By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why Not to Use Blogs as E-Portfolios
This item bothered me a bit not because I think we should unquestioningly use blogs as e-portfolios but because of the reasons offered to suggest we shouldn't. For example, "persistence creates the illusion of fixed identity, whereas higher education explicitly conceptualises its mission as formative and processual." Well, sure, you grow and develop when you learn, but you don't change your name. You can keep a persistent identity even as you grown. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Scott Wilson: RSS-Blog-Furl High: Reloaded, Scott's Workblog August 31, 2005

Drawing on a post from Will Richardson, Scott Wilson observes that "many teachers aren't likely to be happy with the downside of the small-pieces approach, which is cobbling together a whole range of tools. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Stephen Downes: Threads Community, Stephen's Web August 31, 2005
So anyhow, today has been a day dedicated to repairing my discussion section, also known as the Threads Community, which suffered a massive meltdown during the data transfer yesterday. Today, the Comment link should be working, the Threads link located at the top of the HTML newsletter, and things showing up where they should. I've also tightened up the styling (and you'll notice that the colours and the banner change with every issue). [Comment]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. List of Blog Networks v2
It was natural, I suppose, that blogs would form more formal networks over time. This allows them to link to each other and push up their ratings. Many blog networks drive a lot of traffic and pay their writers. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Users Confused About Blogs
Konrad Glogowski has grasped and expressed well what I also have been trying to say. "What we all need to acquire is the kind of perception that reflects the kaleidoscopic and multi-centred world around us. What we need, in other words, is to ensure that education becomes spherical and acoustic rather than linear, that it focuses on discovery rather than compartmentalization of data". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. On The Cutting Edge-ucation
Another new blog. "We're building a repository of instructional ideas and strategies for using podcasts in schools. Feel free to post any ideas you have, whether they're brainstorms or refined activities and units". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Bloggers Need Not Apply
It's ironic to see this author warning about your blog making you look like an idiot without any warning about doing the same in a column for the Chronicle. That is probably why the article is published under a pseudonym. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Weblog Communities - AMTEC 2005 presentation
Nice presentation by Rob Rall at AMTEC 2005 about how weblogs form learning communities. Even if you don't have time for the podcast, do take a look at the slides, which with useful animation show clearly how you can build a community even though you are not depending on a portal or community site - this is what I mean when i talk about a 'distributed community'. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Blogs We Need in Australia
I have noticed a slowdown of news from Australia, caused partly by a greater centralization and partly by recent changes in projects like the Flexible Learning Framework (does it even publish RSS feeds any more?). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. More Than Cat Diaries: Publishing With Weblogs
This presentation is about the use of blogs to publosh, as the author says, "more than cat diaries" (which reminds me, it's time my cats had their own blogs). It will take you a second, but you'll soon see that it's not a PowerPoint presentation, though it looks and feels like one. More...