The State of Standards at Online Educa 2004
Good summary of the discussions on learning technology standards at Online Educa Berlin. On the one hand, you have people like Wayne Hodgins saying "they're done, you just need to implement them" and on the other people are saying "but we need standards for collaboration". I still think that a lot of the standards discussion is putting the cart before the horse, as Hodgins says, "perfecting the irrelevant". More...

Texbooks or iPods?
I looked longingly at a Creative Zen today (what you should buy instead of an iPod if you're thinking of buying an iPod). Sound appeals to me - I've had a different sort of vibe from readers since posting my audio online (hard to quantify or even describe - let's just say there's a noticable difference in the feel of the responses). More...

OLDaily Audio
My OLDaily Audio page - MP#s of my talks in proper podcasting form (the RSS is here). I have a few items to add - I set this up a couple months ago in respoinse to a request and forgot about it. Worth a mention in light of the next item. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, October sometime [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...

More December Oddness, and a Mystery Link ;)
So anyhow, I'm in Ottawa. Another odd day - I'm supposed to go to Montreal tomorrow but it's looking ugly and I'll probably cancel. My message light flashed, but my voice mail was empty - if you called me you were deleted. My cell phone is in my office in Moncton. NRC's normally unreliable email isn't working again (which is why I'm including some personal notes in the newsletter - I'm incommunicado otherwise). And my laptop, which has never worked properly since Windows XP was installed, is operating in fits and starts (mostly fits). More...

President's Blog
So you toil and toil at your college, promoting the idea of blogging, but you don't really get any take-up. But still you toil away, and then one day, your college gets a new president, and the new president launches a blog. More...

Copyright Clearance Center Releases New Report on Copyright in the Digital Workspace
Interesting report surveying internet use in the corporate space. According to the results, the internet is widely use for research (and is often the sole source of research). More surprisingly, file sharing is widespread in the corproate environment. "Employees seek out information that is relevant to business objectives. Once they find it, they frequently share it with others for a wide range of purposes often without realizing that their actions may violate copyright law." It's a habit as old as work - once you find something interesting, you share it with your friends and colleagues. More...

Just Another Wacky Day in December
So anyhow, today started with me missing my 6:30 a.m. flight to Ottawa - so if you're expecting me, I'll be in the city tomorrow. What else? My discussion board continues to emit sparodic, unreplicable errors in which the entire thread is not formed, But happily, it works sometimes - long enough, at least, to get this cogent response from Scott Wilson on Personal Learning Environments and a response from Fen Labalme on i-Names. What else. More...

The State of Distance Education: Observations
Survey article looking at the state of online learning today. The major points: online learning is growing rapidly and it's getting easier all the time. The article also mentions blended learning and takes a look at mobile learning. More...

Component Frameworks
Scott Leslie sent me notice of this very interesting presentation. The key is on the third slide (edited for syntax): "[The] Web Server paradigm fails lifelong learners – How? [The]Stateless browser leaves no trace behind. To manage their learning they need their own records. Lifelong learners attend multiple institutions over time, even at the same time. [They] have to learn a new environment at each. Their record and portfolio is scattered. They need a continuous connection for learning, but, if off-campus, this may be slow, unreliable, expensive. As eLearning becomes more complex, VLEs won’t scale. PLEs [Personal Learning Environments] allow the learner’s system to share the load." The solution proposed is complex, Java-based and Web-Services based. I think it needs to be simple, language neutral, and use appropiate protocols for appropriate tasks. More...

OPEN Public Commonwealth Support System of Distance Education (PCSSODE)
E-learning, like everything else in China, must be developed on a huge scale. This paper outlines one aspect of that project, a public commonwealth support system of e-education (PCSSODE). More...