By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Beth Kanter[Edit][Delete]: Tools for Gathering Data for Blog and Web Page Metrics, December 7, 2006
Is traffic the metric for weblog success? I am not willing to believe it is - for otherwise, I should be aiming for BoingBoing or Instapundit style numbers, which means doing what they do. But I am not interested in doing what they do - I find their interests a bit lightweight for my tastes (and let me be clear - this strictly about tastes, not some sort of pretension). If I had to measure, I would want to track something like 'impact' - ah, but that is a much harder thing to track. You don't get it without readership, to be sure. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Aaron Swartz[Edit][Delete]: The City with No Heart, Raw Thought [Edit][Delete] December 7, 2006
I remember back several years ago when Aaron Swartz, along with some other people, made RSS what it is today. He was 13 years old or something at the time and spoke as eloquently in software as anyone I've read. He is a few years older now and beginning to explore the world, giving us here his impressions of Los Angeles (with a drive-by glimpse of Cory Doctorow and Danah Boyd while he's at it). Best line: "I [Swartz] should become an academic, she [Boyd] says. Shake up the system just like her. But why join the system in the first place?, I say". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Michael Geist[Edit][Delete]: Canadian Documentary Film Makers Speak Out on Copyright, [Edit][Delete] December 6, 2006
Harold Jarche and Michael Geist report on a letter submitted by Canada's documentary film makers (if you are not from Canada, then you should know that documentaries are the major type of film made in Canada). "The letter notes the growing concern with the effect of copyright on documentary film makers, citing the survey results which found that 85 percent of film makers find copyright more harmful than beneficial and 82 percent find that the law is more likely to discourage them from making new films." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jeff Jarvis[Edit][Delete]: Bad Guys Winning, Buzznet [Edit][Delete] December 6, 2006
I have also noticed the increase in spam propelled through our (no doubt very expensive) spam filtering system, and therefore agree with Jeff Jarvis when he says, "Anyone who thinks that spam is a problem that has been or will be solved with technology alone is wrong." Now I have also noted that there is also no legal solution to the problem either. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Fred Stutzman[Edit][Delete]: Social Networking: Five Sites You Need to Know, Unit Structures [Edit][Delete] December 6, 2006
Some social networking buzz. The five sites aren't what you might expect. "In my opinion," writes the author, " these trends are really telling. Social networking is absolutely here to stay - this is not simply a 'phenomenon'." I agree - the phenomeonon may be refined, but the idea of creating systems that help people connect with each other will not go away. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Leonard Low[Edit][Delete]: Carnival of the Mobilists, Edition 56, Mobile Learning [Edit][Delete] December 6, 2006
The Carnival of the Mobilists is well known, having been bouncing around the ether for some time now. What caught my eye in this edition was Leonard Low's remark, "My fellow edubloggers may also be interested in my preparation for launching a Carnival of the Edublogs early next year (so that the lull of the holidays doesn't slow the momentum of the event getting going). I've already set up a blog for tracking each week's installment at http://carnival.edublogs.org." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. George Siemens[Edit][Delete]: College Education Without Prospects, Elearnspace [Edit][Delete]ELearnSpace [Edit][Delete] December 6, 2006
George Siemens links to this unencouraging article from the New York Times (so it will disappear from view shortly) about schools in India. "A lack of communications skills may be the most obvious shortcoming, but it is not the only one. A deeper problem, specialists say, is a classroom environment that treats students like children even if they are in their mid-20's. Teaching emphasizes silent note-taking and discipline at the expense of analysis and debate." Of course, I take note of the source, and wonder just how accurate this account is, and whether it depends more on stereotypes than data. Not every school in India is perfect, to be sure, but I find it very hard to believe that the schools of an entire nation - especially one as resurgent as India - leaves its graduates unprepared for work. I am much less concerned than the Times, for example, about students being educated in languages other than English. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Phil Becker[Edit][Delete]: The Case for OpenID, ZD Net [Edit][Delete]ZD Net [Edit][Delete] December 5, 2006
I have made the same argument on numerous occasions and still companies and organizations have charged ahead with top-heavy and encumbered identity schemes. But now the winds are beginning to shift. "Some have told us they consider the OpenID community to lack a clear process or structure, to not solve the 'real' problems in identity (yet?), or to be only applicable for low-end problems. They are probably right; however, we think of it as the early days of Internet-scale innovation in action, where these characteristics are desirable, not detrimental... Full decentralization and a very light-weight cost structure directly attract and catalyze innovation unlike any other approach. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Announcement[Edit][Delete]: Google and Teach For America, Google [Edit][Delete] December 5, 2006
There have been a few fawning comments about this program, where Google places teachers into a classroom, working with a Google mentor, for two years before employing them. I am rather more sceptical. If Google wants to support education, why doesn't it simply pay more taxes, the way the rest of us do it (the same question could be asked of Bill Gates)? Why does Google focus on American classrooms - in my view it should focus on countries that really need teachers, not countries that merely don't want to pay for them. And what are the dangers of having company-selected teachers and Google mentors in the classroom? Do you want Google - or Coca-Cola, or Microsoft, or Disney, or Halliburton - teaching your kids. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. grazr[Edit][Delete]: The Next Big Thing, twopointtouch [Edit][Delete] December 5, 2006
Tim O'Reilly has found another common term to trademark, labeling the emerging trend toward identity-based content navigation 'Who 2.0' (I still prefer my term, the 'Semantic Social Network). O'Reilly writes: "We are just in the early stages, digital identity doesn't really work yet. But that will, you know, start to coalesce, where all these different sources of identity will start to be resolved and connect to each other. More...