By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Mike Malloch[Edit][Delete]: An Interesting Conversation..., eLearning 2.0 [Edit][Delete] June 26, 2006
I'v never liked the use of use cases in software design, mostly because they tie the design to specific tasks. Well, comes the rejoinder, you need to know what you want your software to do. Sure. But what users want to do is a different matter altogether. "In the real-world users are almost always doing 'other things' when they come to use a bit of software." Exactly. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jeff Jarvis[Edit][Delete]: Advertisers: You're Next, BuzzMachine [Edit][Delete] June 26, 2006
I don't want to miss pointing to this item on the decline of the advertising industry, taken from presentations at a recent conference in Cannes. The article is ripe with advice for educators, particularly those who are invested in large or slow educational institutions. Trust me. And changes may be closer than you think: "For a decade the marketing world has been wondering when the digital revolution would finally cut into networks' upfront payday. The smart money says this is shaping up to be the year, and TV's take could be down as much as $600 million. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. John Gruber[Edit][Delete]: And Oranges, Daring Fireball [Edit][Delete] June 16, 2006
Why would a longtime Apple user switch to Linux? When the person in question is Mark Pilgrim, people want to know, since Pilgrim is well known for his work on web syndication and web standards. This article takes an almost detached look at his reasoning. In the end, for Pilgrim, it comes down to this: "I'm creating things now that I want to be able to read, hear, watch, search, and filter 50 years from now. Despite all their emphasis on content creators, Apple has made it clear that they do not share this goal. Openness is not a cargo cult. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]Scott Jaschik[Edit][Delete]: In Whose Interest?, Inside Higher Ed [Edit][Delete] June 15, 2006
I think this is a very good question. As the article notes, scholarly groups in the U.S. are lining up against legislation that would require open access to publicly funded research within six months of publication. Why this opposition? Open access, if it helps anyone, helps the reserachers these groups represent. So why are these groups opposed? My view echoes Peter Suber's. "[He] said that these criticisms showed that the anthropology association (and others like it) have a conflict of interest. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Platypus Matt[Edit][Delete]: Can you Hear This Sound?, Kairos [Edit][Delete] June 13, 2006
The teen-age ringtone phenomenon has captured the interest of readers (and unsolicited advertisers). Still, it's pretty funny. If you want to hear (or not hear, as the case may me) the ringtone, here's the MP3. And don't ask me where to get it as a ringtone, I have no idea. Oh, and do I hear it, you ask? Nope. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Christian Long[Edit][Delete]: PodTech Goes the Scoble! and Why it Matters!, think:lab [Edit][Delete] June 13, 2006
I never really followed Robert Scoble's blog after the first few weeks. It was an interesting experiment, though, and Christian Long captures the end of his term with eloquence and in a way that makes it directly relevant to me. Because, isn't this what I have been saying recently? "If we do not soon begin to realize that the learner ultimately decides what learning environments they will join, that engagement is not about force-feeding and innovation is not about tightly wrapped up corporate policies and that when you have talent in your ranks you better provide them the most dynamic learning and collaboration tools known to mankind or lose them. More...