Are institutions really problematic?
My answer is "yes", but of course there's more depth to my response than that. Much of the harm that comes from institutions, in my view, comes from the way they are structured and governed. But the answer isn't simply to launch oneself at institutions, hoping to (say) "fix them from within," or whatever. Tom Haskins says, "We also keep institutions the same by the ways we perceive, describe, evaluate and think about changing institutions. We inadvertently play into the perpetuation of 'problematic institutions' by the ways we value, favor, contribute, care, get fascinated, and show concern." There's a subtle point here, though. The more we try to fix institutions, the more we reinforce their value, and the more this entrenches their current modus operandi. (This last isn't what he is saying, but it's what follows from what he is saying). Tom Haskins, growing changing learning creating, July 3, 2009 [Tags: none] [ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 3:34pm
Formally Learning Informally
This year's EduBloggerCom at NECC was a bit smaller than previous years, as evidenced by the team photograph. But do check out their blogs (links are provided in the article). Darren Draper, Drape's Takes, July 3, 2009 [Tags: Blogger, Google, Web Logs] [ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 3:23pm
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teachers
I'm not sure I completely endorse this list (I would word some of the items very differently) but it's a fun read. Milton Ramirez, education & tech, July 3, 2009 [Tags: none] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 3:20pm
Learning Leaders Fieldbook
I have had the same problem as George Siemens. "After the presentation, a VP (in charge of training and development) approached me and stated that simple messages are preferable. I assumed this to mean that I had delivered a presentation that was too complex." And I ask with him, "when did leading thinkers in corporate learning conclude that their audience can not handle complex subjects?" or, with even more concern: how is it that our institutions promote people who cannot understand complex concepts to positions of leadership? Isn't that tantamount to mismanagement? George Siemens, elearnspace, July 3, 2009 [Tags: Connectivism, Online Learning, Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 3:18pm
Those Jerks At the Vegan Restaurant Wouldn't Serve Me a Simple Egg Cream!
Nice analogy from Tom Hoffman. "The GPL is a radical political statement, and as radical political statements go, a damned successful one. If you didn't figure that out immediately, you need to work on your reading comprehension. If you want to eat eggs, go eat eggs, griping at the hippies shouldn't impress anyone." Tom Hoffman, Tuttle SVC, July 3, 2009 [Tags: none] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 3:02pm
21st century science, geography
Joanne Jacobs - who writes the most consistently negative (and partisan) blog in the edublogosphere - identifies some science and geography road maps showing how to integrate new skills into old subjects, and then spends her post looking at Common Core blog complaints about the chart. The refrain of oft-stated by the Common Core crowd: "Common Core also wonders how students can learn from the suggested activities if they haven't acquired any information." Leaving aside the question of whether learning is about "acquiring information" (it's not) at all, one could ask, why isn't the activity an appropriate means of acquiring information? What is it about 'content' that requires some sort of rote... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 2:54pm
Open Library Aims to Create a Web Page About Every Book Ever Published
One would hope that this is a necessary first step to a library with a web page containing every book ever published. Related: Daniel Livingstone on the future of the textbook. Richard Nantel, Workplace Learning Today, July 3, 2009 [Tags: Books] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 2:41pm
PDF's of my Textbook and my Manifesto!
Marc Canter figures out a way to make his Digital City and How to Build the Open Mesh manuscripts available in full as PDF downloads. Recommended reads. Marc Canter, Marc's Voice, July 3, 2009 [Tags: Books] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 2:37pm
BNN Trying To Silence The Canadian Copyright Debate?
A good example of exactly why proposed copyright laws must be carefully considered as a Canadian television network issues selective takedown notices, focusing only on sites on one side of the contentious political issue. Unattributed, Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights, July 3, 2009 [Tags: Networks, Video, Canada, Copyrights, Patents] [ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 2:31pm
More thinking about blogs rather than Blackboard
Not surprisingly, the idea of using blogs instead of Blackboard is gaining traction. "Of course," responds Nancy McKeand, "people like the ease of use with Blackboard, the relatively easy learning curve. Some reported that there isn't time to set up a blog for a course." Meanwhile, Jim Groom responds to issues David Wiley is having setting up a directory structure for open courses in WordPress. Nancy McKeand, Random Thoughts, July 3, 2009 [Tags: Open Content, Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 2:28pm
Graceful Blame
Yes, it's bothersome when my work is ripped off. I spend a lot of time crafting custom code, designing what I think are great layouts, illustrating or writing copy. And then some random person out there on the internet grabs my work and claims it as their own. Read more...
mezzoblue, Yesterday, 12:20am
EduBacon
EduBacon is a (relatively) new blog by Steve Egan. Love the slogan: "Before, education was bland. Now it's got extra flavor, salt, fat and cholesterol." And "Large Helpings, Hearty Food, Extra Flavor". The most recent post is on open engagement.
