By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Steve Outing: Google Base: Now What Do We Do?, Poynter November 18, 2005
Google Base has launched and is sending a ripple of concern throughout the news industry, as in one fell swoop Google could obsolete their classifieds department. This advice, though, is sound and probably reasonable: "An all-powerful Google probably has the capability to wipe out other classifieds -- but I doubt that's the company's intention". More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Modernising with Purpose: a Manifesto for a Digital Britain
Comprehensive look at the deployment of information and communications technologies (ICT) in Britian with an emphasis on economic impact and public policy. This is a longish document (72 pages plus notes) divided into three major sections (innovation and wealth, checks and balances (eg., identity, security and trust), and democracy). More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How Great Is Free?
Scott Belford writes, "It's gotten so that I just can't tell enough people about all the great edutainment applications included with each revision of the K12LTSP. Furthermore, until someone sees the delicious GUI that is the gnu/linux Desktop, they think of it as something DOS-like and unfriendly". More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Prensky Takes a Beating!
As a 46 year old who is not a baby boomer it's hard not to agree with Tom Hoffman. I was too young (ie., 8) for the Summer of Love and Woodstock; I grew up with wiring diagrams, techno-pop, Pong (and Galaga- heh) and punch cards. I saw Tangerine Dream in concert. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. My Podcast on Why Podcasting isn't Interesting
To me, this is the big one: "It takes 30 minutes to listen to a thirty minute podcast, but if you give me 10 pages of material to read, I can scan through it in 15-30 seconds". More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Edubuntu Summit: Eat Your Heart Out!
Ubuntu is a new semi-commercial Linux distribution. Edubuntu is an organization exploring the use of this version of Linux in education. This link is to the wikified version of the Edubuntu Summit conference notes. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Microsoft Frowned at For Smiley Patent
With people already raising their eyebrows at the renaming of Longhorn to Microsoft Vista (people especially including those with companies named Vista or products named Vista) the Redmond software company poured oil onto the fire with the news that it is patenting the creation of custom emoticons (aka smileys). More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Early Film, Early Internet, Early Days, Network Learning
Leigh Blackall begins by talking about finding old movies on the Internet Archive (which alone makes his post worth reading) but makes his main point here: "This post is not so much an outcome of any particular study (such as a paper or essay might be) but is more a piece in the process of learning. Its an ongoing conversation of learning, with the recorded voices in the conversation contributing to the content used in someone else's learning". More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Politics of Web 2.0
Jeff Jarvis writes of web 2.0, "This is a new architecture. It's a dynamic architecture." Susan Crawford adds, insightfully, "It's even more than that — it's political. These meta-informational thingies are letting us see our online environment in ways we can't possibly see the offline world". More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Voices For Change!
This is a website run by and for Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU) members. If you are a Telus internet subscriber then you (as of this writing) cannot access this site (not without a reflector, at least). Telus is blocking access to its employee union website. More...
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