Alt-i-Lab
I have numerous comments about the material presented at this important conference, most of which I read last night, but the expression of these will have to wait until I can do them justice. In the meantime, this main link leads you to the IMS summary of the event. See also Raymond Yee's Wiki. Scott Leslie also provides numerous links. From the Alt-i-Lab Forum I would like to highlight especially Robby Robson's (unfortunately incomplete) discussion of digital rights as well as the White Paper Plenary Presentation. More...

Education Research in the Knowledge Society: Key Trends in Europe and North America
Useful and interesting report looking at trends worldwide in the development of research strategies in online learning and related subjects worldwide. Worth noting is the author's characterization of the very different systems employed in the different countries: the establishment of a national centre in the university system (U.S.), the establishment of a government research agency (France, Germany), and a decentralized pluralist system with no focal point (U.K., Sweden, Canada). More...

Child Psychology: Vygotsky's Conception of Psychological Development
Overview of Vytotsky's theory of development, with an explanation of why (and how) Vygotsky believes that higher order cognitive phenomena are of a different type from more instinctual phenomena. More...

Barbarian Inventions
I think there's a theme. There may be a theme. But don't spend time looking for one; it's not written that way. It's about newspaper registration, choice and cyberspace, unshaken hands and cellphones, Dreyfus, and why people seem intent on telling us what we should read and learn, how we should do so, and that we are, in effect, barbarians. More...

Funded Projects - Canada
Some program funding announcements for Canadian readers. CANARIE has announced a Request For Proposals for the New Media Research Matrix; three or four projects will be selected, with program funding not to exceed $400,000 for any given project. More...

UKeU - Peeling the Onion - layer 2
Derek Morrison's dissection of the UKeU hearings was pre-empted by the release of the official (uncorrected) transcripts of the hearings, but I'm sure the official version doesn't capture the testiness of the exchange as well as this summary. More...

Learning Material Repositories - Rafts or Battleships? - Part 2
Carried over from Part 1, this article looks at the incredibly high barrier to entry to e-learning technologies and what to do about it. More...

Globe and Mail Registration
I am a frequent reader of the Globe and Mail online and also a frequent purchaser of the printed version of the newspaper. I receive the daily email alerts, and as has so often been the case, clicked on a link from the Daily Tech Alert. More...

Apple Threatens RealNetworks
Without being overly cynical, without suggesting that a certain company's politics wave with the wind, let me respectfully not respond to Apple's protestations against RealMedia. And in that positive spirit - because I do support what RealMedia has done - let me offer something constructive, something useful. More...

Spiral Dynamics and Education
Marcus Barber responded to my Vygotsky link yesterday with a longish email, which I appreciated, and a link to this presentation. It's a longish PDF (a format my distaste for which he acknowledged) describing an off-shoot known as spiral dynamics. The bulk of the paper is devoted to dividing learners into six colour-coded groups, ranging from the deferential purples to the lone wolf reds. More...