Below is an online education parable I have been telling in talks for a few years now. I have finally written it down in order to publish it in my BackBurner column of AECT’s Tech Trends, but thought that autounfocus readers might enjoy it as well. ...
Many individuals and institutions are now teaching online. Many instructors have tried to do “the responsible thing” and use “proven, battle-tested” classroom teaching methods in their online courses. And at first this seems the only ethical, responsible thing to do… ...
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.
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. ...
There is finally a reasonable cc.edu proposal on the table (the proposal and some framing context are reprinted below), but no one has provided any feedback on it as of yet. Do people just not care? The lack of passionate debate, and especially the lack of response from persons of whom direct questions have been asked, has really taken me by surprise. ...
A new school year, a new research group. I’ve formalized my interest in extending access to educational opportunity by forming a new research group here in the Department of Instructional Technology - the Open Sustainable Learning Opportunity (OSLO) Research Group. Hopefully this formalization will give us some traction with funders, and bring some public visibility to all of our efforts to open access to educational opportunity
There have been a grand total of two posts to the cc.edu mailing lists (the discussion about an educational use-only option for the Creative Commons licensing infrastructure) not authored by one of the CC people. You can access the archives here “http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-education/":http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-education/. Stephen has been vocal in his thinking that cc.edu is a bad idea, and posted a thorough critique to which I responded and requested a counter-response. Zachary Chandler posted one positive message. Does the instructional technology world just not care about improving the open licensing of educational materials?
Spotted on OLDaily: “Jeff Jarvis says out loud what everybody has been thinking: ‘The real point: Ultimately, your content is more valuable than professional content.’ Think about that. When you open the morning mail, and you have a letter from your Aunt Mabel and a copy of a glossy magazine, which do you open first? A lot follows from this simple observation, and while I’m not sure how much of it AOL understands, it is clear that the get at least some of it.” Read more at “The BuzzMachine”:http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2003_07.html#004146. This article included another real gem: “It isn’t content until it’s linked.”