 11, 2006
Charles Nelson responds to my comments on the consideration of the impact of attitude on student success. And of course I would be the first to agree that student success is a complex matter and which can include attitude, especially as (as Nelson points out) attitude can be linked to poverty. He asks, "in 'priming our children for success,' shouldn't we consider attitude?" Sure. But not in such a way as to disregard the effect of poverty. "Neither should we excuse ourselves from attending to poverty's effects on learning and life." True. But it's more. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. StevenB[Edit][Delete]: Truth In Advertising - Lies We Tell Our Students And Faculty, ACRLog [Edit][Delete] August 7, 2006
I reads this item as I was comtemplating a response to the next, and something about it bothered me. And it's this. The author tells us that librarians are misleading us when they say libraries can be like Google. "We will tell people it may take them longer than 60 seconds to find valuable information. We will tell them our library databases are not the same as Google..." And I want to know, why not? Why does it take so long to find stuff? Why isn't the stuff accessible through this collection? Why is it that what the library offers me is mostly a set of excuses and limitations, instead of what I really want, fast and easy and relevant access. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Darren Kuropatwa[Edit][Delete]: Won't Be Fooled Again ..., A Difference [Edit][Delete] August 4, 2006
Worth noting about the South African curriculum wiki people have been citing: "After I finished explaining what a wiki is, every one of them expressed disbelief that the government of South Africa was actually behind such a thing. So, I did some digging ... The South African Curriculum is not on a wiki. Here is the wiki everyone has linked to." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Albert Ip[Edit][Delete]: Why Most Off the Shelf Commerical Games Will Not Work in Education?, Random Walk in Learning [Edit][Delete] August 4, 2006
This paper is a draft, but I think it has significant issues to address. I have played both Sim City and flight simulators and would have to say that these are the most non-standard 'computer games' out there. They certainly do not resemble 'most off the shelf' commercial games, and they differ precisely in that they do not have any specific game objectives. To cit them, and to then leap directly to the other extreme, Thiagi's low-tech games, is to be misleading about the potential of games. More...