Chalk, Talk and Customer Service
The Economist offers a description of, and more or less endorsement of, low-cost private education as offered by Sunny Varkey, a wealthy Dubai-based entrepreneur, through his firm, Global Education Management Systems (GEMS). More...

RSS News Ticker
James Farmer asked for an Edu_RSS news ticker, and I was happy to oblige (thanks to the coding work already done by the good people at BBCi) - you can find my new ticker (with instructions on how to place it on your own site) here. More...

Writing for Google
This is an interesting item because it captures the flavour of writing content for an unknown audience. Typically, articles are written in the context of a certain journal - or in our field, for a certain course. More...

Paypal No Friend of FreeNet
On the one hand you could say that a private company like PayPal should be free to conduct business with whomever it chooses, and you would be right. But on the other hand, when control of the financial infrastructure is used for political purposes, that's another thing. More...

inDiscover RSS
Sometimes when you ask, you receive. inDiscover, covered here a few days ago, now has 4 different types of RSS feeds: newest artists, newest songs, songs for a artist and favorites. There will also be a feed for the top 10 in all genres against all attributes. More...

Welcome from Embrun
NRC is taking most of its web services offline in just a few minutes (so my web site may be unavailable this evening until tomorrow morning), so I have to rush. I'm still in Embrun on vacation, visting my family. More...

Napster Gags University Over RIAA's Student Tax
Napster is taking action after Ohio University gave some indication of how much it charges universities to offer music access - a survey distributed by the university suggested the cost would be $3 per person per month. More...

Osgoode Township High School
I am in Embrun, Ontario, visiting my family and preparing to attend the Osgoode Township High School reunion just down the road in Metcalfe this weekend (or, at least, I hope to be, since the 'online registration' consisted of a PDF, and my email please to be registered met with only an ambiguous response). More...

My Brilliant Failure: Wikis In Classrooms
Though the article's message is clear - "To really use a wiki, the participants need to be in control of the content- you have to give it over fully" - I wish I understood just how the exercise turned into a failure. More...

Understanding Why Students Select Online Courses: Criteria they Use in Making that Selection
Why do students choose the online courses they choose? This fairly large survey hosted on GradSchools.com through its home page lists two sets of factors. First, visitors said the most important criteria in choosing a program was reputation, followed by cost and interactivity. More...