By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Zoho Notebooks Goes Public - Imagine the Educational Potential
I spent some time playing with Zoho Notebook this afternoon. In theory, this is an outstanding piece of software, doing many of the things I would expect a PLE to do, and more (I really like the shared creation tools). It would be great for creating unworkshop legacy pages, for example. I was unable to record video on either a Mac or a Windows machine - it asks for permission to access the camera but never seems to find it. Same for record - this appears to be an issue with flixn.com, which powers that part of Zoho. Still, once these Day One bugs are ironed out (Zoho officially launched yesterday) the possibilities for use in schools is almost endless. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Live Webcasting Via Ustream
Looks like an interesting application, and I'd like to offer the 'Downes Live' show, but it's beginning to look like the MacBook Pro video camera and Flash 9 don't get along. There's no reason why it shouldn't work; Skype video works just fine. Well, that's today's mystery. Anyhow, I'm not so interested in 'lifecasting' - I don't have enough time to live my own life, I'm pretty sure other people don't have the time to watch it! Or the patience. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Fair(Y) Use Tale
Video - consisting entirely of excerpts from Disney Cartoons - describing the principles of copyright and, most importantly, fair use. It is worth nothing that a video like this, while quite legal - the author is very careful to use only small snippets of Disney content, hence respecting fair use provisions - would be impossible under DRM, as these technologies are intended to prevent any copying, not just illegal copying. See al;so the video home page. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Wii Love New Controls
I think this could be interesting: making the Wii work with Second Life. Maybe I should Wii-ify my website. You can read the archives by gesturing with your numchuk. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. CADE/AMTEC - Connections in the Global Village
I'm in Winnipeg where I presented 'The Meaning is the Message' today. It wasn't very good. I didn't feel comfortable or confident going into the talk and though the audience was generous with comments and questions I don't feel like I came across as knowing what I was talking about. So I'll have to think about that. I don't mind failing - that's why I am willing to stretch myself - but I don't like having failed. Slides and audio, of course, will be posted when I get back home (Friday). Dave Cormier, meanwhile, blogs what was a lacklustre keynote from Derrek de Kerckhove. "Giantly long quotes on the front screen of a room filled with… oh… 500 hundred people." At least I had nice slides. More...