Steve EWgan, Weblog, July 2, 2009 [Tags: Web Logs] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 2, 3:16pm
Video Call (two strikes already) for Amazing Stories
You can help Alan Levine prepare for his talk for an upcoming Open Education conference by sending him examples of good things that have happened to you as a result of sharing your work openly. Also, it's worth reading about his issues with YouTube (interestingly, most of my videos are stored elsewhere, as I have never had success with YouTube. Alan Levine, Cogdogblog, July 2, 2009 [Tags: Video, YouTube] [Link] [ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 2, 2:33pm
Second Life, Education and Openspace
There's trouble in the virtual world. Andy Pulman links to: Andy Powell Loses Faith in Second Life, Fuzzy Buzz on why Linden Lab needs to read Snow Crash again and Zonja Capalini on Openspace. Related, especially to the last item: OpenSim. Andy Pulman, Andy Pulman Edublog, July 2, 2009 [Tags: Second Life] [ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 2, 2:14pm
Using audio and video in Firefox
For my first use of the video tag, a test pattern (if you are using Firefox 3.5 you should see it).
Your browser does not support the video element.
Here is some more information on the video and audio tags. Here is a link to DailyMotion, which is promoting the use of open video. Various Authors, Mozilla, July 2, 2009 [Tags: Audio, Video] [ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 2, 12:44pm
Building the user-centered web
"I believe strongly," writes Ben Werdmuller, "that a decentralized, user-centered model for the web is the best way to advance it as an application platform." I agree. And many of the initiatives he cites are at least part of the solution: "The Diso Project is turning the WordPress open source blogging tool into a decentralized digital identity through an array of open standards, and the project's Chris Messina has a lot of wise things to say about its development; Laconi.ca is a decentralized microblogging platform, whose Open Microblogging standard may be adaptable into a more widely-scoped... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 2, 11:00am
Woodlawn Elementary thinks outside the book to pull D to a B
As usual, I caution against the 'gee-whiz' news story. That said, I'm sure people will want to quote this item. "Woodlawn Elementary's math teachers locked up their textbooks in a music room closet.... The school went from a D to a B this year... Instead of textbooks, teachers used games, group assignments and other materials. They also focused on showing students different ways to solve the same problem." Via ASCD. Sylvia Lim, St. Petersburg Times, July 2, 2009 [Tags: Schools, Online Learning, Books, Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 2, 10:38am
Socialbrite
JD Lasica - with whom I collaborated (along with Marc Canter) on OurMedia - has launched Socialbrite. "Socialbrite is a learning hub and sharing community that brings together top experts in social media, social causes and online philanthropy." The list of experts on the site will include names familiar to many readers. JD Lasica, Website, July 2, 2009 [Tags: none] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 2, 9:37am
The #interestingOPMLexperiment
Tony Hirst suggested that we try something like this experient for the fall edition of the Connectivism course. There is definitely some merit to the suggestion, and especially in the idea of comparing OPML lists before and after the course, to observe progress, and also to look at other networks, such as Twitter or Facebook connections. Of course, we may need to draft someone like Tony to implement this. Heh. Mat Morrison has offered to share the (Perl) code he used to produce diagrams like this one of congress twitterers and of other Twitter social network analysis. Mat Morrison, mediaczar, July... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 2, 9:06am
Recommendations on MrTweet
Thanks to Orla Hegarty for the recommendation - and for thereby pointing me to this service, which is an interesting attempt to explicitly leverage recommendation as a service. The risk of such a system being gamed are there - but if the reputation of the recommender is taken into account, this risk can be minimized. The system (currently) needs overt recommendations - where it would take off, I think, would be if it could capture recommendations through linking or other practises. Various Authors, Website, July 2, 2009 [Tags: Linking and Deep Linking] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 2, 9:01am
Open Education Resource Foundation
WikiEducator is announcing the launch of a new Open Educational Resources Foundation (OERF). In a nutshell, they write, they want to institutionalize OERs, atgtain financial sustainability for the movement, increase fcollaboration among OER providers, and support greater reuse of OERs. "The major value proposition," they write, "lies in opportunities for education institutions to improve efficiencies through OER resource creation and distribution -- most notably reduction in cost and improvements in quality." I think that the value proposition for OERs lies in their potential for use by individuals, not institutions, and that this is where efforts need to be focused.
