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This one was just too funny not to repost. Enjoy this conversation between a Microsoft recruiter and Eric Raymond (Founder and Emeritus President of the Open Source Initiative) in which M$ mistakenly makes Eric a job offer.

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

Well, for all of their existence the reusability.org blogs have been powered by Movable Type. But not for much longer, I guess. This morning 6A announced their new licensing plans. The free version of MT is now severely crippled: “No more than one author and three weblogs.” This certainly puts reusability.org over the limit, with 12 authors hosting 15 blogs here. ...

Quoting from a new paper by “The Center for Economic and Policy Research”:http://www.cepr.net/ Co-Director Dean Baker, The AFV is an alternative designed to maximize the power of individual choice, while working with the full potential of technology. Whereas the copyright system provides a state-enforced monopoly leading to enormous costs, inefficiencies and enforcement problems, the AFV provides a voucher system for creative workers that would lead to savings to consumers, taxpayers and the government. Lower advertising costs, an end to police or FBI crackdowns on students downloading music, and less monitoring by internet service providers of their customers are just a few examples of savings from the AFV system. ...

Had to point to this great post over on Learning Circuits: “We are the Problem: We are selling Snake Oil”:http://www.internettime.com/lcmt/archives/001014.html. To quote briefly: We now have ample data to show that: – Training does not work. – eLearning does not work. – Blending Learning does not work. – Knowledge Management does not work. Although it will seem uncharacteristic, I’m not sure how I feel about the piece. Some of it must certainly be true… the question is, how much?

How did I miss this one? One of the coolest guys around is now intellectually exposing himself in the blogosphere. “http://rubens.cs.kuleuven.ac.be:8989/mt/blogs/ErikLog/":http://rubens.cs.kuleuven.ac.be:8989/mt/blogs/ErikLog/ This is great news… I’d been having a devil of a time keeping up with him.

Wayne Hodgins normally gets to give this talk, but in a few weeks it will be my turn. In preparation for a talk to be delivered at the Singapore National Learning Objects Conference, I did a survey of people I follow, what they?re doing relating to online teaching and learning, and looked for trends… ...

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.

Although the position is open until filled, we will officially begin reviewing applications for our “Assistant/Associate professor position”:http://personnel.usu.edu/W2-123-03.htm on Friday the 15th. Personally I’m still hoping to see some applicants whose name I recongize from the blogosphere. =) With three new hires in the next 18 months or so, we’re poised to really rebuild the “IT department”:http://it.usu.edu/ here at USU…

Here is some more detail on the new journal I described recently. ...