From Classrooms to Learning Environments: A Midrange Projection of E-Learning Technologies
Our experience with information and communications technologies is sufficient to allow us to identify the progression through the two phases of technological adoptation. This progression may be mapped to a continuum of technological innovations that are now becoming more familiar to researchers in the field. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, June 10, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...

Extensible Repository Resource Locators (ERRoLs) for OAI Identifiers
In my article on RSS listed here yesterday I wrote, "It is only a matter of time before the RSS and OAI worlds merge." Today, Jeff Young wrote me to say, "You might be interested to learn that our ERRoL service does exactly that (among other things.) Any OAI repository registered in the OAI Registry at UIUC can be accessed as an RSS feed. More...

The Educated Blogger: Using Weblogs to Promote Literacy in the Classroom
Short article outlining the possible uses of blogging in the classrom. The author makes his case by pointing to the importance of storytelling and literacy in the classroom, then drawing the connection between blogs, literacy and storytelling. More...

La Escritura Com Weblogs
Overview article desscribing the use of weblogs in education, introducing readers to things such as Blogger. More...

News on Demand
Busy day - shortish newsletter today. This first item is an introduction to RSS with good sets of comparative links to useful resources, such as generators and feed readers. More...

Biases and Heuristics in Judgment and Decision Making: The Dark Side of Tacit Knowledge
Knowledge management theorists are engaged in the goal of 'extracting' tacit knowledge from people's minds, making it explicit in a knowledge base. Forget about whether or not this can be done: suppose it can. More...

Communication Management and Control in Distance Learning Scenarios
I don't really agree with the conclusion of this paper, but I know many people do: in the recommended communications environment, "a tight, scheduled support structure is applied to the communication processes of students and tutors. An integrated communication platform offers appropriate communication channels according to the actual communication needs of a student or tutor." I just don't deal with time well enough to support a tight schedule of anything. More...

A Contribution to Defining the Term Definition
I frequently become impatient when people want to begin by defining things (for example, 'learning objects'). Not because I don't think we should be clear, but because the process of definition then commences with little or no reflection on what constitutes a definition. More...

InSITE 2004 Papers By Research Area
Papers from the upcoming InSITE conference (Informing Science and Information Technology Education) are now available for free download online. A lot of good stuff here - it looks like a fascinating conference. I have picked three papers for today's OLDaily, below (though I could have picked a dozen). More...

Apple Wants to Open Song Vaults
Apple is pitching to have music companies make available currently unavailable tracks - something like two thirds of their inventory - through iTunes. "What Steve Jobs is saying is, 'We'd be happy to take all this content that is rotting away in warehouses and turn it into a new revenue source for you.'" One of my major criticisms of current online music offerings is the limited selection of materials - if I want to be mainstreamed, I'll listen to AM radio. More...