Major price increases at Second Life. Google's Lively being shut down. Once again, we see the risk of putting our projects into the hands of private third-party entities. Vicki A. Davis, Cool Cat Teacher Blog, November 20, 2008 [Tags: Second Life, Google, Project Based Learning] [Link] [Comment]

VRM stands for 'Vendor Relationship Management'. Doc Searls writes, 'here's the challenge: make the Net personal. Make relationships personal. Equip individuals with tools of independence and engagement. That's what VRM is about." VRM, then, in my books, is the idea behind the personal learning environment. Doc Searls, ProjectVRM Blog, November 20, 2008 [Tags: none] [Link] [Comment]

This is an interesting set of knowledge-management (KM) bloggers (there's sufficient overlap with the online education community that a number of them will be familiar to readers of OLDaily). The interviews cover the "professional background of a participant and characteristics of her network in KM field prior to blogging; changes in the network or networking practices because of blogging; uses of weblogs for developing, maintaining and activating relations as a starting point for articulating stages of the process at more granular level; and place of the weblog in the ecosystem of networking tools." Lilia Efimova, Mathemagenic, November 20, 2008 [Tags: Online Learning, Networks, Web Logs] [Link] [Comment]

Could be a bigger study, but the conclusions are in accord with my own intuitions. "A three-year research project... finds that the stereotypical idea of the Internet as a soul-devouring, anti-social wasteland for our kids is just plain wrong. If you suspected otherwise, now you know you were right." Here's the link to the study website. More from Joi Ito. David Weinberger, Joho the Blog, November 20, 2008 [Tags: Schools, Research, Project Based Learning] [Link] [Comment]

Europeana launches today. Europeana provides links you to 2 million digital items representing the range of European culture. Here is the Europana press pack. Here is the enabling resolution (both via Peter Suber). Rob Davies describes the infrastructure for adding local content in Ariadne. The website has already been overwhelmed by users. Various Authors, Website, November 20, 2008 [Tags: European Union] [Link] [Comment]

Drupal is doing a design and doing some open user testing - an interesting concept in itself. I really liked the Cardsort application they used. Leisa Reichelt, disambiguity, November 19, 2008 [Tags: Tests and Testing, Content Management Systems, Drupal] [Link] [Comment]

This is a generally good white paper looking at the impact of social networking on business organization. It's important to keep in mind that by 'social networking' we must mean more than just your Facebook connections - todays social networks include the full range of contacts you make world wide using any technology. Good diagrams illustrating the new organizational structure on page 5. David Miller, heyjude, November 19, 2008 [Tags: Books, Networks, Video] [Link] [Comment]

Brian Lamb asks, "can DSpace be extended so that the acts of searching and interaction around these resources can themselves be learning experiences." Of course it can, but equally obviously, it doesn't. So what would it take? This is the question he explores in this post. Great whiteboard photo (should be a 'must' for every learning PowerPoint slide presentation here on in). Anyhow, to approach an answer to Brian's question: what we need for such a system to work is a social layer that exists outside walled-garden websites like Facebook and LinkedIn - a social network without the social network website. Enabled by something simple, like OpenDD. Brian Lamb, abject learning, November 19, 2008 [Tags: Online Learning, Books, Networks, Experience, Interaction] [Link] [Comment]

Some big changes are coming not only to how the web functions but also to how it will feel for users. Basic web 2.0 operations - such as HTTPRequest - are set to be enabled with cross-domain access controls. This addresses some of the major issues of website interoperability, but also means that fun easy-going cross-site content-mashing is going to be replaced with one where you the external site must specifically grant permission. So simply linking to external resources to embed them - like this, say, or this - may become impossible. John Resig, Weblog, November 19, 2008 [Tags: Interoperability] [Link] [Comment]

Mike Masnick writes, "Basically, the entertainment industry first flat-out lied (yes, lied) about how big a problem file sharing on campus was, and that got some Congressional Reps (with plenty of campaign contributions from the entertainment industry) to introduce legislation punishing universities if they didn't filter their networks." Mike Masnick, TechDirt, November 19, 2008 [Tags: File Sharing, Networks] [Link] [Comment]

A lot has been made of recent reports that online video site Hulu is close to YouTube in revenues and is expected to match them next year. I wouldn't be so quick to start praising Hulu. The company has made its mark by signing deals with traditional media to run television content online, and (apparently) has distribution agreements with blog sites, such as Gawker. So fine. But views outside the United States continue to see error messages instead of video in Hulu screens, which means that the problem of distribution is far from solved. And is segmenting the internet into closed national viewing areas a good strategy in the long run? Of course not. Hulu's business model is based on closed content - but you can't sustain a closed content model, not in the long run, not once the momentum from free viewing has dried up. Scott Karp, Publishing 2.0, November 18, 2008 [Tags: United States, Video, YouTube, Web Logs] [Link] [Comment]

