By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dennis Dunleavy[Edit][Delete]: Learning How to Teach on the Blogosphere, The Big Picture [Edit][Delete] June 20, 2006µ
This is a really good article describing the use of blogging in a journalism class at Southern Oregon University. What I like about it is that it shows so clearly how many of the features talked about by the theorists - the personalization of tone, the holding of media to account, the role of social networking - come into play in actual practice. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Miguel Guhlin[Edit][Delete]: Blog Tales, MGuhlin.net [Edit][Delete] May 30, 2006

I thought about including 'MySpace: The Movie' in today's presentation, but decided it might be a bit too much. This link may also fall into that category, but you can get the gist from this quote: "Dependency and fear retard the learning process. It is difficult, if not impossible, for students to develop moral values and solve ethical dilemmas when school never allows them to make a decision or mistake. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Wesley Fryer[Edit][Delete]: Blogs like a Neutron Bomb!, Moving at the Speed of Creativity [Edit][Delete] May 22, 2006
Perhaps a little over-enthusiastic, but I appreciate the sentiment expressed by Darren Kuropatwa as he describes the impact of the use of blogs in his math classes. Dean Shareski writes, "My personal growth as a learner has been exponential as a result of my exploration of technology and connectivity to some of the best and brightest in education today." This article comments on the conversation between Kuropatwa and Shareski recorded on the Ideas and Thoughts blog (scroll down to Podcast 16; individual post links are not working). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Scott Karp[Edit][Delete]: Live Blogging at Mesh, Publishing 2.0 [Edit][Delete] May 16, 2006

Good summary of the discussion at Mesh, a media and Web 2.0 conference being held in Toronto yesterday and today, with presentations from Om Malik and Michael Geist. A lot of short information nuggets, not all of which ring true, but which are certainly worth a read. This is probably right: "There's a lot of value in advertising to small, pure, targeted audiences -- an extension of Google's AdWords. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Terry Mockler[Edit][Delete]: Blogging as Pedagogic Practice, May 12, 2006
Good article, but it will leave you pleading for paragraphs or any other sort of text formatting. "We need to look at blogging, not as an isolated phenomenon, but as part of a broad palette of 'cybercultural' practices, which provide us with both new ways of doing and new ways of thinking... Unlike other tools that support conversations, weblogs provide their authors with a personal space simultaneously with a community space". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Alan Levine: Blog Long Tail Much Longer, Wagging, Cogdogblog May 9, 2006
Short item making the cogent point that we are on the verge of being flooded with edublogs - and that that's a good thing. Which it is. You will want to follow the link to the Scotedublog wiki, a listing of Scottish edublogs in preparation for a coming meetup. As Alan Levine says, "This is but one little sampling of one wiki of one organization from one country... and it is bursting at the seams with people doing their own web publishing. It's not much to marvel at anymore, and then again it is. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors: Weblogs in the Classroom, Department of Education and Training Western Australia May 5, 2006

Just exploring. I was following up some commentary on Christopher Sessums's piece (see below) by Mark Berthelemy, who in turn linked to an item on reflective writing by Jo McLeay. Added her to my aggregator. He also linked to JOH Blogs, which doesn't appear to have an RSS feed, which is too bad. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Donna Cameron and Terry Anderson[Edit][Delete]: Comparing Weblogs to Threaded Discussion Tools in Online Educational Contexts, International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning [Edit][Delete]International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning [Edit][Delete] December 1, 2006

This article captures the difference between discussion lists and blogs. "Computer conferencing emerged in an era that predates the Web, thus the tendency is for use that is separated from Internet resources and focuses on discussion of readings, or activities that take place off-line or behind passwords... The current generation of blogging tools were not designed for closed class courses and thus the component of teaching presence referenced as facilitating discourse is in some ways more challenging in a blog environment." Right. It's the capacity to shape the discussion ('facilitating discourse') that is much more difficult in a blog environment. More...