By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors[Edit][Delete]: Higher Ed BlogCon, January 18, 2006

This online conference about blogging in academia is being organized (interestingly) by publishing company Thomson-Petersons. It's a good move on their part, and while I probably won't submit anything (I don't submit things) I think it will be worth people's while. Thomson, note, is also the home of the innovative Urchin RSS aggregator, so they have the props to be able to pull this off. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Scott Leslie[Edit][Delete]: Reports from the CETIS Vocabularies Project, Ed Tech Post [Edit][Delete] January 18, 2006

Reaction to the recent CETIS vocabularies project. "The 121 pages that comprise the first two survey reports, the Pedagogical Vocabularies Review and the Vocabulary Management Technologies Review, seem hardly to justify the tepid 7 page 'Recommendations' document that follows. Study study study, disseminate, more study, pilot a bit, repeat. Sorry guys, I wish I could be more enthusiastic about this". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Melanie Bates, Steve Loddington, Sue Manuel and Charles Oppenheim[Edit][Delete]: Rights and Rewards Project: Academic Survey: Final Report, Jisc [Edit][Delete]JISC [Edit][Delete] January 17, 2006[

Survey that asks two questions of academics: "What rights would individuals expect to exert over the teaching materials they deposit into a repository, and what rewards would motivate them to deposit their teaching materials?" According to the results, contributors would like a salary increment or lump sum award (of course, there is a big difference, glossed in this survey, between 'like' and 'require'). As for rights, most professors wanted to be attributed, and with 'certain conditions' attached (for example, non-commercial use). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Norm Friesen[Edit][Delete]: CanCore Pilot Project: Enhancing LAC Metadata for Canadian Learning Resources, CanCore [Edit][Delete]Cancore [Edit][Delete] January 17, 2006

Norm Friesen writes, "CanCore has undertaken a small-scale pilot project to enhance existing metadata records for Canadian learning resources provided by the Library and Archives of Canada. This project enhances or adds value to these records not so much by adding additional data or fields, but by converting these records from Dublin Core to the syntax and semantics of CanCore and the Learning Object Metadata Standard (LOM). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Sarah Boehle[Edit][Delete]: The State of the E-learning Market, Training Mag [Edit][Delete] January 17, 2006

Interesting analysis, though the focus is almost entirely on learning management systems, which perhaps says something. Observing that the long-expected industry consolidation has already happened, for the most part, the report notes that a problem for LMSs is that they all look and feel pretty much like each other - even while at the same time not being able to properly exchange data with each other or enterprise systems. The outlook isn't positive. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Norm Friesen[Edit][Delete]: Standardizing for Access - Interview with Jutta Treviranus, CanCore [Edit][Delete]Cancore [Edit][Delete] January 17, 2006

Norm Friesen interviews Jutta Treveranus, one of Canada's leading experts on web accessibility. Podcast and transcript are available. Some interesting observations. "There was quite a transition from IMS to ISO. When we did the consultations around the formulation of the IMS version of ACCMD the feedback that we got from the community was that it would be very difficult to get any additional metadata on any digital resource. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Stephen Downes[Edit][Delete]: RSS Writr, January 17, 2006
So anyhow, I heard this odd whining noise in my computer bag just before leaving for Edmonton... yup, it was another Dell computer giving up the ghost (it wasn't even turned on!)... so anyhow, I'm in Alberta now, writing from a hotel cafeteria on a backup computer with no ethernet (wireless works fine though, go figure). It's going to be a tough week for access, so don't be surprised if I miss a few issues of OLDaily this week.
What I'm linking to here is pretty unfinished, but I won't get back to it for at least a week (maybe longer, depending on Dell). But it is functional, and you can mess with it a bit to make it more so. Basically, RSS Writr (and before you complain, I'm really sorry about the name) is the first instance of my vision of the core of the personal learning environment. Select an aggregator (you can use Edu_RSS 0.2 or MyGlu as an aggregator) from the dropdown (if you don't like those links, edit the HTML and define your own MyGlu or some other aggregator), read the posts, drag and drop the links and text (and images, and whatever) into the authoring window, make something of your own out of them, then post to your Blogger account.
What you should picture, as you imagine how this would be used, is both teachers and students using it in the same way... the teacher aggregates learning resources from services such as DLORN or their colleagues, and mashes up lessons for the day or whatever, while the students aggregate from their teacher(s), their friends, Google, wikipedia, or whatever (you can put whatever you want into the dropdown) or whatever, and then they use this content to create somehting cool of their own (which, of course, is aggregated by the teacher, other students, people around the world, whatever, and the cycle begins anew).
Anyhow, sorry it's not done, but I just don't have the computer or the access or the time to do more at the moment, and I really wanted to somehow put in concrete form and to communicate the vision of learning that I have. Thanks, everybody, for your understanding and patience. [Tags: Wireless, Linking and Deep Linking, Cool, Google] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 50+ RSS Ideas for Educators, Teaching Hacks [Edit][Delete] January 17, 2006