By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Robert Ashley: You Can't Be Serious, 1Up December 23, 2005

As funny a post as I have seen in a while, this article looks at some standard 'learning games' - for example, Virtual Leader or A Force More Powerful - and subjects them to a reworking by some well know game designers. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Josie Fraser: Learners as Teachers as Learners, EdTechUK December 23, 2005

Josie Fraser follows up a recent link depicting "children teaching adults the non-lethal use of PowerPoint" and comes up with two more good examples of the younger teaching the older, both interestingly in topics dealing with web safety. "The idea behind this switching of roles is to stimulate communication between children and adults about their internet use". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Stuart Yeates: SiteGround offer Moodle Hosting as a Commodity Service, Educause December 23, 2005

Interesting. Stuart Yeates writes, "SiteGround is offering Moodle hosting as a commodity offering. Starting at 5 USD / month, they're already hosting 400 Moodle sites, and at the price, I guess we can expect that to grow rapidly". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Mike Weber: Open Source Savings for a School District, SpiderTools.com December 23, 2005

While you may hear a lot about the idea that open source is not about the money you save (see the Stallman interview from a couple days ago), the fact is, if you have the staff, open source will save you money. This article is a case study in which Noxon School District saved $92,675.20 in start-up costs, with projected savings of more than $300,000 over a ten year period. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors: Libraries and E-Learning, Canadian Association of Research Libraries December 23, 2005

Librarians and libraries will play a key role in e-learning. This, not surprisingly, is the conclusion of a recent report from the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL). The report "recommends that librarians take the lead in the consolidation of Learning Object Repository management and licensing practices, in order to bring an orderly approach to management and use of shared instructional across Canada." I would certainly hope that librarians find their future in protecting and supporting free access to information, rather than becoming front-people for publishers' licenses and access restrictions. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Daniel Lemire: AJAX RSS Display, Daniel Lemire's blog December 23, 2005

Daniel Lemire sends this quick guide to using Ajax to embed RSS in your web page, with an example. Here's the example running my feed. Nice, except as usual you can only use it if both the RSS and the viewer are on the same site. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Thomas Crampton: In France, A Movement to Legalize Web Piracy of Films and Music, International Herald Tribune December 23, 2005

Ignore the blatant propaganda in the title (I always take titles directly from the source, but staying true to this one makes me grit my teeth - folks, it's not 'piracy' if it's legal and you pay for it. Sheesh). The French parliament is attempting to legalize file sharing for non-commercial purposes. We can only wish them well in this attempt. The proposal "would establish a so-called global license fee that - once paid - would permit Internet users to download unlimited digital music and films from the Internet for personal use." Gosh - this coverage is really bad. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Donald Clark: Elliot Masie's Learning 2005, EPIC December 21, 2005

It's a bit after the fact, but this summary of Elliott Masie's Learning 2005 conference, held November in (where else?) Orlando, is too delicious to pass by. Told from an outsider's perspective, with observations on the "cult of celebrity" and "preaching", but still capturing the things Masie did right and recommending the conference for next year, the author brought a point of view that can't perhaps be seen from the inside. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Elinor Mills: Reuters Video to Get Mass Distribution, CNet News.Com December 21, 2005

This is much bigger news than may at first be anticipated. "International news agency Reuters is launching a pilot program on Tuesday that will allow blogs, news organizations and other online publishers to show Reuters news video on their Web sites." So far as I can judge, the content will be free, though an advertisement will show prior to the newsclip. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dave Munger: High IQ: Not As Good For You As You Thought, Cognitive Daily December 21, 2005

According to this study, "Both IQ and self-discipline are correlated with GPA, but self-discipline is a much more important contributor: those with low self-discipline have substantially lower grades than those with low IQs, and high-discipline students have much better grades than high-IQ students." But what is self-discipline. More...