Email Teaching Scheme Under Fire
Sign of the times. "Teachers' unions today attacked a plan that would see staff answering email queries from their GCSE pupils outside school hours." They are concerned not only about the requirment that teachers work outside school hours but also about potentially abusive emails sent to teachers' homes. More...
Meta-Data Repositories Meet Semantics
This article gives readers a glimpse into what is intended by metadata and metadata repositories. Specifically, "semantic metadata ensures that technical and business users are relying on common business meaning, regardless of how it is represented or referred to. This reduces the all too frequent communications gap that exists within large organizations between IT and the business." Sounds good, but look at the presumption it is based on: "Semantics define a concept's meaning in a manner that is both unambiguous and universally correct in meaning." This is not a sound presumption on which to base an industry. More...
From Mechanism to a Science of Qualities
Stephen Talbott is tapping into many of the same strands of thought informing my own thinking about the internet and online learning. Witness: "I propose that much of the order in organisms may not be the result of selection at all, but of the spontaneous order of self-organized systems.(Kauffman 1995, p. 25)" This link is to his online book-in-progress, 'From Mechanism to a Science of Qualities', and the quote above may be found in his (recommended) essay, The Lure of Complexity. More...
Microsoft Claims Ownership of the Internet
No, this is not a joke. "According to an article by eWeek dated Friday Nov. 5th 2004, Microsoft appears to be claiming intellectual property rights on over 130 Internet protocols that make up the very core of the Internet inrastructure. These protocols include for example TCP/IP and the DNS system." It goes without saying that any such move on the part of Microsoft would be an outrage, an abuse of the power of litigation, an affront to everything internet stands for. More...
Firefox 1.0
The wait is over. Firefox 1.0 has officially launched - the Firefox website is staggering a bit under the load but you can still get in to upgrade now. Oh, and in case you have any doubts, I am recommending that you switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox now. Today. Here's a guide that tells you how to switch. Yes, you'll have all your plug-ins - and the installer in Windows is almost seamless. More...
Persistent Identification and Public Policy
This article is a response to the discussions held at the Persistent Identifiers Seminar at University College Cork, Ireland, last June (presentations are available on the website). The summary to which I refer is not yet available on the internet. When (and if) it is made available, I will link to it here. More...
Virtual Trader
As I've talked about learning environments in the past this is the sort of thing I've had in mind. Virtual Trader is a stock market simulation - it allows you to make investments and trade stocks in a simulated environment - no money risked. As you look at the home page, notice how educational resources (learning objects?) are embedded into the game as a way of helping plyers learn about the subject. More...
Daily Lesson Plan
Yet another example of free online learning content, this daily lesson plan from the New York Times is obviously centred around American politics and issues, but is a good example of free online learning provided in order to promote goods or services. More...
Fitting Your PC In a Pocket
Rory McGreal sent this around - if you think that iPods and Blackberries are something, wait until you can put your desktop computer in your pocket. More...
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