By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Definitions: ABCD Objectives
I didn't want to link to this, but I did want to comment. However, blogger.com is once again down for the count (I converted my Blogger account to a Google account, which runs on beta.blogger.com - but the sad and sorry way the company is treating blogger.com customers should be a matter for company-wide embarrassment). What I was going to comment was that this short guide reads like it could come out of B.F. Skinner, and to question whether this was an appropriate foundation for the design of learning materials. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. phpMyID
This (or something like this) is the future for online identification. This page is a stand-alone instance of OpenID, implemented in PHP, which means (in theory) you could put this on your website and then use it to log into compliant websites. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Wrong Problem, Wrong Solution
Roger Schank asks for the evidence that the math we teach is foundational and needed by high school graduates. "I always start any discussion on education by asking if the person I am talking with knows the quadratic formula. One out of hundred knows it" (me, I know what it is, but I'd have to look it up, not having used it in 30 years of frequently technical work). Schank says simply, "Lets get serious. We don't need more math and science. We need more people who can think. We need to teach job skills, people skills, and reasoning skills. And we need to make education exciting and interesting. We need performance tests not competence tests." the thing is, these things are pretty obvious - why is it such a hard sell. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors[Edit][Delete]: Defending the Collegiate Press, Harvard Crimson [Edit][Delete] December 8, 2006
As a former student newspaper editor, one twice elected by the newspaper staff, I am certain to echo the opinion expressed by the editors of 20 student newspapers across the United States protesting the refusal of the administration at the University of Southern California to accept the election of Zach Fox to the post of editor in chief of the Daily Trojan. More...