Open-Content

A couple of times a year I update this page with longer pieces written as peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, or presentations. Enjoy! 2004 Scalability and Sociability in Online Learning Environments HTML Supporting Student Autonomy Online HTML Commentary on Downes’ Resource Profiles PDF IMS/SSP Comes So Close HTML 2003 A beginner’s guide to blogs. HTML OSOSS - Crisis / Response. HTML Learning objects: difficulties and opportunities. PDF A brief history of the blog. In A. Kovalchick & K. Dawson (Eds.) Educational Technology: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. PDF Keeping the Baby and the Bath Water. HTML 2002 Online self-organizing social systems: The decentralized future of online learning. Quarterly Review of Distance Education. (With Erin Brewer). PDF A proposed measure of discussion activity in threaded discussion spaces. Working Draft PDF Learning objects need instructional design theory. In A. Rossett (Ed.) The 2001/2002 ASTD Distance Learning Yearbook. New York: McGraw-Hill. PDF Learning objects – a definition. In A. Kovalchick & K. Dawson (Eds.) Educational Technology: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. PDF CAREER Grant - A mediated action study of learning object use in online learning communities. PDF The coming collision between the automated instruction and learning communities camps of online learning research. Working Draft DOC Component Display Theory. In A. Kovalchick & K. Dawson (Eds.) Educational Technology: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. PDF OpenCourseWare. In A. Kovalchick & K. Dawson (Eds.) Educational Technology: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. PDF A unified design framework for learning objects and educational discourse. PDF 2001 EduCommons. (With Mimi Recker and Andy Gibbons). PDF An empirical estimate of student growth in beginning music theory: Results and pedagogical implications. (With Leo Welch). PDF About the RLO strategy white paper. HTML Connecting learning objects to instructional design theory: A definition a metaphor, and a taxonomy. In D. A. Wiley (Ed.), The Instructional Use of Learning Objects. Bloomington, IN: Association for Educational Communications and Technology. DOC “Web-based instruction” should never have happened (oh, never mind - it’s dead anyway). Tech Trends PDF What is the Internet ran like the U.S. public education system. Tech Trends PDF The teacher’s outrageous claim to intellectual property. Tech Trends HTML Collaboratively filtering learning objects. In D. A. Wiley (Ed.), The Instructional Use of Learning Objects. Bloomington, IN: Association for Educational Communications and Technology. (With Mimi Recker and Andy Walker). DOC A non-authoritative educational metadata ontology for filtering and recommending learning objects. Journal of Interactive Learning Environments. The Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinger. (With Mimi Recker). PDF 2000 In defense of the by-hand assembly of learning objects. (With Mimi Recker and Andy Gibbons). PDF A reformulation of learning object granularity. (With Mimi Recker and Andy Gibbons). PDF An exploratory study of the statistical and educational implications of violations of the assumptions of parametric analysis techniques. (With Vic Bunderson and Jim Olsen). PDF When worlds collide. PDF Learning object design and sequencing theory. Dissertation PDF Getting students interested: An integrated approach to Keller’s ARCS model of motivational design. Instructional Design Project PDF Structured metadata spaces. Journal of Internet Cataloging. 3(2/3), pp. 263 - 277. Binghamton, NY: Haworth. (With Tom Wason). PDF 1999 Three common properties of efficient online instructional support systems. ALN Magazine. (With Joe South, Julene Bassett, Laurie Nelson, Larry Seawright, Trent Peterson, and David Monson). HTML The post-LEGO learning object. PDF So what do I do with a learning object?. PDF Metadata mall. HTML Dynamic directory structures. PDF An intelligent method for searching metadata spaces. Epistemology Course Final Paper PDF My, what an intelligent tool you have!. IMS White Paper HTML Why semantic structures?. IMS White Paper HTML 1998 Towards a definition of fundamentality. HTML It’s… fundamentality 2.0!. HTML Iterative formation of learning environments based on self-similar primedial objects (for dummies). (With Laurie Nelson, David Monson, and Joe South). HTML

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?