By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Doug Noon: Decolonizing Education, Borderland May 9, 2006
Interesting post challenging the status quo in education. I like the "resistance model to colonial thought," cited in part here: "Refuse to accept as common sense, discourses that present strong symbolic content that may contribute to stereotypes and erroneous beliefs... Re-question the aims of education... Redefine knowledge: To better understand how I come to know and value". More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Alan Levine: Blog Long Tail Much Longer, Wagging, Cogdogblog May 9, 2006
Short item making the cogent point that we are on the verge of being flooded with edublogs - and that that's a good thing. Which it is. You will want to follow the link to the Scotedublog wiki, a listing of Scottish edublogs in preparation for a coming meetup. As Alan Levine says, "This is but one little sampling of one wiki of one organization from one country... and it is bursting at the seams with people doing their own web publishing. It's not much to marvel at anymore, and then again it is. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dave Pollard Making Web 2.0 Work: Embracing Complexity, How to Save the World How To Save The World How To Save the World May 9, 2006
Readers may be familiar with this line of argument, but it bears repeating: what web 2.0 is capturing, and where its greatest strength lies, is the complexity of knowledge. "The problem-solving methods used in most large organizations, taught in most universities, and proffered by most experts and consultants are designed for complicated problems, those that, with enough information, energy and expenditure can be run to the ground and 'solved'. Complex problems are 'wicked', and complicated problem-solving techniques are largely ineffectual in dealing with them." (I really don't like the term wicked - oh well). More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Daithí Ó hAnluain: NewsML Aims For the Mainstream, Online Journalism Review Online Journalism review May 8, 2006
NewsML is an XML format designed for news articles. It is similar to RSS, but also includes a detailed vocabulary for categorizing news stories. This article describes the progress (or lack of same) of NewsML as a new version, 2.0, is about to be released. Readers should note the parallels between NewsML and Learning Object Metadata (LOM). Most of the discussion concerns the complexity of the standard. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Clare Brett: Why Reading Matters Even More in the Digital Age, May 8, 2006
The latter half of this paper, dealing with the educational uses of weblogs and wikis, will be familiar to most readers of this newsletter. Leading into that material, though, is a nice description of the new literacies required by online readers. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Wesley Fryer: Ontario Blogs Put Up, Moving at the Speed of Creativity May 8, 2006
The Ontario edublogosphere moves forward. This item describes 'Ontario Blogs', "an online publishing project, coordinated by the Education Network of Ontario, where writers and readers can interact in a controlled environment. Students write articles and submit them online to the teacher for publication in the project blog. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Press Release: CIPPIC Study Shows Widespread Violation of Privacy Laws, CIPPIC May 8, 2006
This should be no surprise. A recently released report shows "widespread non-compliance with federal laws requiring openness, accountability, consent, and individual access to personal data." A companion report describes "the many ways that detailed personal information about consumers is gathered and traded in the marketplace." Something to keep in mind the next time they talk about the ethics of their customers. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Christopher D. Sessums[Edit][Delete]: This Machine Kills Fascists, Christopher D. Sessums : Weblog [Edit][Delete] May 8, 2006
We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.
Yes, I am officially back from my hiatus; thanks to those of you who have posted welcomes. Rob Wall kindly says "Given the hysteria around web based e-mail accounts, MySpace and other threats to the educational orthodoxy, the timing couldn't be better." And I do want to make a difference regarding these and other issues. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Christopher D. Sessums: Synthesizing Social Software: Working the Wide Web, Christopher D. Sessums : Weblog May 5, 2006By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors: Weblogs in the Classroom, Department of Education and Training Western Australia May 5, 2006/https%3A%2F%2Fprofilepics.canalblog.com%2Fprofilepics%2F1%2F0%2F1076071.jpg)
