Friday, May 13, 2005

Mobile e-learning via phone achieves real success with the young - Public Technology. Key findings from mobile e-learning trials are published this month by the Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA) in a report Mobile technologies and learning. This report presents some innovative ideas on how mobile technologies, such as smartpho [Online Learning Update] 8:59:55 PM      Google It!.

Enabling Mobile Learning - Ellen D. Wagner, EDUCAUSE Review. There is a sense of anticipation in higher education technology circles these days, a feeling of prickly excitement that hasn’t been experienced since the heady days of the dot-com boom. For the past five years, the landscape has been littered with fundin [Online Learning Update] 8:59:16 PM      Google It!.

Does our language affect our thoughts?. One of the oldest questions in the study of language involves how it influences our thought. One of the most controversial answers comes from Benjamin Whorf, the student of renowned anthropologist Edward Sapir: language not only influences thought; language determines thought -- thought cannot exist without language. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, at least in its strongest [...] [Cognitive Daily] 8:56:19 PM      .

Open Source Software in Schools. The long-awaited BECTA report advocating the use of open source in schools has now been released. The report, kept under wraps because of the British election, was nonetheless widely discussed in the blogosphere. You'll find three PDF files on this site: the report itself, a case study, and an information sheet. By Various Authors, BECTA, April 13, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily] 8:53:18 PM      Google It!.

Laptop Theft Prompts a Student-ID Shift at Oklahoma State U.. According to this article, staff at Oklahoma State are scrambling to implement a new student ID system after a laptop containing 37,000 student social security numbers was stolen from the school's career services department. University officials can lament now, but we have to ask, what were these records doing on a laptop in the first place? But the larger lesson here, because thefts of this sort are becoming commonplace, is that centralized identity repositories of this sort are inherently insecure. Not to mention portable. By Associated Press, ChannelOklahoma, May 12, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily] 8:50:55 PM      Google It!.

IBM Backs Firefox In-House [Slashdot:] 8:49:56 PM      Google It!.

Enabling Mobile Learning. I was on the fence about this item but after mentioning it in my scrfeencast (see below) I guess I should include it. This is a good article; I was on the fence only because I'm not sure mobile learning is a special category worthy of special consideration. And you can see this reflected in the article: the features that characterize mobile learning are, arguably, those that also charaterize good e-learning generally. In addition, as the author writes, "people want 'anytime, anywhere' connections more than ever before." Quite true, and I'm always annoyed when my conference or hotel has no wireless connectivity. You'll also want to look at the useful glossary of terms at the end of the article. By Ellen Wegner, EDUCAUSE Review, May, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily] 8:48:57 PM      Google It!.

I, Cringely On A Momentous Week [Slashdot:] we are beginning to see what google wanted to do with all that IPO money - turn your PC into a thin client on the google machine with web accelerator -- BL 8:46:56 PM      Google It!.