By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Pedagogy-Agnostic Standards and a Much Needed Rant
Commentary on David Wiley's post from yesterday. On automation, Terry Anderson asks, "how many people would prefer to use a human teller at a bank – especially one with a long linup in front of it, compared to using an ATM." Imagine, though, the ATM being required to support all banking functions, not only simple withdrawals, deposits and fund transfers. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. CCL Calls for Expressions of Interest
The Canadian Council on Learning, introduced here last week, has issued a call for expressions of interest to create the five knowledge centres described in its project plan: Adult Learning in Atlantic Canada; Early Childhood Learning in Quebec; Work and Learning in Ontario; Aboriginal Learning in the Prairies, Northwest Territories and Nunavut; Health and Learning in British Columbia and Yukon. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Stephen's Web Themes
So anyhow, after working on the OurMedia site I was feeling pretty comfortable with CSS, so I decided to redo the website. But I am also very lazy and have tired of rotating my theme every few months. So I set up a system that lets me easily create new themes, and which handles theme selection and rotation automatically. Click on the link to visit my website; you'll be greeted with a random theme. Click on the [Theme] link to rotate themes, or on [View Themes] to select from the list (the link is under the picture on the right). Not the neat thing about this is that you can use my random themes too - check out the sample here (notice it's a completely different site). Here's a template you can use on your website. This is all experimental, so please let me know if you have problems with it. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, March 22, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. JotSpot
JotSpot is an online wiki application (currently in beta) that can be used by anyone to set up their own wiki. There are some very nice features: a nice WYSIWYG page editor, the capacity to email content to a page, and a set of applications that can be plugged in to pages. Great stuff. As an example of JotSpot in action, see Lawrence Lessig's communal rewriting of Code and Other Laws on a JotSpot wiki. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. DfES publishes new e-Strategy
Link and analysis of a new strategy paper in Britain, DfES's Harnessing Technology: Transforming learning and children's services. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. winning through worst practices
OK, I've never published a book, not one that you can find in the discard bin at least, and I don't know anything about Chinese subs in San Francisco, but it seems to me that Highbeam Research deserves props for actually getting blogging and I sort of wish I had a job like RageBoy's. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Electronic Portfolios and Dimensions of Learning
The article is pretty superficial, but it makes a point work repeating here: "Give students the academic freedom to help develop what makes a good portfolio." Now if you think about that, the concept of academic freedom for students, especially younger students, is a novel one. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. OpenSearch
I had a quick look at this because George Siemens linked to it - A9 has been all the rage for the last few weeks in the blogosphere - and I want to take a deeper look because of what I saw. Forget the article for a second - check out this search first, and note especially the buttons to the right. Try some. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. To the High-Tech Employers: Sorry About Those Missing Skills
I am in agreement with the sentiments in this post and echo the author's request of the high-tech community looking for innovative and creative workers that it stop with the 'back to basics' and 'standardized' test regime that makes fulfilling that request impossible. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Looking at Improvement, Not Miracles
I just want to flag this item about a school in New York and its struggles to turn things around. Stories like this - not stories touting a new educational 'miracle' - are the ones that speak to me. More...
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