By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why Do My MP3 Files Sound Bad in Flash Player?
So I'm still working on the nice presentation of my talks collected on my Presentations page. Specifically, I addressed the 'chipmunk voice effect' problem Flash has with recorded MP3s. I scouted around a bit before I found a proper solution and explanation. I also replaced my clunky little Flash audio player with one that works, the JW MP3 Player. It will take a bit to resample my MP3 recordings, but it's worth the effort because it makes the presentation pages a lot more friendly. And I will say, I hope people are taking note of these, because it won't be long before something like this - audio, video, slides, whatever - are the standard for conference presentation pages. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. An Ecological Approach to Repository and Service Interactions
"Ecology is the study of systems that are complex, dynamic, and full of interacting entities and processes... We think that ecology and the ecosystems it studies may offer a useful analogy to inform the task of understanding and articulating the interactions between users, repositories, and services and the information environments in which they take place." I'm inclined to agree, and even if I weren't, the discussion of "why technical architectures need help" on page 3 would convince me. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Common Pitfalls of Building Social Web Applications and How to Avoid Them
Part One, Part Two. Good set of suggestions concerning the founding of social networks (which are interestingly almost the same as the set of suggestions that would apply to the founding of online communities). Baically, the advice amounts to: provide something of value to your members, attend to them personally, and keep focusing on the value to members. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Owning Your Learning Path, The Blame Game
This is a very interesting observation: "On the one end of the spectrum you have the archetypical argument that 'we are/I am too small to change the system'. On the other end of the spectrum you find the archtypical argument that 'I/we could change this, if only all other stakeholders would accept our/my authority'. Both are a fig leaf for inaction. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Gorman and Keen Need a Bicycle Built for Two
The ridiculous charade that is the 'discussion' at the Britannica blog continues with the announcement that "Human beings learn, essentially, in only two ways. They learn from experience-the oldest and earliest type of learning-and they learn from people who know more than they do." One wonders why the second is not merely an instance of the first, but I suspect logic isn't Andrew Keen's strong suit. As for the 'discussion', my experience with the forum is that they simply delete the comments that don't align with the party line. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. I Can Hum, so I Can Find a Mystery Song
I tried it; it got two out of five. But this is me we're talking about - people have signed petitions to stop m from singing. It's a miracle it got any. So Midomi, I think, is pretty neat. It can, to some degree, recognize tunes, even the ones I mangle. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Training Oneself to Notice
Oh this is a great illusion. I'll let you look at it for yourself without telling you anything about it. What i will say here is that this illusion illustrates not only how our perceptions can shift from one alternative to the next, but how we can train ourselves to switch these perceptions. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How Project SWORD Restored My Faith in Educational Technology
A project implementing the Atom Publishing Protocol (APP) in EPrints, DSpace, Fedora and IntraLibrary would be useful. Atom is like RSS, and the APP is like using RSS to upload and syndicate content. So I'm happy that the project group went with APP rather than inventing their own parochial specification. As David Davies says, "who knows, the web 2.0 revolution in content production may arrive on campus". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Canada Day

Just another day on the farm. But it was Canada Day, and while out bicycling I snapped this just before getting caught in a downpour. Happy Canada Day, everyone. Stephen Downes, Flickr July 2, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Canada, Flickr]. More...