Wayne Mackintosh, WikiEducator, July 2, 2009 [Tags: Open Educational Resources] [ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 2, 8:48am
New in Chalkwork
The pixel factory sitting on my desktop has been busy this fall. I have not one but three new Chalkwork sets to announce today (discounting the weekend heads-up on Twitter, of course). Read more...
mezzoblue, Jul 2, 12:20am
Symbol Grounding and Proportional Analogy
"If symbols must be grounded in perception," writes Peter Turney, "how does this grounding happen?" We might naively suppose a 'picture' theory of meaning, along the lines of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, but this version quickly falls to objections such as Quine's 'gavagai' example, cited here. But I don't think Turney's proposal, to ground them in relations ("we note meta correlations between relations between symbols"), fares any better. The meta correlations are still radically underdetermined by the phenomena; this is the root of Quine's challenge. There's a similarity between this approach, and Minsky's "second-order-differences", and Russell's theory of types, and as I share Wittgenstein's dissatisfaction with the latter, I am dissatisfied with the former. Yes, symbols are grounded in perception - but we must redefine what "grounded" means. Peter Turney, Apperceptual, July 1, 2009 [Tags: Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 1, 8:53am
Arguing About Free and the Future
There's one very right thing and one very wrong thing in David Wiley's post. The very right thing is this: "In a world of free, everyone can play." This, in a sentence, captures what is inevitable - and what is right - about the world of free. It is not just a price revolution, it is a liberation for those who, in the past, had no voice. The very wrong thing is this: "Competition! Massive amounts of almost-no-barrier-to-entry competition." This represents a sort of market-oriented thinking. But in the world of free, market economics makes as much sense as lead parachutes. I don't feel I'm competing against the other people (including Wiley) who post online for free. Quite the opposite - we are engaged in this great enterprise together, and what each of us does supports the other. David Wiley, iterating toward openness, July 1, 2009 [Tags: Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 1, 8:41am
Back to The Past
I have numerous memories of the North Country (in Alberta) too, and it's nice to be reminded of the land and the people. But I'm really linking to this because of the nifty audio and video comment system Terry Anderson is now using in his blog. I want! (And I'll link to the IRRODL stuff when I get a chance to take the time needed to read it). Terry Anderson, Virtual Canuck, July 1, 2009 [Tags: Audio, Video, Linking and Deep Linking, Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 1, 8:34am
Working Session on Open Social Learning (I). Marc Alier: Open Social Learning?
I want to think about the combination of 'open' and 'social' with 'learning'. I know, it all seems to hang together, but it's too neat, and doesn't fit outliers like me. Anyhow, this is a summary of a presentation from Marc Alier. starts off with useful definitions of open learning and social learning - though these may not be universally accepted ('open' learning means something very different here). See also summaries of sessions by Ruben Diaz and Dolors Reig. Ismael Pena-Lopez, ICTlogy, July 1, 2009 [Tags: none] [ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 1, 8:28am
NewTube
Congratulations to the teachers of New South Wales, who are now able to access YouTube. "Access will of course allow teachers to plan, research, display and embed YT videos in their resources, within their working context . One giant step…for liberal access and OER . Now state teachers can enjoy the same access entitled to many private school colleagues." Tim Hand, Tim's Blog de Blog, July 1, 2009 [Tags: Open Educational Resources, Research, YouTube, Great Britain, Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 1, 8:15am
EdubloggerCon 2009 Reflections
Smaller, less scripted, and therefore better. That's Jeff Utecht's summary of this year's EdubloggerCon at NECC. Also: "Because of Twitters live constant scrolling feed, we also talked about how the "life span" of a blog post is shrinking. I use to get comments on a blog post lasting weeks. Now I post a blog, it gets a comment or maybe two in a the first 10 minutes, gets retweeted for about 20 minutes and then it's old news." Jeff Utecht, The Thinking Stick, July 1, 2009 [Tags: Twitter, Web Logs] [Link] [ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 1, 8:12am
NECC Unplugged
This is kind of cool, and there should still be time to catch some of the Wednesday (July 1) sessions. "Also variously referred to as "NECC 2.0," the NECC "Fringe" Festival, or the NECC "Unconference." NECC Unplugged is held during and as a part of the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC ) June 28th - July 1. It is three days of presentations where anyone can sign up to present, either on-site or virtually, and held on-site in it's own "lounge" area and also hosted virtually in Elluminate." Various Authors, Website, July 1, 2009 [Tags: Cool] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 1, 7:57am
Note to President Obama: Want to Fix the Schools? Look to Portugal!
