Technology360

Congressmen: Higher ed must police file sharing or lose financial aid

Cory Doctorow writes:

Democratic legislators have introduced a bill that will tie university financial aid funding to universities imposing stiff penalties for file-sharing, and to universities subsidizing student subscriptions to failed DRM-based systems like Napster and Ruckus. This is about as ugly as pork-barrel politics can get: politicians are so in debt to four of five ailing giants from the entertainment industry that they're prepared to deny low-income children access to a college education if universities don't punish kids for listening to music and piss away money on a useless service that no one wants to use. ...

Link:  BoingBoing.  --Dennis

National LambdaRail + Internet2 merger off

News that the long-awaited merger between National LambdaRail (NLR) and Internet2 is off doesn't cheer most people in the academic/research advanced networking community.  For the story, see John Timmer, Internet2, LambdaRail can't even agree to disagree; merger called off (Ars Technica); John Fischman, Breaking Up, Internet2-LambdaRail Style (Chronicle of Higher Education); and Anick Jesdanun, Ultra-Fast Internet Networks Won't Merge (AP).  For analysis see Gordon Cook, A Sad Day as Emotion Drives R&E Networking in the USA (Cook's Collaborative Edge); Internet2 Responds (Cook's Collaborative Edge); and Some Unsolicited Advice: NLR Should Blow Its Own Horn (Cook's Collaborative Edge).  --Dennis

First Monday has moved

The excellent online peer-reviewed journal about the Internet, First Monday, has moved from www.firstmonday.org to Open Journal Systems at the University if Illinois at Chicago.  Its new (unmemorizable) URL is www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/ and it now requires a free registration.  Its archives have been moved here also.  In a big step forward, it now has RSS and Atom feeds, so I've subscribed in Bloglines and will be seeing new things as they're posted rather than every few months when I happen to remember I haven't visited the site in awhile. 

From the September 2007 number, check out Desperately seeking the consumer: Personalized search engines and the commercial exploitation of user data by Theo Röhle.  Here's the abstract:

With reference to surveillance studies theory, this paper critically assesses the role of personalized search engines as a mediator between advertisers and users. It first sketches the economic and technical background of online marketing and personalized searches. Then, it engages in an in–depth discussion of two examples of personalized search engines with regard to the data collection process used and the way in which this data is used for advertising purposes. The discussion shows that users’ information needs, as well as their personal data, are subject to a growing pressure in terms of commercial exploitation. Essentially, search engines now fulfill the task of translating information needs into consumption needs.

Link:  First Monday.  --Dennis

Youth Radio: The Power of Collegial Pedagogy

Henry Jenkins has a pair of interesting, if typically long, posts on Youth Radio.  Link:  Confessions of an Aca/Fan, Part One, Part Two.  --Dennis

Remixes and mashups in education

Brian Lamb of the University of British Columbia has an article in the current issue of EDUCAUSE Review which provides a very useful philosophical and practical overview of repurposing digital content and the application of this in education.  By way of introduction, he writes:

... mashups involve the reuse, or remixing, of works of art, of content, and/or of data for purposes that usually were not intended or even imagined by the original creators. Although the historical roots of remix and mashup culture are deep, the properties of digital media are what have given ordinary individuals the power to reshape works on an unprecedented scale. In recent years, with the emergence of Web 2.0, the ability to copy, to combine, and to remix has been extended. Increasingly, it's not just works of art that are appropriated and remixed but the functionalities of online applications as well.  ¶  For educators and policy-makers, already struggling with the many cultural and logistical challenges posed by digital technologies, mashups complicate the picture even while offering tremendous promise. What, exactly, constitutes a valid, original work? What are the implications for how we assess and reward creativity? Can a college or university tap the same sources of innovative talent and energy as Google or Flickr? What are the risks of permitting or opening up to this activity? ...

and further,

... Remix is the reworking or adaptation of an existing work. The remix may be subtle, or it may completely redefine how the work comes across. It may add elements from other works, but generally efforts are focused on creating an alternate version of the original. A mashup, on the other hand, involves the combination of two or more works that may be very different from one another. In this article, I will apply these terms both to content remixes and mashups, which originated as a music form but now could describe the mixing of any number of digital media sources, and to data mashups, which combine the data and functionalities of two or more Web applications. ...

