Six Criteria of an Educational Simulation
This is a very nice, detailed, and what appears to me to be mostly sound analysis of six key elements of educational simulations and even "all educational experiences". The model weaves three types of content - linear, systems and cyclical - into three types of delivery - simulation, game, pedagogy. More...

Gotchas in Using Computer Simulations
Albert Ip reflects on an item posted here yesterday, Computer Simulations in Distance Education. In that article, the author identifies several "problems" with similuations; Ip prefers to think of these as "issues we should prepare for." Ip also notes that the "'constructivistic' paradigm does not equal to throwing the learners into the deep end of the pool and let them swim or die. Scaffolding is a common technique in providing help (and progressively take away support when the learners become more confident)." This is something you see in games a lot, where there will be easier levels, or even training areas, that allow the usewr to master the gameplay bit by bit. More...

EDUCAUSE 2004
EDUCAUSE 2004 is taking place in Denver right now and is being blogged by numerous writers. I'm not going to try to summarize a lot (at least, not much beyond the observation that EDUCAUSE seems to have discovered open source in a big way). More...

Clark Kent Solutions Have Super-Powers - Well Sort Of!
The core of this article looks at an open sourse content manaagement system, Plone, and some of the extensions that have been made to it to create eduPlone and the Harvey project. More...

Perth and Fremantle
So this is it, my last day in Australia, as I board my flight in just a few hours and return to what I am told is a very rainy Moncton. I cannot say enough about the reception I have received here, the great people, the incredible experiences. Thank you to everyone here in the land down under, and I wait eagerly for my chance to return. Meanwhile, photos from Perth and Fremantle have been added to my site in the usual place. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, October 13, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...

Ontario School Board Stretches Network over 71,000 Sq. Km.
A million dollars may seem like a lot for a wireless network - aftr all, the one in my home only cost me $700 (to set up one hub and five computers). But when you look at the stats of this networked being rolled out in the Ontario (Canada) district of Keewatin, a million doesn't seem so large: 7,000 students in 27 remote locations spread out over some 71,000 square kilometres. More...

Knowledge and Learning
Slides from my talk in Perth today in which I draw out a clear theory of knowledge and educe from that a theory of learning. Sketchy, obviously, the audio will help when it's available. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, October 11, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...

The Buntine Oration: Learning Networks
Text of the Buntine Oration, delivered to the at the Australian College of Educators and the Australian Council of Educational Leaders conference in Perth, Australia. MS Word version. This is the unpolished version; links and references will be added over the next few days, slides will be made available and an audio feed added.
"I had this vision, you see, that the use of learning objects would, in effect, make learning content seamlessly and effortlessly available not only to all students, but to all people in the world who wished to learn, and that the portability and reusability of learning objects meant that we could develop an educational environment where students were not marched in lockstep through a predefined curriculum but instead could have the freedom and capacity to explore the world of learning according to their own interests and their own whims. Learning, genuinely free and accessible learning, could be produced and shared by all.
"So what went wrong? I mean, it’s easy to say that the systems are too expensive, the learning too boring, the search too cumbersome, the reusable objects too not reusable. What matters here is that I be able to explain why the existing model is inadequate, and how it differs from the model that is worth emulating, the one that I have suggested, and now say explicitly, is the model instantiated by the World Wide Web itself.
"Order emerges out of networks because networks are not static and organized but instead are dynamic and growing. A network consists of a set of entities – called, variously, units or neurons, but which can be in fact anything from crickets to blog posts to bloggers. In a network, these entities operate autonomously and are only tenuously connected – as the slogan goes, small pieces loosely joined. They receive input from other entities to which they are connected, organize that input, and then pass it on – or as the slogan goes, ‘aggregate, remix, repurpose, feed forward’." By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, October 9, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...