Explaining the LRMI Alignment Object
Phil Barker, Phil Barker CETIS Blog, March 6, 2014
LRMI stands for 'Learning Record Metadata Initiative' and is a (yet another) mechanism for describing learning resources. See more here. This post describes the LRMI Alignment Object, which is intended to describe how a given resource fits into curricular or educational standards requirements, such as the US Common Core State Standards or the English National Curriculum (the article has a good set of links to similar standards). More...

Meet Oppia, Google’s New Open Source Project That Allows Anyone To Create An Interactive Learning Experience
Rip Emerson, TechCrunch, March 2, 2014
The whole story is in the title (which is a nice contrast from those Ipworthy headlines). More, you have to like Google's approach here: "No trial periods, no freemium plans, no advertisements. Writing, editing, or learning from explorations on oppia.org is 100% free of charge! Additionally, all lessons on oppia.org are licensed CC-BY-SA, which means that you are allowed to copy, modify, and reuse lesson content. Want to host an Oppia instance yourself, or make modifications to it? The code behind oppia.org is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. You are encouraged to download, modify, and reuse Oppia's software to your heart's content!" OK, the lessons created by Oppia are really basic (I tried a bunch of them). More...

Research on Distance Education for First Nations/aboriginals, from IRRODL, Vol. 15, No. 1
Tony Bates, online learning, distance edcuation resources, February 28, 2014

Tony Bates reviews an article from the latest issue of IRRODL (International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning) dealing with the impact of distance education on Firts Nations / Aboriginal communities in Canada. More...