By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. An Old Design for an eLearning Aggregator
Study this item carefully - this is very much what e-learning of the future will look like. Scott Wilson bases his approach on the design of social networking sites such as 43 Things, then inserts an interface with learning resources. I like his design - clean, simple, colourful. This is just a concept, but - note well - all of this could be designed with existing technologies. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming: A Research Framework for Military Training and Education
Having been introduced to the internet by means of participation in a MUD, I am drawn to the topic of this study. But I must report an unease about the use to which this research is being put and here stress that the higher purpose of education is to promote peace and prosperity, good health and a life worth living. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. From Student Work to Exemplary Educational Resources
Following a link on the EdResources mailing list I find the contents of the current issue of E-Learning - access, I guess, is normally restricted but appears to be open for a time at least (they should consider opening it permanently - the content is good and it seems a shame to lock it away from potential readers). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why Online Teaching Turned Me Off
I'm not really sure of the point of this contrarian article - the author says "I want to look my students right in the eyeball" while pretending (I guess) that the eyes in the top row of a 500 seat classroom are anything other than a distinct blur. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Digital Tweed: Mapping the Terrain of Online Education
Discussion of the recent Sloan-C reports on the number of students involved in online learning. "Some 1.92 million students were enrolled in at least one online course as of fall 2003, up almost 20 percent from 1.6 million in Fall 2002. Sloan-C projected the Fall 2003 online course enrollment numbers would increase by a third to 2.63 million students for Fall 2004." Via Distance-Educator, which seems to have repaired its RSS feeds. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Korea, US to Develop e-Learning Standards
Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) is opening an office and test lab in Korea, according to this report. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. New BCcampus Services Improve Online Learning
BC Campus made the news yesterday with its official launch of its "final major development phase of BCcampus, which will provide a single point of access to every service an online student needs." According to executive director David Porter, “This system allows learners to use their student number at their ‘home’ institution to ‘visit’ other schools and have access to the electronic library of the institution they’re visiting – all through the BCcampus portal. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Exemplary Online Educators: Creating a Community of Inquiry
What makes some online educators more effective than others? Using Garrison, Anderson and Archer's Community of Inquiry model as a framework, this paper undertakes a qualitative study of the question. "Online learning is not just a learning enhancement," write the authors, "it is an entirely new way of learning and teaching that is likely here to stay." Maybe, but the preliminary results from the study will sound familiar to anyone: effective online instructors are "challengers", they are "affirmers" and they are "influencers". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Preparing Instructors for Quality Online Instruction
Some people will like this paper, which is why I'm including it, but I didn't. From where I sit, it's a classic case of drowning the reader through needless citations (do we need Volery (2000), for example, to tell us that "online delivery is a form of distributed learning enabled by the Internet?"). This close attention to citation comes at the cost of common sense. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Literature Review – Faculty Participation in Online Distance Education: Barriers and Motivators
The spring, 2005, edition of the Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration is now available. I list three papers, beginning with this one. Good overview of some articles in this topic highlighted by a chart added as an appendix, though I wish the author had surveyed more papers and reports (thirteen are surveyed). More...