By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Teemu Leinonen[Edit][Delete]: Libre Educational Resources and Libre Universities âx" Should We Redefine What is An University?, FLOSSE Posse [Edit][Delete] January 6, 2006

Some interesting commentary on the recent UNESCO discussion on open educational resources (OER) ("I was surprised how UNESCO was able to find only North American moderators under the title 'provider perspective'. The 'user perspective' was provided from Egypt, China, African virtual university and a portal of Latin American universities) and on the distinction between OER and Libre Education Resources (LER). "Basically, it (LER) would mean that the content is free to be used for whatever: to changed it and to redistribute it. In practice this would mean releasing the resources under public domain or e.g. under GNU Free Documentation License. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Matt Pasiewicz[Edit][Delete]: An Interview with the National Research Council of Canada's Glen Newton, Educause [Edit][Delete]EDUCAUSE [Edit][Delete] January 6, 2006

From the abstract: "In this 16 minute recording, we'll hear from acting group leader of the National Research Council of Canada's CISTI Research. Let's listen in as Glen Newton compares and contrasts the superstructures supporting research in the US and Canada, shares thoughts about Canada's National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data, and offers some commentary on the open source, open content and open access." Looking at the document cited (which I don't recall being circulated within NRC, but my memory may be flawed) I feel a bit better about the potential for open access in the Canadian government. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dave Warlick[Edit][Delete]: Hack the System, 2 cents Worth [Edit][Delete]2 Cents Worth [Edit][Delete] January 6, 2006

With a title like that, I had to run this item. Dave Warlick copmpares the "Industrial Model" of learning with the "Knowledge-Age Model," looking at conditions, goals, what we teach, how we teach, and assessment. You might want to contribute your ideas to his hack the system wiki. I like the comparison, so far as it goes, but I would like to see some of the more structural underpinnings examined. It's not just about information, job niches and a changing environment; that's kind of like saying 'the internet will be like television with more channels'. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A.J. Hirst[Edit][Delete]: Synching Social Bookmarking Systems, OUseful Info [Edit][Delete] January 6, 2006

I think this will prove pretty popular. "Once I've set up a synch-link, it would be handy if I could set up a daily top-up, for example, whereby the service I'm synching into subscribes to my personal RSS feed at the service I'm synching from and grabs all the latest additions and changes". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Christian Long[Edit][Delete]: Reviewing the top-10 Ed-Tech Stories of 2005, think:lab [Edit][Delete] January 6, 2006

Christian Long summarizes, in a much more accessible form, the list of top 10 stories from last year, as seen by eSchool News. Their point of view is rather different from my own - they highlight, in my view, events rather than trends, appearances rather than underlying reality. Sure, Katrina was a big story (so was the tsunami recovery, but it didn't make the list), but it would have been more approriate to talk about the changing environment and its impact on schools generally. Or "globalization drives U.S. school reform efforts." Globaization isn't a unidimensional thing: sure, it's the weaving of the global information matrix (the red pill) but it's also the increasing corporatization of governance and finance (the blue pill). More...