By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Marie Jasinski[Edit][Delete]: Go Conative - Where There's Will, You're Away!, Best of the Australian Flexible Learning Community [Edit][Delete] August 14, 2006
Marie Jasinski weighed into a post today with a reference to this article, her explanation (and celebration) of connation. "Conation is derived from the Latin verb conari, meaning to strive! It refers to the act of striving, intentionality, of focusing attention and energy and acting with a purpose to achieve a goal. In other words, conation is about stickability, staying power, strength, stamina and survival." If you haven't seen this item before, it's well worth a look. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Matea Gold[Edit][Delete]: In the Big Picture, The Small Screen Doesn't Appear To Be The Next Big Thing, Chicago Tribune [Edit][Delete] August 14, 2006
I think the jury is still out on this one, though my tired old eyes tend to side with the headline. But how do young and agile eyes react? 13 year old Kaitlyn Brown comments. "It kept stopping midstream and stuff," she said. "I didn't really like it, so I took it off. It was extra money, and I didn't think it was worth it." So we're in 'not quite there yet' territory. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Graeme Daniel[Edit][Delete]: Wikis in Education, WWWTools [Edit][Delete] August 14, 2006
The usual comprehensive set of links from wwwtools, beginning with a backgrounder on the nature and history of the wiki, and then looking at the use of the wiki in education. A surprising omission is Brian Lamb's Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not, which should not be missed in this context. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Andy Powell[Edit][Delete]: The Importance of Being Open, eFoundations [Edit][Delete] November 1, 2006
I have started uploading some of my PowerPoint slide presentations into Slideshare and am sympathetic with the observations in this post. "It is hard not to be tempted to make simplistic comparisons between JORUM and Slideshare and the other social tools... but I wonder how the 1200 resources deposited into JORUM over the last 11 or so months compare with the rate of presentations being deposited into Slideshare currently (even while it is still in beta)?" Why is this? It's hard to say, but the author suggests, "I think we fell foul of being too rigid in the use of a particular set of standards." Also, "Does JORUM's current registration process indicate a trust in the end-user?" When you create an online service, making it hard to use and restrictive makes it less likely people will use it. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Alex Ragone[Edit][Delete]: 21st Century Learning #20: Bill Fitzgerald on DrupalEd, Ed Tech Talk [Edit][Delete] November 1, 2006
With Drupal 5.0 just released (in very Beta) this discussion of the education-specific verion of Drupal, DrupalEd, is timely. "A distribution for Education will mean different things to different people: a set of tools to support classroom blogging, a set of tools to support teacher professional development, a set of tools to allow a school to track student progress (aka a SIS), a public-facing school web site, an internal teacher professional development site, a personal learning space (the PLE), to say nothing of the library sites, the LMS's, etc, etc, etc." Also worth a look is the Drupal Groups feature generally. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dean Shareski[Edit][Delete]: EdTech Posse Podcast 2.3 - Communities, Open Source in Education, Ed Tech Posse [Edit][Delete] November 1, 2006
Some audio discussion of my recent critique of K12Online and the responses. Folks, this should have been a very minor thing; it was just a casual remark on one small post. But as this link points out, many of the comments in response "seemed more like they would be heard in a junior high class." From my perspective, this vindictive response just reinforces what I have been saying recently about groups and networks. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Steve Hargadon[Edit][Delete]: SupportBlogging's New Google Custom Search Engine, November 1, 2006
Another attempt at an edublogger custom search in Google, this one hosted by Support Blogging. Again I searched for 'downes', again I got incorrect results. Why? My best guess is that my site wasn't listed among the edublogger sites selected, since no results from my site showed up. Now not to praise myself too much, but: who would create an edublogger search and not include downes.ca. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Mark Cuban[Edit][Delete]: Some Intimate Details on the Google YouTube Deal, Blog Maverick [Edit][Delete] November 1, 2006
Support for some of the speculation I offered the other day about the Google purchase of YouTube - yes, it is a way to deal with the problem of uploaded commercial content. According to this item, the purchases revolved around a deal to compensate the networks, but without requiring that they in turn compensate the artists. The deal also works for Google because the networks then turned around and sured other video uploading services, giving Google free reign in the domain. Google gets its monopoly, the networks get to clamp down on uploading, and the artists and users get... well, nothing. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Stephen Downes[Edit][Delete]: Round the World Photos, Flickr [Edit][Delete] November 1, 2006
I have finally completed uploading all the photos from my recent trip around the world. I hope you enjoy them; here they are (click on 'slide show' for a nice slide show version).
Frankfurt, Germany [slide show]
Bloemfontein, South Africa [slide show]
Lesotho [slide show]
Kruger National Park [slide show]
Cape Town, South Africa [slide show]
Manley, Australia [slide show]
Dunedin, New Zealand [slide show]
Stewart Island, New Zealand [slide show]
Christchurch, New Zealand [slide show]
Whangarei, New Zealand [slide show]
Tutukaka, New Zealand [slide show]
Auckland, New Zealand [slide show]
Desert Highway, New Zealand [slide show]
Bulls, New Zealand [slide show]
Wellington, New Zealand [slide show]
[Tags: Flickr] [Comment]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Unattributed[Edit][Delete]: Cyberinfrastructure for Education and Learning for the Future: A Vision and Research Agenda, Computing Research Association. [Edit][Delete] November 2, 2006
Results of a study from several sets of workshops, released in 005. I found this report to be an interesting read but have to agree with Zhao Lin's comments in IFETS today: "Web-based educational research, particularly, in learning theory and technology, is a very promising solution to this situation of mutual limitations. However, neither the cyberinfrastructure report nor the above 2020 report pays sufficient attention to web-based educational research. More...