By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Dynamics of Social Networks
Good post that makes the concept of social networks a lot clearer - and a lot more complex. "Our networks do not include us as individuals, but rather as identities. This means that you may have people networking with you in your various identities e.g. as a parent, as a co-worker, as a member of a project etc." Thus our participation in networks has as much to do with role as with identity (I would have a lot to say about this, but let's move on). Toward the end of the post, Pollard contrasts the distinct approaches to informal networks by progressive and conservative members. Fascinating reading. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Learning Objects Literature
Just in case you needed something really weighty to get you through the weekend, here's David Wiley's "final pre-print of [his] upcoming chapter reviewing the learning objects literature." Way cool. Happily, I read an earlier version, so I can spend my weekend trying to stay cool. It's hot here, oh so hot, tropical hot... I'm melting. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Slideshare, Now Slidecasts, with Sound!
A few people wrote to me to let me know that Slideshares (on which I have more than a hundred presentations) now allows you to add a soundtrack to the slide presentation. Which is really nice, but I may have my work cut out for me if I want to convert everything. Meanwhile, I have three contacts on Slidehare and dozens and dozens on Facebook (and they keep coming in). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Edublogosphere Is Being Criticized for Twittering
I thought about writing a reply to the Gary Stager post on the Pulse, but the site wanted me to register for an account. Who has time for that? Anyhow, the criticism is that educators are spending valuable time on foolish things, like Twitter, instead of important things, like the war zone in Chicago, graduation rates in Detroit, the curriculum in Britain, and literacy rates. Vicki Davis responds, essentially, "I care about these issues that you talk about, however, they are not in my typical sphere of operation," which is a perfectly acceptable response. We can't all solve all of the world's problems. We could equally turn around and ask Gary Stager, why doesn't he solve the problem of warfare in Iraq, genocide in Darfur, poverty in Malawi? Why does he focus only on the U.S. and Britain, two of the richest nations in the world. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Life Lived in Fear Is a Life Half Lived
Good observation. "As we talk about blogs and wikis and podcasting, a shared sentiment seems is that many of us go home to our institutions and facing a culture of fear. Lots of Eduweb attendees seem to understand that in order for our campus web experiences to be dynamic and engaging we need to stop controlling the message.... We need a new life for our web presence and it should be vibrant and rich and not a life that is half lived because we fear a loss of control. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. When You're the Village Idiot in Zeitgeist
I've been rereading Bruce Sterling's novel Zeitgeist this past week. It actually ages quite well for a pre-millennium novel that addresses the millennium. I haven't seen Zeitgeist the movie yet, but it's on my list, Maybe tomorrow. I haven't been reading the Talo list for months, not since someone on the list took to carping about 'gurus and experts' for no good reason. I haven't read Bill Kerr at all, but judging from his post, he hasn't read me either - otherwise he wouldn't be complaining that Web 2.0 people are not willing to deepen their analysis (by contrast, people tell me to return to the surface for air from time to time). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. CEGSA Reflection - VISION for School of the Future
I've been on the road all day today, so I'll keep the newsletter a little short (and a little odd and opinionated, but sometimes it comes out like that) and catch up tomorrow. Anyhow, in this item, Mike Seyfang reflects on the CEGSA conference. Which reminds me that I've seen more than a few people comment on the most recent Harry Potter movie, which is pretty clearly a (caustic) commentary on educational reform. So of course our local media depicts the film as being opposed to fascism, which is a nice way to pretend the film is not criticizing what it's criticizing, but which is revealing in its own way. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Mishmash of Mashups
I'm not sure 'recombinate' is a word. But the diagram is pretty good, and this post gets a pretty good handle on the idea of mashups - except for the Lego analogy. "With mashups, the 'bits and pieces' or individual Lego blocks are pre-existing things that can come from any source and often from multiple sources. Furthermore, these 'bits and pieces' can truly be just about anything and everything, from content to code to hardware to events to teams". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Hugh's Law
Hugh's Law is "All online social networks eventually turn into a swampy mush of spam." This is probably true of the ones that have been developed so far. the key question is whether it is inevitable - and I think it's not, but it requires a dogged determination to leave content in the control of users - and what company, that depends on viral marketing, is going to leave it at that. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Heh. Indeed.
Tom Hoffman explains IT software restrictions: "A lot of IT infrastructure is fragile rickety crap, and the people responsible for it aren't smart enough to fix it so they make rules and place blame based on little more than superstition." I would have been more diplomatic, but when people tell me that IT has banned blog websites because of concerns of viruses, I roll my eyes and think something like what Hoffman said. More...