By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Optimize Me: A Reporter's Journey Into the World of SEO and SEM
The story is ostensibly about advertising and search engine optimization (SEO) but in the end it comes down to a statement about identity. Specifically, the person who owns an identity on the internet is the person who optimizes it. Interestingly, social networks play a major role in that function. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Canadians Ace Science Test
The release of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) science test results was front page news in El Tiempo here in Colombia today. The tests, organized by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) measure fifteen-year-olds against a set of educational standards determined by the testing agency. The 2006 test was written by 400,000 15-year-olds in 57 countries. The PISA tests are not a measure of a country's educational system (the questions are not aligned to curricular objectives) and have been criticized in the past for irregular process (participants are chosen by subject countries). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Defining Citizenship
I'm in Colombia and jet-lagged (yes, I know it's only one time zone - getting up at 4:00 a.m. to catch the flight counts for something, though). OK, Vicki Davis may get mad, sure. But I echo Tom Hoffman's comment: I've probably said this before, but "literacy" + "safety " + "etiquette" + "learning strategies" + "networking" does not equal "citizenship." It may equal something, but "citizenship" isn't a good word for it. For me, this whole digital citizenship thing is old news - and as I said in 1997: "If a defining characteristic of a nation is that it embraces diversity of opinion, then you cannot define membership in that nation according to the opinions held by its citizens." Which means the whole notion of the responsibility of 'digital citizens' misses the point. The vile content - and it most certainly is vile - is neither new nor original. And it's not the kids that are creating it. Once again, it is worth noting, in the words of Natalie Maines: "our children are watching us, they put their trust in us, they're gonna be like us..." Tom Hoffman, Tuttle SVC December 4, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Membership, Networks] [Comment]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Mike Seyfang[Edit][Delete]: CreativeCommonsDRM - Stephen Downes gets us talking, Learning with the Fang [Edit][Delete] November 24, 2006
Mike Seyfang (and no doubt more than a few others) disagrees with my use of the 'non-commercial' caluse in my Creative Commons license because (as I've said) "you have to let go of trying to control future use of your digital (learning object) content... so that it can be re-mixed and passed forward". The reason I use the non-commercial license is that I believe that allowing commercial use will reduce and restrict future use. In other words, I believe that the non-commercial license is the most open. Why? Because when commercial use is allowed, then companies can offer a wide range of resources in closed markets (like the school system), but only for a price - the free version of the resource will be excluded from the market by non-compete cslauses and other gerrymandering of the market. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jennifer Granick[Edit][Delete]: Second Life Will Save Copyright, Wired News [Edit][Delete]Wired news [Edit][Delete] November 24, 2006
Second Life does the wrong thing, and declares Copybot to be a violation of its terms of service (now there's some creative reading). This Wired article praises the company's attempts to create a user-created copyright realm. Without 'enforcement' by Second Life, however, such attempts are polite fictions. The people in Second Life will learn - copyrights are government interventions in the marketplace intended to favour the publishers. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Professors Get 'F' in Copyright Protection Knowledge, Seattle Post-Intelligencer [Edit][Delete] November 24, 2006
A very one-sided article that signifies its bias in the first sentence. The article, quoting industry sources, attacks the professors' posting of chapters of books online under fair use provisions. "It [the doctrine of fair use] can be interpreted differently by different courts under the same circumstances." Well, yes. But the main thing is: "'"We can't compete with free,' says Allan Adler, vice president for legal and governmental affairs with the Washington-based publishers group, whose members include McGraw-Hill Cos. and Pearson Plc." So what the publishers are doing is signing agreements with universities - this story cites a precedent-setting agreement with Cornell - to prevent professors from posting chapters online. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Alexa Joyce[Edit][Delete]: Passively Multiplayer Online Games for Schools?, eLearning across the globe [Edit][Delete] November 24, 2006
Kind of the way I think about this stuff: why can't the whole thing be a game? "While he goes about his day's surfing, blogging, chatting, tagging, gaming, posting, uploading, downloading, Justin wants to experience the same visible sense of goal-oriented progress he gets in World of Warcraft when he looks at his screens and sees exactly what level his activities have earned him. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors[Edit][Delete]: E-Learning Concepts and Techniques, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania [Edit][Delete] November 24, 2006
I had a nice time reading this 11-chapter online book this morning instead of doing my work like I'm supposed to. As the site says, "E-Learning Concepts and Techniques is a collaborative e-book project by Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania's Department of Instructional Technology students and guest authors." The result is a quite acceptable introductory level text that not only covers the basics of traditional instructional design but also manages to incorporate mor contemporary approaches, from Siemens on learning design to the use of games in e-learning delivery. If you need an introductory text to get you up to speed in the topics discussed in OLDaily, this definitely will get you started on the right track.
(Oh - and a note for people who say there is no distinction between groups and networks: this was a network production, because each person wrote his or her own part autonomously; a group version of the same book would have all the authors collaboratively (and not independently) author the book as a whole). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Wesley Fryer[Edit][Delete]: Flow, Curiosity, and Engaging Education, Moving at the Speed of Creativity [Edit][Delete] November 24, 2006
Good choice of reading material: "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Good discussion, too. Some thoughts. First, 'flow' is what Papert and others today call "hard fun". Also, a lot depends on the width of the 'flow' channel. Third, the edges of the flow channel are fuzzy and variable depending on time of day, hunger, sleepiness, and more. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Sardionerak[Edit][Delete]: MQtv - Macquarie University Going Multimedia, University web marketing and usability [Edit][Delete] November 24, 2006
Review of MQtv, the new site from Macquarie. "It contains videoed interviews with academics and researchers ranging across a variety of interesting topics. There's also a podcast site where you can access interviews on subjects such as tips on how to write a novel. More...