A new blog on the block from COSL’s own John Dehlin. The blog follows open education news and hosts the Open Up! podcast, which so far has interviewed me, Steve Carson from MIT, and Stephen Downes. There will be several of us posting from time to time, so come check it out! - http://cosl.usu.edu/openup/ (thanks D’Arcy for reminding me to include the link!!!)
My blogging mentor Brian Lamb has asked anyone and everyone to answer a few questions. Here’s my 2 bits, Brian. What is most significant about the emergence of blogs and/or wikis? Their democratizing effect on communication and their power to interconnect everyone and everything. They’re so easy to use that everyone can, and almost everyone seems to be. The network effect being created by massively interconnecting content and people is so much more than just a few more links on your page or nodes in your social network. There is a qualitative change in behavior. It’s like running the Slime model in Netlogo with fewer than 70 agents, and then running it again with more than 90. You wouldn’t think that just a few more people doing exactly the same thing everyone else was already doing could make any difference. But we do see a distinct change in the behavior of the group. Blogs and wikis are enabling that… Lain’s words are becoming more and more true: “No matter where you are… everyone is always connected.” ...
So I think the upgrade to Wordpress 2.0 has worked. If you find kinks in the site as you bump around, please let me know.
Check out this fab collection of educational blogs over at incsub. This is the short list for this year’s awards in a variety of categories. Some really excellent educational blogs here, and almost certainly at least one you don’t already know about.