Hypertext Invented in 1934.

Alex Wright, in Boxes and Arrows, calls Paul Otlet "the forgotten father of hypertext." It makes you wonder what other ideas appeared sixty years before their time -- and which of today's crazy ideas won't look so crazy half a century from now.

(Thanks, Jim!)

[Smart Mobs]
1:19:06 PM  #  

Via Stephen Downes: Making Sense of Learning Specifications & Standards: A Decision Maker's Guide to their Adoption. The second version of this longish (82 page) PDF document is now available for download. Based from the point of view of SCORM, this document introsuces readers to the concept of learning objects and metadata. Through the use of case studies, the paper is able to get into not only the use of but the make-up of the learning objects. This is not an issues paper; it is an explanation paper, but from a clear point of view: the use of learning objects to support mass personalization. By Elliott Masie, ed., The Masie Center, November, 2003 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily]
10:43:31 AM  #  

Via elearningpost:Xerox PARC: Stolen Knowledge.

A very great musician came and stayed in [our] house. He made one big mistake . . . [he] determined to teach me music, and consequently no learning took place. Nevertheless, I did casually pick up from him a certain amount of stolen knowledge.

[Rabindrath Tagore quoted in Bandyopadhyay, 1989: 45]

Xerox PARC: Stolen Knowledge

Here's a quote from the classic paper by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid on the difference between learning and instruction: "The alternative view sees learning as part of an inevitably unfinished, but continuous process that goes on throughout life. Each event, circumstance, or interaction is not discrete. Rather, each is assimilated or appropriated in terms of what has gone before. The process is not, then, like the addition of a brick to a building-where the brick remains as distinct and self-contained as it was in the builder's hand. Instead, it is a little like the addition of color to color in a painting, where the color that is added becomes inseparably a part of the color that was there before and both are transformed in the process. Thus, what is learned can never be judged solely in terms of what is taught."

[elearningpost]
10:40:12 AM  #  

World[base ']s First Global ICT Ranking.

The International Telecommunication Union(ITU) has published Digital Access Index: World[base ']s First Global ICT Ranking.This forms part of the ITU's upcoming 2003 edition of the World Telecommunication Development Report (WTDR)to be published to coincide with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).Michael Minges of the Market, Economics and Finance Unit at ITU said "Until now, limited infrastructure has often been regarded as the main barrier to bridging the digital divide.Our research, however, suggests that affordability and education are equally important factors."
ITU Digital Access Index: World[base ']s First Global ICT Ranking

[Smart Mobs]
10:33:47 AM  #