By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Canada'S New Copyright Act May Be Most Restrictive Yet
You sort of hope for the best, even when people are telling you that the worst possible news is coming down the pipe. That's what seems to be happening with regard to copyright legislation here in Canada. Michael Geist writes, "There is every indication (see the Globe's latest coverage) this legislation will be a complete sell-out to U.S. government and lobbyist demands. The industry may be abandoning DRM, the evidence may show a correlation between file sharing and music purchasing, Statistics Canada may say that music industry profits are doing fine, Canadian musicians, filmmakers, and artists may warn against this copyright approach, and the reality may be that Canadian copyright law is stronger in some areas than U.S. law, yet none of that seems to matter. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Further Investigations Into Free Screencast Software
Sure Waters takes a look at the free screencasting software on offer. While Jing offers an easier interface and nicer looking video, she notes that it saves files in Flash format, the hardest to convert to other formats, which you need to do if you want to upload to sites like YouTube or integrate into other videos. What Jing seems to be doing is directing people toward their own hosting service - but it's not clear that their own hosting service will remain free. Camtasia and camStudio, meanwhile, offer more flexible video formats, but not such good image quality. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Archive of EHR / EMR Posts
Since last September I have been reading as Wendy Wickham and her colleagues have braved management, clients, and everyone else in a major upgrade project. She summarizes, "I hope I NEVER have to do a project of this sort again.... Rushing major upgrades of mission critical systems may look glamorous but you can cause serious long-term damage. To the morale of the IT team, to the goodwill of the end user. And to the system itself if you have a partially finished product. It has taken months and they still have not recovered. No one's fault, but very preventable." The series of posts linked here constitute a detailed description of the project, an object lesson everyone should learn from. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Are You On the Bully Watch?
Dave Snowden responds to Terry Anderson's criticism of the cvoncept of 'crew' as a type of community, launching into an attack on the concept of the 'collective'. "All of this," he writes, "requires a more open attitude, an avoidance of three fold classification systems and a tolerance of mess." Related to this, I have posted the transcript of my original talk on groups and networks. This is one of my favorite talks; I hope you enjoy it. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Hope for a Troubled World
In contrast to the depressing messages of Monday, watch this video as (in Mark Federman's words) "Paul Hawken describes how the largest movement in the world came into being, and just how large it is: a movement with no name, no particular location, no ideology, and 'not led by a male vertebrate.'" Yes, I am a member of this large movement, and have been for a very long time. It's what gets me up in the morning and allows me to sleep peacefully at night. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. When E-Mail Is Outsourced
I think we should think of hosted email as the thin edge of the wedge. It allows Google and Microsoft to get their foot in the door, ready to offer other hosted services (known today as 'web 2.0') that will, as this article notes, change the way students learn in the classroom. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What's Happening at the Economist?
The Economist, notes Ken Carroll in his new blog, reports on "craze for teaching Chinese may be a misguided fad." He quite rightly takes the political journal to task. Here in Moncton, the Chinese government is launching a Confucious Institute "to promote friendly relationships with other countries and the study of Chinese language and culture." China is a permanent presence in the world. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Flash Quiz Tools
Nice table listing Flash quiz tools ranked by customer satisfaction. No detailed explanations (but you can get the full report by registering, etc. etc.). Not surprisingly, the companies that specialize in surveys, like Survey Monkey, take top place. Not surprisingly, companies for whom surveys are an add on, like Saba, bring up the bottom. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Bloggers Who Write Paid Posts
(Note: I have altered the title of this post because I don't care to post the metaphor in my own newsletter.) Karoli offers a slew of examples of mothers with kids or who are raising money for cancer who are making a little spare change off their writings. The reason? Apparently Google lowered the page rank of bloggers who write paid posts or have paid links on their blogs to zero. Me, I have no sympathy. The commercial bloggers link to each other to artificially boost their page rank. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Evaluating E-Learning
What I really like about this 45-page guide to the evaluation of e-learning is that it recognizes from the outset that people working from different perspectives will have different evaluative criteria. The heart of the paper is therefore the continuum of six evaluation orientations (p. 21, drawn from Fitzpatrick, et.al.) and the outline of an evaluation framework (p. 27) that takes the policy level into account. More...