The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation will be funding the OSLO Research Group’s next two projects. Synopses follow. Open Learning Support (OLS), our partnership with MIT’s OpenCourseWare initiative, will build a social infrastructure around the OCW materials, allowing informal study groups to form and enabling learners to provide and receive peer support while using the OCW materials. EduCommons is our “SourceForge for educational materials” project. We hope that EduCommons will facilitate the development and release of significant new educational materials for years to come, including derivative works based on / localizations of OCW content. ...

It’s been quiet here for so long because we’ve been working so hard! Pitch is about to come out of our private alpha tests into public beta. You can preview the look and feel at http://www.pitchjournal.org/ and sign up for a reminder when the public beta opens. Hope to see you there.

I’m visiting Australia for the first time this week, and have been absolutely amazed how hard it is to drive on the left side of the road. The cognitive load issues have been almost overwhelming. I’m three days into the trip now, and finally adapting somewhat. I wonder if this means I’m just getting old and from henceforth will have difficulty learning new tricks…

Short ponderings about learning objects over at “David Davies’":http://radio.weblogs.com/0001161/categories/edtech/2003/09/11.html#a450 place. My favorite quote, which everyone should memorize until further notice: There was a tangible feeling of ‘so what’ about much of the RLO discussion, at least amongst the non-techies.

Many probably saw this on “Slashdot”:http://slashdot.org, but for those who didn’t, “Freenet”:http://freenetproject.org/ creator Ian Clarke has announced that he is leaving the United States. GrepLaw has an “interview”:http://grep.law.harvard.edu/article.pl?sid=03/09/02/0125236&mode=flat with Ian in which he discusses some of his reasons for deciding to make the move. While I must say that I completely respect his decision, this is a horrendous loss for us and certainly only the first of many. God speed, Ian.

Many probably saw this on “Slashdot”:http://slashdot.org, but for those who didn’t, “Freenet”:http://freenetproject.org/ creator Ian Clarke has announced that he is leaving the United States. GrepLaw has an “interview”:http://grep.law.harvard.edu/article.pl?sid=03/09/02/0125236&mode=flat with Ian in which he discusses some of his reasons for deciding to make the move. While I must say that I completely respect his decision, this is a horrendous loss for us and certainly only the first of many. God speed, Ian.

Spotted over at Stephen’s: “Learning Community Catalyst”:http://www.lcc.edu.au/. Haven’t looked closely yet; this is a bookmark. =)

I’m about to create around 50 new blogs in an MT install. Does anyone have a script that handles the web-based portion of the creation process? I have a script for creating and setting permissions on directories… Help appreciated.

Everybody respects Stephen, and I’m no different. I’m dying to understand his criticisms of the creation of an educational use license for content, but I may be too dense to do so. Below are point by point responses to his criticisms as best as I understand them. If someone else can see that I’m missing the point in one or another, I wish they would fill me in. I hope he will make point by point rebuttals and responses so that I can better understand where he’s coming from. ...

Everybody respects Stephen, and I’m no different. I’m dying to understand his criticisms of the creation of an educational use license for content, but I may be too dense to do so. Below are point by point responses to his criticisms as best as I understand them. If someone else can see that I’m missing the point in one or another, I wish they would fill me in. I hope he will make point by point rebuttals and responses so that I can better understand where he’s coming from. ...