Don Tapscott recommends that the United States follow the example of Portugal, which has taken to online learning in a big way. He also writes, "It's too early to assess the impact on learning in Portuguese schools. Studies of the impact of computers in schools elsewhere have been inconclusive, or mixed." First, I think Portugal is very different from the United States. And second, I think that jumping on some sort of Portuguese bandwagon is premature. Not that I'm disagreeing with his recommendations; it's just that the evidence he cites for them is lacking. And there are many more positive examples closer to home. Don Tapscott, Huffington Post, July 1, 2009 [Tags: United States, Schools, Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jul 1, 7:35am
Expert Blogs - Education
At the EdMedia conference the topic of "experts" was a recurring theme. The suggestion was that web 2.0 and the wisdom of the crowd could not - and should not - replace the wisdom of experts. My own reaction was top point out that the supposed "experts" more often than not argue in their own interests, not society as a whole, and that the assignment of the designation "expert" was almost random, having much more to do with money and connections than with any actual expertise. The National Journal's new "experts" blog on education makes my case for me. Lisa Caruso, National Journal, June 30, 2009 [Tags: Web Logs] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jun 30, 8:06pm
Making the UK Federation usable
All is not well in access-federation land. "I'm sorry if all this seems very blunt but the current deployments are so un-friendly that something has got to be done - otherwise we might as well just bite the bullet and go back to having separate login accounts for every service we access." Andy Powell, eFoundations, June 30, 2009 [Tags: Great Britain] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jun 30, 7:58pm
Personal Learning Environments
Summary of "a panel of students that tried to answer the question: Personal Learning Environments. What do students think?" The author writes, "you cannot create an entire PERSONAL learning environment for students! It is impossible. Every student has their own way of learning, every student evolves their environment continuously (look at how my tools have changed) and any one tool will be obsolete as quickly as any other piece of technology. Don't despair though… there is still plenty of work for you to do. What students really need are small, lightweight tools to help them learn." Andre Malan, Weblog, June 30, 2009 [Tags: Personal Learning Environment] [Link] [ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jun 30, 6:44pm
Not a Test
It's a new year, so it's time for a slight change of direction. You may have noticed your feed reader of choice just barfed up a few dozen posts from these here parts. I'm hoping that little bit of necessary unpleasantness will be one time only. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jun 30, 12:20pm
Hawaii
This is my last night in Hawaii - I have a long flight home tomorrow, and I'll be getting caught up later in the week.
Stephen Downes, Flickr, June 30, 2009 [Tags: Flickr] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jun 30, 3:15am
Desire2Learn UNconference 2009
I'm not sure an unconference works at an LMS vendor conference, but it's worth a try, I guess. Various Authors, Desire2Learn, June 30, 2009 [Tags: Desire2Learn] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jun 30, 3:01am
Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning
As summarized by Academic Impressions: "Online learning has definite advantages over face-to-face instruction when it comes to teaching and learning, according to a new meta-analysis released by the US Department of Education." From the report: "the number of K-12 public school students enrolling in a technology-based distance education course grew by 65 percent in the two years from 2002-03 to 2004-05... more than a million K-12 students took online courses in school year 2007-08." Finally: "Despite what appears to be strong support for online learning applications, the studies in this meta-analysis do not demonstrate that online learning is superior as a medium, In many of the studies showing an advantage for online learning, the online and classroom conditions differed in terms of time spent, curriculum and pedagogy." PDF.
Barbara Means, et.al., U.S. Department of Education, June 30, 2009 [Tags: Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jun 30, 2:37am
Authenticating the Google Reader API
Last week I finally got around to doing something I've long intended: I moved all my RSS feeds into Google Reader and finally said goodbye to Bloglines. More interesting things have been coming from Google's direction lately, and though there's a public beta of a new version of Bloglines it's been feeling stagnant. The final tipping points for me were the ASP errors the mobile version's byte-trimming service has been issuing up for the past few weeks. So I switched, and after a very brief learning curve, I'm glad I did. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jun 30, 12:20am
Now Boarding
Before committing this past Friday evening to a flight down the west coast, I spent a bit of time preparing to try out something that I'd been curious about for a while. Could I get through US immigration and airport security both without a paper boarding pass? Read more...
mezzoblue, Jun 30, 12:20am
video from the 2009 Alberta Ride to Conquer Cancer
I lugged my camera and Flip on the Ride to Conquer Cancer, to document some of the ride. It was a pretty epic bike ride – the hardest thing I’ve ever done – but was well worth it.
