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Friday, January 26, 2007 |
Professors To Ban Students From Citing Wikipedia. Inisheer writes "History professors at Middlebury College are tired of having all their students submit the same bad information on term papers. The culprit: Wikipedia [~] the user-created encyclopedia that's full of great stuff, and also full of inaccuracies. Now the the entire History department has voted to ban students from citing it as a resource. An outright ban was considered, but dropped because enforcement seemed impossible. Other professors at the school agree, but note that they're also enthusiastic contributors to Wikipedia. The article discusses the valuable role that Wikipedia can play, while also pointed out the need for critical and primary sources in college-level research." What role, if any, do you think Wikipedia should play in education?[Slashdot] I think this is a wrongheaded approach and that the better approach would be to require students to make quality contributions to wikipedia instead and make it a better free academic source than it already is. There has been some progress on wikibooks for academic use (the cognitive psychology text for example). --BL
8:21:20 PM Google It!.
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IBM to Open Source Novel Identity Protection Software. coondoggie handed us a link to a Network World article reporting that IBM plans to open source the project 'Identity Mixer'. Developed by a Zurich-based research lab for the company, Identity Mixer is a novel approach to protecting user identities online. The project, which is a piece of XML-based software, uses a type of digital certificate to control who has access to identity information in a web browser. IBM is enthusiastic about widespread adoption of this technology, and so plans to open source the project through the Eclipse Open Source Foundation. The company hopes this tactic will see the software's use in commercial, medical, and governmental settings.[Slashdot]
8:16:53 PM Google It!.
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Scientist Develops Caffeinated Baked Goods. Zephyros writes "The AP is reporting on a scientist who has found a way to get caffeine into donuts, bagels, and other baked goods without the bitter flavor. Each piece has as much caffeine as two cups of coffee. No word on when or where they will be available, but for those of us that just don't get the same kick from the morning cuppa that we used to, this may be another tasty delivery vector to look forward to for that jump-start." [Slashdot]
8:07:43 PM Google It!.
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Ohloh comparison of Sakai and Moodle. http://www.immagic.com/eLibrary/ARCHIVES/
GENERAL/SAKAI_US/S070109F.pdf
Jim Farmer points to a comparison of the Sakai and Moodle projects done by Ohloh, a very cool site that provides objective information about open source projects. Instead of looking at Jim[base ']s PDF file, you can check out the Sakai and Moodle reports directly on the Ohloh site. Ohloh[base ']s reports are produced by looking at the source code repository (either Subversion, CVS or Git are currently supported) and it[base ']s value is in creating human readable (and very attractive) reports on empirical data that such repositories capture. The sparklines depicting developer activity make it really obvious how many regular contributors there are to a project, and the Project Cost estimator provides a cute way to scare your pointy headed boss out of thinking you could accomplish the same thing in-house in a few evenings and a couple of cases of Red Bull. - SWL
Tags: CMS, Moodle Sakai [EdTechPost]
8:28:36 AM Google It!.
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At Least 25 Million Americans Pirate Movies. ThinSkin writes "Roughly 18 percent of the U.S. online population has illegally downloaded a full-length movie at some point in the past, according to a telephone and online study of 2,600 Americans. A typical movie downloader is 29 years of age, while 63 percent of all downloaders are male, and 37 percent are female. Kaan Yigit, director of the study, observes, 'There is a Robin Hood effect [~] most people perceive celebrities and studios to be rich already and as a result don't think of movie downloading as a big deal. The current crop of 'download to own' movie services and the new ones coming into the market will need to offer greater flexibility of use, selection and low prices to convert the current users to their services [~] otherwise file-sharing will continue to thrive.'"[Slashdot] pay-for-view seems like a niche market unless there also is some substantial value-added services like search, speed control, programmable editing to for instance skip commercials, violence, or other offensive parts based on a users preference profile. --BL
8:22:55 AM Google It!.
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EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Conference Day 1. My first 3 postings are excerpts taken from my blog "Immerse Yourself" which I am keeping as a tool for reflection on my graduate program at George Mason University. In May I will graduate with a Master's in Education in Instructional Technology. The program is known as the "Immersion Program" because it is full time and allows students to earn a master's degree in one year!
Just a few hours into the conference and already I[base ']m learning and networking [^] it[base ']s been great thus far! It[base ']s been fascinating to talk to people in the instructional technology field and find out how they got there [^] no two have the same, or similar, stories. I ran into Lisa Andion (Instructional Support Manager at George Mason University) in the elevator [^] despite the fact that we are at the same institution, I only had to look at her nametag to figure out who she was. Julie Evans, who spoke at the very first session [base "]K-12 Students Speak Up About Technology and Learning: Are We Listening?[per thou], presented some very fascinating statistics to the audience (she later said she was going to be in northern VA Thursday of this week surveying a high school through her New Learning Project). She revealed some things which were pretty shocking (or at least insightful): *80% of kids between 6th and 12th grade have a cell phone *65% of kids between kindergarten and 12th grade are gaming, girls just as much as boys *35% of kids between 6th and 12th grade are interested in taking an online class *9% of high school kids have a BlackBerry or smartphone
(It[base ']s beyond me why a high school kid would ever need a BlackBerry - when I had mine, it was delightful to silence it after the workday was over.)
She also brought up the subject of online social networking (which, I had several interesting discussions today about the fact that No, I do not think that Facebook or MySpace will ever have academic value) and mentioned that 20% of 3rd through 5th graders have online [base "]friends[per thou] they have never met.
WHOA. What ever happened to Barbies and trips to the neighborhood playground?
Kidding aside, I know that technology[base ']s integration with the children[base ']s world is only going to increase, and I really do see this positively affecting the digital revolution. ... Also, I discovered that all of the sessions will be podcast(ed?), so since humans don[base ']t yet have the capability to simultaneously appear in and take in material from more than one location, I can listen to what I[base ']m missing on the plane ride back. Cool. [EDUCAUSE CONNECT blogs]
7:25:42 AM Google It!.
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Blackboard Patent Reexamination: Response from the Sakai Foundation. To update my post on the Blackboard patent, here is some more detail on the requested reexamination of the patent claim and the Sakai Foundation's response.
As Paul Erickson notes (thanks, Paul!), the news initially started bubbling up when the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) announced that it has formally asked the Patent Office to reexamine and ultimately cancel all 44 claims of Blackboard's patent on e-learning systems.
The request has demonstrated the very real sense of unity and common purpose among the educational open source software community. It was filed on behalf of the Sakai Foundation (sakaiproject.org), the Moodle Community (moodle.org), and the ATutor Community (atutor.ca).
In their press release, the Sakai Foundation refers to the "the surrounding fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) being spread by Blackboard", and states: "We, the Sakai Foundation, consider the Blackboard patent to be a prime example of a bad patent in the area of educational software. It is a threat to open source developers, providers and users of educational software."
Joseph Hardin, Sakai Foundation Board Chairman, comments: "Blackboard would have done well to heed the recent recommendations of the Educause Board by placing the patent in the public domain and dropping all litigation. Since Blackboard has refused to follow these recommendations, we have taken steps to render this patent toothless." [EDUCAUSE CONNECT blogs]
7:19:43 AM Google It!.
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© Copyright 2007 Bruce Landon.
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