By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Emergence Is Coupled to Scope, Not Level
Very nice paper (PDF). Some really good observations, including:
- that emergence should be defined by scope rather than level (in my own work I have described it by levels, and not really considered defining it as anything) - and of drawing the distinction (last paragraph) between global and local scopes
- the question of whether emergence is a perceptual (or epistemic) property (ie., 'recognition') as I have defined it, or whether it is an ontologically 'real' property - this paper takes a broad position that it is ontological, but I don't agree with the argument ("Naissance emergence is an ontological concept, since in light of the preceding discussion it cannot be epistemic.")
- that the limitation of mathematical models of emergence is the lack of entropy (which restricts the number of possibilities) - I would contrast this with (mathematical) discussions of scale-free networks
- the description of the phenomenon of 'scaling'. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Economist Debate Series
The Economist is hosting a debate on the subject "that the continuing introduction of new technologies and new media adds little to the quality of most education." Debators are Sir John Daniel, of the Commonwealth of Learning, and Robert Kozma of SRI International (Stanford Research Institute). Personally I think it's a case of the Economist trying to get into the game and - en passant - annointing the people it thinks should speak on such matters. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Information R/Evolution
Another one of those videos, with the text. It's ok - but the format has been done. Done, done and done. This one looks at traditional conceptions of information - like, for example, the way we have always thought of it as something that is on a shelf, categorized. "There is no shelf... the links alone are enough." After a look at Wikipedia, it becomes a paean to tagging. Well enough, but experienced Google searchers know that keywords also are not enough. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Launchball
OK, first of all, this game is impossibly addictive. I played it Sunday afternoon, finishing all the levels in one sitting. Second, it is hosted at a British museum website. Third, it is - or has the potential to be - quite educational, even without having learning outcomes or anything silly like that. Why, it's not 'serious' at all! And fourth, it lets users create even more games on the basic platform. Try it. You'll see what I mean. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Warren Buffett's MBA Talk Vs Evolution of Dance
Which is the better educational material, a speech by Warren Buffet, one of the richest people in the world, on investing, or a 6 minute video on the evolution of dance? The presumption of this post is that the 'crowd' got it wrong, viewing the dance video 59 million times and watching Buffett only 98,000 times. But I learned more about dance in six minutes than I learned about stocks in 60 - and I trust the dance video a lot more, because you can't fake this stuff. Buffett gives us folksy advice like "you should buy what you know" and questionable bits like "if you learned about Wrigley's 40 years ago, you still know everything you need to know." Um, what? I agree with the author that there are "many excellent free online learning resources out there that are not being fully utilized by the global intelligence learning network." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Consent Decree with the Open Web Shuts Down Times Select
"Whether or not content wants to be free", writes Jeff Jarvis, "it is free." He is writing of the New York Times decision to knock down the pay walls and open its subscription service, Times Select, to free access. This is significant. This isn't just Radiohead releasing its latest album on a pay-what-you-want basis (something Jane Siberry started a couple of years ago). This is a recognition that, in order to generate revenue, content needs exposure. Rosen writes, "you can try to charge, and some people will pay, but there is more money and a brighter future in the open flow of Web traffic... Just as RSS sends stuff from the middle of the stack out...every barrier you create to their participation with your product weakens your revenue stream..." The same is true of education. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Vision of Students Today
Fabulous video produced by Micheal Wesch - the same person who produced Web2.0...The Machine is Us/ing Us - and his Anthropology Class. What I like about the video - aside from the tone and the music - is the rebelliousness. Linked by, oh my, a whole pile of people. More...

Twenty years ago, as the world celebrated the start of a new millennium, IT professionals across the globe were getting cold sweats at the prospect of the Y2K bug kicking in: the fear that important systems relying on two-digit date logs would come to a standstill if computers interpreted the 1 January 2000, registered as 01/01/00, as the first day of the year 1900. More...