By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Cautionary Tale....
I'm sure many people will recognize themselves in this story. Well worth reading: a tale of hour an unnamed British university developed a VLE, and why (really) it is purchasing a commercial product. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Ten Tips for New Trainers/Teachers
I think this item will be popular, but I'm uncomfortable with it. Enough of the advice is good but it seems to me that some of it is misleading. Like, say, this: "Emotions provide the metadata for a memory. They're the tags that determine how important this memory is." Well, no. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. EdTech Posse Rides Again
Yes, I listened to this one all the way to the end, but I confess, my mind wandered - I've noticed this about podcasts, they tend to become background, like talk radio. Maybe it's just me. I think that where and when you listen to a podcast makes a big difference. Anyhow, this discussion centres around Laura Turner’s recent list of twenty essential skills everyone should have. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Could We Have A Little More, uh, Conversation?
Tom Hoffman argues that the educational blogosphere is less developed than other areas because there's not enough conversation going on. Writers, for example, "chirpily" approve links like Andy Carvins's recent suggestion on how to use a wiki to teach students. Carvin's "whole premise" seems to be "that Wikipedia entries... have a non-trivial number of unambiguous factual errors." Well, no. What Carvin in fact says is that "either they'll verify that a particular factoid is correct, or they'll prove that it's not." Either way works fine. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why Not to Use Blogs as E-Portfolios
This item bothered me a bit not because I think we should unquestioningly use blogs as e-portfolios but because of the reasons offered to suggest we shouldn't. For example, "persistence creates the illusion of fixed identity, whereas higher education explicitly conceptualises its mission as formative and processual." Well, sure, you grow and develop when you learn, but you don't change your name. You can keep a persistent identity even as you grown. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. IDxchange and IDOL Quarterly
David Penrose points us to this site. "The IDxchange blog is a resource for professional Instructional Designers, who may also be working on their graduate degree at Capella University". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Learning as a Social Process?
George Siemens is "getting a bit frustrated with the continual statements that learning is a social process." He continues, "My interest in learning networks stems from the individuality of each node in the larger network." People, it seems to me, often confuse 'social' with 'group'. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Austin, Texas
So anyhow I dragged to old scanner out from under the cat, downloaded a driver from the net, and copied some of my old pictures from 1981 (not a typo - that's 24 years ago) when I spent three months training with Texas Instruments in Austin. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Principles for Evaluating Websites
How do you know whether something you read on the web is true? You can't know, at least, not for sure. This makes it important to read carefully and to evaluate what you read. This guide will tell you how. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, July 16, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Students refuse to buy a single song from Napster
Heh. You may have read about some universities signing deals with Napster in an effort to curb file sharing. These agreements are foisted on students whether they want them or not, including students at the University of Rochester. More...