By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Clarence Fisher[Edit][Delete]: Mini - Manifesto for Classrooms 2.0, Remote Access [Edit][Delete] November 28, 2006
It is mini and it is a manifesto and it's pretty much the message that has been carried in numerous ways in these pages:
- Teaching and Learning are about Forming Networks
- New Tools Give us New Channels
- Ideas are Viral
- Pursuing Your Own Goals
- The Gatekeepers are Gone. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Will Thalheimer[Edit][Delete]: Web 3.0 and Learning, Will at Work Learning [Edit][Delete] November 28, 2006
I have commented on what some are calling "Web 3.0" before, questioning the concept. Here's a case in point. From the post: "[The holy-grail of Web 3.0 developers] is to build a system that can give a reasonable and complete response to a simple question like: 'I'm looking for a warm place to vacation and I have a budget of $3,000. Oh, and I have an 11-year-old child.'" OK, now, think about that. Do we ask questions like that? Well - no. First of all, we tend to forget to add the qualifiers (such as the budget and the child) when we ask. But even more importantly, we don't want to include some of this information in the question. It's an old rule - never tell the sales person what you're willing to spend. But also - I don't want to limit what I'm looking for. I'll spend more than $3000 if the trip is worth it, and I'll find a sitter for the child if I have to. What this means, then, is that whatever we're looking at, it won't be set up like a search or a query. It has to be much more subtle, much more interpretive, much more dynamic, much more immersive. The Web 3.0 people are talking about is the old Web 1.0 - we deliver content, you listen. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Norm Friesen[Edit][Delete]: E-Learning Myth #3: The Myth of the Knowledge Economy, Ipseity [Edit][Delete] November 28, 2006
Norm Friesen has posted another installment of his interesting and engaging E-Learning Myths series. In this item, he challenges the perception that we are in 'the networked society' or 'the information age' (among other designations). Perhaps we should say we are in the 'Would You Like Fries With That Age'. Friesen observes, "Creating more jobs than the remaining seven put together are: 'Hospitality,' 'health care,' and 'retail'" - all service industry jobs. Consistent with the pattern of reasoning in the previous installments (Myth 1, Myth 2), Friesen points to the unequal society obscured by these myths. "no account of the characteristics of our postindustrial economy would be complete without mention of polarization - both of income and class". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Stephen Downes, Michael Feldstein and Cable Green[Edit][Delete]: EduPatents: The Gathering Storm, Ohio Learning Network [Edit][Delete] November 28, 2006
I had a fascinating (and long - I didn't get out of the office until after 10 last night) discussion with Michael Feldstein and OLN's Cable Green on edupatents and, in particular, the Blackboard patent. In addition to some interesting back and forth between the three of us, we were also visited by Blackboard counsel Matthew Small, who added his own perspective on things near the end of the session. The Elluminate archive may be accessed directly (you'll need to install Elluminate to make it work) and an MP3 recording of the session (for those who cannot or won't install Elluminate) is also available thanks to the novel audio-capture of the Elluminate session effected by Ed Tech Talk (this is a temporary link; I'll be storing it at a permanent location on my site in a day or two). [Tags: Blackboard, Copyright and Patent Issues, Podcasting] [Comment]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Nancy White[Edit][Delete]: Blogs and Community - Launching a New Paradigm for Online Community?, The Knowledge Tree [Edit][Delete] November 27, 2006
Some overdue recognition for this article posted lasted September by Nancy White that explains how 'topic centric communities' formed by networks of bloggers are changing our understanding of online communities. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Pres Release[Edit][Delete]: High Technology in the Sandpit, EdNA [Edit][Delete] November 27, 2006
Launching today to celebrate EdNA's 9th anniversary, the Sandpit will provide educators with a play to experiment with new technologies, including (to start) Moodle and ELGG. According to the press release, "The development is one component of a major technical and content revamp of the successful site that allows educators to learn and hone their skills the way students do. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Robert A. Wisher[Edit][Delete]: ADL Advocate: Making the Vision of Learning Anytime, Anywhere, a Reality, Military Training Technology [Edit][Delete] November 27, 2006
I think that I think of "Learning Anytime, Anywhere" very differently than ADL's Robert Wisher. Because in my mind, the phrase includes necessarily "anyone" - but Wisher has a much smaller set of recipients in mind, beginning with the U.S. military, and then expanding through a network of its partners and friends. That is why access control - rather than enabling access - is at the heart of initiatives like CORDRA, and why Wisher envisions "a federation of registries on a global scale" rather than an open and sharable network of open educational resources. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe ADL is as concerned about providing access for a cattle-boy in Lesotho as for a soldier out somewhere fighting a war. But I doubt it. And I know for certain where my priorities lie. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Matt McKenzie[Edit][Delete]: Vista and More: Piecing Together Microsoft's DRM Puzzle, Computer World [Edit][Delete] November 27, 2006
The eSchool News this week came out with a very uncritical look at the upcoming deployment of Windows Vista and the choices educational institutions will have to make. Perhaps a more appropriate read might be this article from Computer World in Vista's digital rights management (DRM) technology. But that's something, I guess, that the promotional pieces will overlook; as the article states, "it's hard to sing the praises of technology designed to make life harder for its users." Vista also realizes the ultimate triumph of DRM: forcing you to use Microsoft (or certified partner) hardware. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. David Rothman[Edit][Delete]: LibWorm: Search and Current Awareness for Libraryfolk, davidrothman.net [Edit][Delete] November 27, 2006
Launched Saturday, this service resembles Edu_RSS in many respects, except that it covers libraries and librarianship feeds and podcasts. It's also much larger, culling from some 1100 sources. Can't say I like the name of the service, though - couldn't they think of some other animal? (Historical note: my very first aggregator, coded way back in 1999 or so, was called 'grasshopper'). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. David H. Freedman[Edit][Delete]: What's Next: The Idiocy of Crowds, Inc.com [Edit][Delete] November 27, 2006
This article is getting some traction, but it would have been nice had the author taken the time to comprehend the theory he is criticizing. He writes, "The effectiveness of groups, teamwork, collaboration, and consensus is largely a myth. In many cases, individuals do much better on their own. Our bias toward groups is counterproductive." Well, I would certainly agree with him on groups. But that is not the structure Surowiecki describes, nor is it how social networks are characterized per Watts and others, a distinction I have tried to make clear. More...