By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Terry Anderson: Online End of Class Party, Virtual Canuck December 9, 2005

I enjoyed this description of the sorts of things taken into account in the design of a successful end-of-year party. I especially liked the descriptions of what (in previous years) did not work, such as: "asynchronous parties do not work!". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Riina Vuorikari: No e-Learning Patents! No Software Patents!, FLOSSE Posse November 23, 2005

A big issue at the Open Source in Education conference I attended in Heerlen last week was the ongoing dispute about software patents in Europe - the legislation that will not go away, no matter how many times it is defeated, it seems. An outcome of the conference was an initiative struck from the perspective of e-learning to work against this legislation. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Steven C. Shaffer: System Dynamics in Distance Education and a Call to Develop a Standard Model, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning November 4, 2005

This is a very good paper that should be read especially by those of us working toward learning networks and related approaches to education. The author offers a good background of systems theory as it relates to education, highlighting with numerous telling points how failures to recognize systems in learning result in error. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors: Teaching Online, Deakin University October 26, 2005

Nice. A project consisting of more than 70 "interviews, flash movies and resources from teachers doing good stuff in online teaching and learning at the Uni... you can look through them by faculty, discipline, graduate attribute, study level, approaches to learning and a fair few more approaches". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dave Cormier: E-Learning 2.0 - Why Bother?, Dave’s Educational Blog October 24, 2005

First-rate blog post reflecting on what e-learning 2.0 really means (and as far as I'm concerned, the name 'e-learning 2.0' is just convenient shorthand, not some branding exercise or anything like that, shorthand for what is already happening whether I'm around to give it a name or not). What Dave Cormier gets is that what is represented here is a new literacy, or as he says, that students have more literacies than their instructors. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Tom P. Abeles: E-Learning in the New University, e-mentor October 20, 2005

Noting that today's e-learning is merely a virtual clone of the more traditional campus-based version, author Tome Abeles reminds readers that new technology is breaking down walls, that 'science rests outside the academy', and that as academics came down from the ivory tower 'to assume the bully pulpit' they also laid themselves open to a leveling of intellectual privilege. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Nino Marchetti: Online Education Research Grows, Designtechnica October 17, 2005

People in increasing numbers are turning to the web for education-related research. Where do they turn first? According to Nielsen NetRatings, to Wikipedia. The survey shows a 22 percent growth from September of last year and a total audience in the sector of 46.4 million users last month. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Teemu Arina: State of Finnish eLearning, FLOSSE Posse October 17, 2005

Links, commentary and more concerning the chaotic session George Siemens and I were a part of last week at a Finnish e-learning conference. The two of us - communicating by Skype and presenting using S5, presented our version of E-Learning 2.0 / Connectivism to them. Among the more interesting aspects of our presentation was not even part of the presentation, a conversation we had in the conference discussion area prior to our talk (this link is to Juha-Matti Arola’s blog, which also summarizes the talk and contains the full chat transcript). More...