Promoting Learning with Personalized Newsletters
There is a lot to like in the learning model adopted by NCR Corporation and described in this article. The good bit starts about a third of the way through with a description of the "MyNCRU Personal Learning News" email newsletter. A sample newsletter is provided as a link in the article; it is well worth following. More...

The Evolving Role of Course Management System Providers in the Transformation of Education: An Interview with Blackboard's Matthew Pittinsky
The title describes the content. Blackboard's strategy in a nutshell: "I think the next big leap is from CMS to OS. Systems like Blackboard will be viewed as platforms that unite a wide range of academic technologies that traditionally have been fragmented... I view course management systems as operating systems for education because I believe that their value lies as much in the standardized user interface and open architecture for third-party developers as it does in the particular tools with which they ship." From a business point of view, this is a good strategy. More...

Knowledge Environment for Web-based Learning (KEWL): An Open Source Learning Management System Suited for the Developing World
With recent price increases in LMS software, there has been a lot of talk about open source alternatives. This article describes one such, Knowledge Environment for Web-based Learning (KEWL). More...

The Bazaar Online Conference System: Athabasca University's Alternative to Proprietary Online Course Delivery Platforms
I had the opportunity last week to tour the entire Bazaar conferencing system described in this article. I like it a lot. What Bazaar is not is a content management system - it is designed to facilitate communication, not information transfer. That said, it contains many of the administrative and tracking tools found in more expensive LMSs. More...

Learning Management Systems: Seeking Paradigms for Collaboration
Phillip Long's otherwise reasonable discussion of ways people can influence the development of learning management systems (LMSs) is scored with an unwarranted piousness. More...

Three Tiers of Identity
This article distinguishes between three types of identity: identity that is assumed by oneself, assigned that is assigned by a second party (such as a corporate profile or social insurance number), and identity that is created in an abstract manner (such as a profile created by a marketing company). Some of these identities are needed, but others create more problems than they solve (and some - like (faulty) credit ratings, fall into both categories). More...

Professors Vie With Web for Class's Attention
You're standing at the front of the class giving your usual Thursday lecture when you notice that the clicking from the back of the room has increased in volume. It's an audible vote: your students are tuning out and taking to the web, waiting less than patiently for you to return to something more interesting. More...

Research-Based Observations
One adage is missing from this article: be careful when conducting usability tests, because you will only find what you're looking for. Usability tests are conducted by giving people specific tasks to conduct on a website. If you don't ask them to, say, bookmark a page on the site, then thinks like frames will not appear as a problem. That's why the advice in this article should be taken with a grain of salt. More...

Chatters Quieting Down
This is one of these things that should have been forseen but is still worthy of note when it happens, if only for the lesson it offers for next time. The rate at which chat room use is increasing has slowed down. Factors cited are a more focussed use of the internet, disruption caused by younger participants in the unmoderated environment, and concerns about predators. More...

Students Slowed by School Access, Time
This should be no surprise to those working in schools, but students are increasingly reporting that their internet access at school is slower than at home. The report points out that most schools use broadband connections, "contrary to students' perceptions about speed." But, silly, if you split a broadband connection a hundred ways or more, it resembles a slow dial-up. More...