Thank you to everyone that supported me in any way – it definitely made the pain of the [...] Read more...
D'Arcy Norman dot net, Jun 29, 7:57pm
Weave Update for Firefox Syncs Your Web Identity
More post-Web 2.0 magic. "If you're a Firefox user, you now have the ability to synchronize not only your bookmarks, browsing history and user preferences across multiple PCs - you can also sync your identity." More on the new version of Firefox. Scott Gilbertson, Webmonkey, June 29, 2009 [Tags: Web 2.0] [Link] [ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jun 29, 7:05pm
Sprite Optimization
Maybe I haven't been paying close enough attention, but over the past few years an interesting variation of CSS Sprites has been getting a lot of play on large web sites that serve millions of users. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jun 28, 12:20pm
Font Embedding Now
Currently one of the biggest stumbling blocks to embedded type on the web is of a legal nature rather than any genuine technological barrier. Most of the major browsers have now implemented the @font-face property, and between sIFR and Cufón there are also alternatives for providing non-standard typefaces to browsers that haven’t caught up yet. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jun 27, 12:20pm
The Magic of Attraction (aka Attractors in Dynamical Systems)
Good post on attractors, one of the major concepts in chaos theory. "An attractor is a piece of structure of many systems that appears when you view the systems evolution over time. Speaking informally, an attractor is sort of like a black hole in the phase space: it's a region of the space where if you get sucked into it, you'll never leave." Mark C. Chu-Carroll, Good Math, Bad Math, June 26, 2009 [Tags: none] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jun 26, 3:48pm
Streams, not blogs?
Cross writes: "Blogs are author-centric in a world that's increasingly about relationships. Blogs are slanted toward me, me, me, me, me; the net is inexorably moving to us, us, us, us, us. Dialog trumps monolog." And so, he argues, we should be looking at lifestreaming, not blogging. My lifestream is in FriendFeed - here - but that's a view of my work that might be too scattered to be useful to people. I won't stop blogging any time soon. Jay Cross, Intrnet Time, June 26, 2009 [Tags: Web Logs] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jun 26, 3:40pm
Flash Players: Some Cool Tools
Useful post that looks at different types of Flash players you can use to play videos on your own website. 'For an occasional video embed, probably the JW FLV player would be the best option. It's less complex and more straight forward. But if you want to deliver instructional content on a regular basis, I would suggest a very close look at the SlideShowPro product line." Tim Tyson, Practical Practice, June 26, 2009 [Tags: Video] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jun 26, 3:35pm
Two students, two schools -- 20 miles and a world apart
From the email: "In the 20 or so miles that separate Jefferson High School from La Cañada High," writes The Los Angeles Times, "in the miles between inner city and suburb, there exists a social chasm so deep as to seem unbridgeable." In a profile of two students, personally similar but demographically opposite, The Times distinguishes between the two poles of public education in the sprawling confines of Los Angeles. Mitchell Landsberg, L.A. Times, June 26, 2009 [Tags: Schools] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jun 26, 3:12pm
Colleges Consider Using Blogs Instead of Blackboard
Summary of a Jim Groom talk to CUNY, in the Chronicle's usual restrained style. "The approach can save colleges money, for one thing. And true believers like Mr. Groom argue that by using blogs, professors can open their students' work to the public, not just to those in the class who have a login and password to a campus course-management system." True believers, hm? Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 25, 2009 [Tags: Blackboard Inc., Web Logs] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jun 25, 5:07pm
e-Learning and 21st century skills and competences
This relates obliquely to my talk from yesterday. "Using technology for teaching is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for developing the knowledge and skills needed in the 21st century. It has to be accompanied by curriculum reform (the content), by changes in teaching methods that facilitate the development of skills in a particular subject domain, and by changes in assessment." I have addressed this with my own list in the past; maybe I should refine and extend it. Tony Bates, e-learning and distance education resources, June 25, 2009 [Tags: Assessment] [ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jun 25, 5:04pm
Four Intellectual Traps for Understanding Learning
Three great points and a fourth that will need some explaining. Including: "School is not a useful model for learning." And: "Books, magazines, and movies are not a sufficiently useful model for capturing wisdom." Clark Aldrich, On Simulations and Serious Games, June 25, 2009 [Tags: Schools] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Jun 25, 4:59pm