I like this title better than the diplomatic 'OCW Production in the OCWC, 2003 to Present (w/ Chart)'. The title refers to the large number of online courses being made available by the open courseware consortium, about which I am unreservedly delighted. That many more free things to rip, mix and burn, right? Caulfield writes, "We're lucky, as a movement, to have people approaching this issue from both the bottom-up and top-down. In my experience it's the combination of those two approaches that gets change done." Mike Caulfield, Tran|Script, November 18, 2008 [Tags: Traditional and Online Courses, OpenCourseWare] [Link] [Comment]

"Open Access @ OISE is a discussion list for students, faculty, and staff at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto." Which is good, but it would be better to be able to view posts without having to be a member, so I can follow it and maybe link to the more insightful items. Related: Open Access at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education blog post. Peter Suber, Open Access News, November 18, 2008 [Tags: Schools, Discussion Lists] [Link] [Comment]

Derek Morrison offers a two-part examination of the increasing role of video in gneral, and YouTube in particular, in learning. Part One, Part Two. The first part discusses the use of video generally and lists a number of British learning video projects, while the second lists 'YouTube affordances' and considers alternatives to YouTube. For my own part, I prefer not to use YouTube, because the quality isn't very good and videos are limited to 10 minutes. I would host them myself, but they would eat away my bandwidth, which would harm my website. So I am currently using blip. Related: 20+ Firefox Plugins to Enhance Your YouTube Experience. Derek Morrison, Auricle, November 18, 2008 [Tags: Great Britain, Video, Bandwidth, Project Based Learning, Quality, YouTube] [Link] [Comment]

The authors suggest that there is "a gap that is critical to the possible or ultimate effect of the free culture movement on education: On the one side is a remarkably successful system of development and 'relevance/accreditation.' On the other is the creation and provision of open educational resources and services." Consequently, they argue, "Wikiversity's goal of empowering people to achieve their educational goals via the free culture movement, and without governmental financial support and direction, is laudable but ambitious in the extreme." Norm Friesen and Janet Hopkins, First Monday, November 18, 2008 [Tags: none] [Link] [Comment]

It has been said here before, but it bears repeating. "Web distribution of their work motivates students to put their best foot forward. 'My Web site has been viewed in all fifty states and eighty-seven foreign countries,' Coley says. 'I use that to my advantage. When I show the kids statistics and recent visitor numbers, it tells them that I'm not the only person who is going to hear what they're doing. People in Australia and England are going to hear it.'" Maya Payne Smart, Edutopia, November 18, 2008 [Tags: Great Britain, Australia] [Link] [Comment]

The Commonwealth of Learning has set up this microsite to address issues related to gender and online learning. "The resources in this section vary in format and type and include: books (both in their entirety and select chapters); monographs; reference sources; journal articles; research and project reports; thesis; select conference papers; and, country and case studies." Various Authors, Commonwealth of Learning, November 18, 2008 [Tags: Online Learning, Research, Project Based Learning] [Link] [Comment]

This is a major paper I authored over the summer and released yesterday. In the summer of 1998, over two frantic weeks in July, I wrote an essay titled The Future of Online Learning. In this essay I offer a renewal of those predictions. I look at each of the points I addressed in 1998, and with the benefit of ten year's experience, recast and rewrite each prediction. This essay is not an attempt to vindicate the previous paper - time has done that - but to carry on in the same spirit, and to push that vision ten years deeper into the future. My best hope for most influential blog post for 2008. Stephen Downes, Half an Hour, November 17, 2008 [Tags: Traditional and Online Courses] [Link] [Comment]

As if there isn't enough to do this week, you could if you find the time peek in on this free and open online conference. The list of speakers over the five days is a veritable who's who of corporate e-learning (see the Events page for a list): David Weinberger, Dave Pollard, Nancy White, Marcia Conner and Allison Anderson, among many others. George Siemens, Tony Karrer, Jay Cross, Ning, November 17, 2008 [Tags: Online Learning] [Link] [Comment]

Diego Leal summarizes the Educamp Colombia sessions he ran last year, in preparation for a second set he is running this year. Here is the overview and the summary of the Bogota session. And here, in Spanish, is the overview and summary of both the Bogota and Medellin sessions. For me, it was a privilege to take part, and I will be participating at a distance at the kick-off for the next set. Diego leal, .Edu.Co.Blog, November 17, 2008 [Tags: none] [Link] [Comment]