By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Do You Ubuntu?
The answer is yes. But if you want to know how I spent a good part of my long week-end, well let me tell you, the result of typing the command (as root) "cp thunderbird2.tar.gz /usr/lib/*" is to have your computer erase both thunderbird2.tar.gz as well as the entire contents of /usr/lib - the directory where all your applications are located. No recovering from that error; I had to reinstall Ubuntu. It takes very little time to install Ubuntu, true, once you have the disc. Longer to put your computer back the way it was. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Webheads In Action Online Conference
Archives from a remarkable online conference hosted over the weekend by Webheads in Action and hosted by organizations such as Worldbridges, Learning Times, Tapped In and others. Keynotes, in addition to my own, were delivered by george Siemens, Barbara Ganley, Leigh Blackall, Etienne Wenger, Teemu Leinonen and Robin Good. Dozens of other really high quality presentations. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Intersting E-Learning Tools From Arts ISIT
Some nifty tools distributed by the University of British Columbia. I like the discussion extractor, which will liberate discussion threads from WebCT for use elsewhere. Also interesting is the image annotation tool and language pronunciation platform. And the Multimedia Learning Object Authoring Tool bears closer examination. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Ready for Prime Time: Open Source Programs for the K-12 Desktop
Another one of those lists - which are worth running from time to time because the software changes. Anyhow, I mostly agree witht he items posted here - I swear by Audacity and have no trouble recommending Moodle and Ubuntu. Others - such as Open Office - are a bit rougher. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Introduction to Open Educational Resources
An open educational resource (in the form of an online course) on the use of open educational resources. It feels weird reading the content as a course (it feels a bit like reading Shakespeare or some other script from a play, not like ordinary reading). Some of the content is very U.S.-focused (like the stuff on copyright) - a broader focus would have been useful, as most target users of OERs are not Americans. This is very introductory material - if you are new to the idea of OERs this is a good resource. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How To Keep Hostile Jerks From Taking Over Your Online Community
Cory Doctorow discusses the defusing of discussion trolls. Probably the best advice is "Discussion groups are like uranium: a little pile gives off a nice, warm glow, but if the pile gets bigger, it hits critical mass and starts a deadly meltdown." I'm not sure the methods of the "troll whisperer" he describes are really the way to go. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Speaking of Teaching
This is kind of neat - PDF back-issues of this twice-annual newsletter published by the Center for Teaching and Learning at Stanford University. Sometimes you want to roll your eyes - such as at the recent newsletter on "Vol. 15, No. 2- Getting more 'Teaching' out of 'Testing' and 'Grading'" and others seem like a blast from the past, such as the 1993 newsletter 'The Meeting of Minds and Machines: Teaching and Multimedia.' And others, like the 2001 newsletter on problem based learning, are well worth reading by everyone. More...