By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Brian Bergstein, The Associated Press: IBM to Encourage Employees to be Teachers, USA Today September 20, 2005

This is not entirely new, but the scale and the formalization make it worth noting. Concerned about declining levels of education in the United States, IBM has declared that it will start funding "employees who want to leave the company to become math and science teachers." Of course, this may also just be a creative way of reducing its American workforce - and making room for those Chinese and Indian students it says it is concerned about. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Press Release: Teachers Are Wary About Using IT in the Classroom, University of Bristol September 20, 2005

This study is getting some circulation (though the press coverage basically echoes the press release). According to this study, "The ESRC study reveals that many teachers fear that computers would interfere with ‘genuine’ or book-based learning, particularly in the humanities and creative subjects and use ICT only for administration and routine tasks". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Matt Pasiewicz: Identity Federation: Gartner Hints That Adoption Will Be Slow, EDUCAUSE Blogs September 16, 2005

Interesting. "While there is high interest in identity federation, the technology is still in flux and will likely be more expensive and time-consuming to implement immediately rather than three years from now." The interest in a federation per se is shared mostly by content providers. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. David H. Jonassen: Let Us Learn to Solve Problems, ITForum September 16, 2005

David Jonassen forays into the uncertain and unforgiving world of online discussion as he posts this article for examination by the group at ITForum. "To blog or not to blog, that is the question this week," he writes. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Daniel Rivera: Seymour Papert Articles & Video, SEGA Tech September 13, 2005

Links and summary to some of the best of Seymour Papert. I first encountered Papert via his work (with Marvin Minsky) on artificial intelligence. But, of course, he has followed this up with some "radical" ideas in education (I don't see them as that radical, personally). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dave Warlick: Information-Rich Classroom, 2 cents Worth September 12, 2005

Why do people think that schools should fully equip students? Why, for example, do they think schools should provide computers, email, blog hosts, and the rest? It's not that I don't think students should have access to these things, but rather, that, that I think such things should be permanent and personal. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Greg Sandoval: Gizmos do not a Hemingway or a Copernicus make, Associated Press September 12, 2005

So much good stuff out there, and yet readers of the traditional press have to make do with sloppy work like this article, one in which parents are (laughably) advised to "limit a child's Web surfing to three or four sites a day to keep their focus on studying." The main thrust of the article is that there is too much information on the web, and so it - and other 'technology gizmos' - ends up being a distraction. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Collaboration and Technology

September 12, 2005 Sadly, the audio for my presentation in Manchester died, so all we have are the PowerPoint Slides and some very useful blog commentaries, one by Derek Morrison, another by Christopher D. Sessums, more (in Dutch) by Marc Dupuis, and some stream of consciousness from Juliette White. Despite the glitches (which included a visit from the Fire Brigade just a few hours after having landed) I enjoyed my time in Manchester, and especially the jet-lag assisted bloggers meet-up. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. D'Arcy Norman: WordPress 1.6 + Flickr Integrated into Media Manager, D’Arcy Norman Dot Net November 7, 2005

Stuff like this is going to be big. Very big. Combine Web 2.0 style access to remote content, RSS feeds, and whatever to Ajax style authoring tools and you get... magic! This is how students will write essays in the very near future; this is how you will compose learning resources. All open source, all open access, and with Creative commons licensed content (see below). More...