Too Much Computer Exposure may Hinder Learning
The Woessmann and Fuchs report, subject of my recent paper Understanding Pisa, has hit the news again (one suspects someone is promoting this study with some vigor) and has become a subject of discussion at WWWEDU. More...

Does Technology Enhance Inquiry-Based Learning?
This paper tries overly hard to be balanced, and in so doing obscures its most important observation: "If we expect all research studies on education innovations to provide a simple 'thumbs-up or thumbs-down', we are likely to avoid research methods that can yield important insights into the complexities of implementing major innovations in our schools." The context is discussion of the evaluation of the eMINTS program, a combination of learning technologies with constructivist methodology. More...

Schools Chief: State's Districts Need a Shake-up
This is the tip of the iceberg. "Watkins said public schools face the same kinds of problems U.S. automakers faced in the 1980s with foreign competition. As students are lost to charter schools, public districts lose state funds. More...

2005: The Year of the Digital Campus
I don't have a lot of faith in these predictions, despite their pedigree (the author is the V.P. of Education and Global Research at Sun Microsystems). Writes the author, "the educational landscape is transforming into a 'digital campus' - an information-rich and seamlessly connected environment that brings the world to a student's fingertips and lets the student move freely about the globe." Well maybe one day, but not next year. More...

Googlizers vs. Resistors
In a world where tomorrow is different from yesterday, controlled vocabularies and not only inefficient, they're dangerous. In a controlled vocabulary, not only can you not classify 'podcasting', you cannot even register its impact. Some librarians are getting this message. Others are not. More...

EDINA Newsline
Peter Scott reports: "The December 2004 edition of EDINA Newsline is now available." I had a look at the newsletter; it is chock-full of fascinating resources. More...

IT Issues & Strategic Viewpoints in Higher Education
The sample sizes in this survey are unfortunately small and there's no indication that the selection was not biased. That said, this survey - and take it for what it's worth - offers some good quotes. More...

DRM at its Worst? Here's a Prime Example
If you wonder why I rail against digital rights management (DRM), this article provides a good example. The author orders a DVD of Terminator 2 (T2). Despite being advertised as playable on Windows Media, an additional DRM client is required. Then it only plays in Canada or the U.S. (as determined by a buggy IP analyser). More...

Management by Objects
There's some genuinely neat stuff by Microsoft described in this article (yes - the words 'Microsoft' and 'neat' in the same sentence - who knew?) (and follow the reference to the earlier article where Monah is demonstrated). More...

Persistent Education
What I didn't get to say in my discussion of the personal learning environment (PLE) the other day is that every student should get his or her own web server. Why? Well, moving off the institutional web server only does half the job - people's computers break down, they buy new computers, they want to access from a Cybercafe in Harare... you can't depend on a client side aplication. More...