By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. University of Phoenix Expands into Religious Teaching
This is the first real sign of what is probably a trend. "Apollo Group (parent company of the for-profit University of Phoenix) has contracted with Lutheran High School of Orange County (LHSOC) to manage its online delivery of high school curriculum". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How You Should Use Blogs in Education
James Farmer offers a list of ways you should use blogs in learning, but runs up against the conundrum educators all over have encountered, between "you must incorporate blogs as key, task driven, elements of your course" and "one of the worst things you can do is mandate posting on particular topics with particularly rigid frequency". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Update from Bangkok
Hm. Interesting. "I’ve come to realize that mobile media is a joke. Carrier data fees are out to lunch, J2ME is a development nightmare and every manufacturer adheres to a slightly different official standard." Or this: "There is no mobile platform even in Asia". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Robert B. Kvavik and Judy B. Caruso: ECAR Study of Students and Information Technology 2005, Educause November 16, 2005
The EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR)has come out with its 2005 study on students and information technology. StevenB observes that while students use search engines, "they clearly do not use those resources exclusively." Barbra Fister reports, though, that "students report using computers only 11-15 hours a week, with searching library databases at less than an hour". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jenny Millea, Dr Ian Green and Garry Putland: Emerging Technologies: A Framework For Thinking, Education.au September 28, 2005
This sweeping and forward-looking report commissioned by the Australian Capital Territory Department of Education (ACT DET) to look at the impact and potential of emerging technologies in learning is a must-read for decision-makers in the field; it also serves as an excellent introduction to emerging technology in learning for anyone interested in the field. While the authors nod toward traditional learning technology, such as learning management systems, they also capture well the larger trends impacting the field: mobility, interoperability, collaboration and communication, creativity, and open source. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Sarah Knight, et.al.?: Innovative Practice with e-Learning, Jisc September 28, 2005
This is a great quote: "Before we were concerned with controlling learners' use of computers, but now the challenge is to know how they are accessing their own technology to enhance their own learning." This is the tenor that infoms this look at "pedagogies based partially or wholly on the use of mobile devices, including those without built-in connectivity, and those that offer mobile access to resources on the web." After surveying the technological environment, the pedagogies are examined through the lens of four perspectives on learning: associative, two types of constructivist, and situative or social learning". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Denys Lamontagne: Thot - News of Distance Learning, Thot September 28, 2005

The French distance education newsletter, Thot, is now available in English, courtesy an experiment in automatic translation. Thot has been in circulation since 1997 and (according to their email) reaches 200,000 people a month. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Steve Outing: Seething Anger Over TimesSelect Op-ed Choice, Poynter September 28, 2005
As most people know, the New York Times locked its op-ed columnists behind a subscription wall last week. Reaction is now coming in and most of it is negative. One person wrote to me from Iran pointing out that this makes it impossible to read the articles in that country, a theme touched on by Steve Outing in this item. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Sarah Schweitzer: When Students Open Up -- A Little Too Much, Boston Globe September 28, 2005
Discussion of what could happen if students post indiscreetly on online discussion boards such as Facebook (a closed social network for university students). Most of the examples centre around drug references, for some reason, though presumably students could be indiscreet about other topics as well. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Susan Smith Nash: Distributed Leadership in the E-Learning Organization, E-Learning Queen September 28, 2005
I think Susan Smith Nash's exploration of the subject of leadership and organization in today's item (and yesterday's) is useful, but it seems to me that business writers still haven't grasped what post-industrial organization looks like. Yesterday, for example, Nash writes that the "vision encourages individuals to release their individual goals and objectives and to substitute a collective one". More...