Link:  EDUCAUSE Review [PDF version]  --Dennis

Virtual Worlds as Social-Science Labs

If you read the recent post below on Second Earth, you should also be interested in Andrea L. Foster's article  on the work Professor Edward Castronova of Indiana University at Bloomington in the area of virtual world applications.  Link:  Chronicle of Higher Education.  --Dennis

Second Earth

There's a terrific article with this title by Wade Roush in the July/August issue of Technology Review which describes a mind-expanding but imagined mash-up between (e.g.) Second Life and (e.g.) Google Earth -- to something called a metaverse.  I've long thought that Second Life and its cousins were a natural place for visual storytelling, and particularly for educational applications.  This makes it irresistible.

Link:  Technology Review (free registration required).  Related video (no registration needed).

Update 5 July 2007:
Also see Andrea L. Foster's, Virtual Worlds as Social-Science Labs.  Link:  Chronicle of Higher Education.  --Dennis

Gorman and Shirky on authority vs. openness

The Britannica Blog has hosted a very interesting exchange of essays between librarian Michael Gorman (ex-Dean of Library Services at California State University, Fresno) and Clay Shirky, teacher (New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program), writer and consultant.  I've been reading Shirky for years.  It's the openness vs. authority argument; Wikipedia vs. Encyclopædia Britannica (though of course, not just that); or, in book length, David Weinberger's Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder (reviews) vs. Andrew Keen's The Cult of the Amateur: How today's Internet is killing our culture (review).

Gorman begins with The Sleep of Reason, Part I (11 June) and Part II (12 June).

To which Shirky responds with "Old Revolutions Good; New Revolutions Bad" (14 June).

Gorman continues with The Siren Song of the Internet, Part I (18 June) and Part II (19 June).

To which Shirky responds with The Siren Song of Luddism (19 June).

Gorman continues again with Jabberwiki: The Educational Response, Part I (25 June) and Part II (26 June).

The Britannica Blog follows up with other responses:  Publisher Roger Kimball (The New Criterion, Encounter Books) also contributes to this debate in Technology, Temptation, and Virtual Reality.  Doctoral candidate (U. C.-Berkeley) danah boyd in Knowledge Access as a Public Good (27 June).  Reference librarian Thomas Mann in Brave New (Digital) World, Part I: Return of the Avant-Garde and Part II: Foolishness 2.0?.

I've not gotten through the essays in the last paragraph yet, but so far it's good reading.  --Dennis

New Media News Digest, 6/12-6/19/2007

Sondra Russell works for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and writes the following News Digest on a weekly basis.  I think it's a very nice piece of work, but it's distributed by email only.  So she's given me permission to quote it here so it can get RSS distribution and also be seen by people outside of public broadcasting.  Her email address is srussell [at] cpb [dot] org.  --Dennis

SONDRA’S SUMMARY

> The top story this week is that CNN and YouTube are co-sponsoring presidential debates.  As reported in the New York Times last week, CNN will host a debate between presidential candidates with questions culled from YouTube.  This highly hyped event may serve as inspiration for public broadcasters who are experimenting with new ways of engaging audiences during the 2008 elections.  Some are already wondering if the hype will match up to the reality – the YouTube clips are still going to be curated by the CNN team and host Andersen Cooper will provide follow-up questions, thus mitigating some of the populist nature of the Web.   

> The key theme this week is that cellphones are more important than televisions to the 26 and under crowd.  An infographic supporting a New York Times story about various networks’ ambitious cellphone initiatives indicates that both cellphones and computers are more important to younger generations than television. And this is before the iPhone is even released. 

 > The think piece this week is that NBC announced an online educational venture.  By leveraging its vast news archives, iCue (“Immerse, Compete, Understand, and Excel”) will serve as a supplement to Advanced Placement high school courses in American History, Government, and English.  Cost?  $10M.  Business model?  Subscription fees from schools and advertising on the site.  As pubcasters consider exploring the online space, there may be some lessons learned (both positive and negative) from NBC’s foray.

New Media News Digest, June 12th – June 19th, 2007

TELEVISION

Fox Entertainment Signs Internet TV Distributor Brightcove

From PaidContent: "Fox has tapped online TV distributor Brightcove to provide its networks and studio with ad-supported internet video channels. The pact will also give Fox the ability to target its broadband video directly to specific demos."

Sony Offers Web-Streaming Device As Option on HDTVs
From the WSJ: "The fight is intensifying in the battle to bring the Internet -- and all the video available on it -- to a television near you. Sony will include its Internet streaming device as an option in all of its new HD television models this year."

HD programming wars: Comcast says 800 HD channels by 2009
From ArsTechnica: "At a press conference I attended at CES early this year, DIRECTV proudly announced that it would have 100 HD channels available by year end. Comcast is trying to trump its competitor by saying that it will have over 800 HD channels by that time."

INTERNET

YouTube Passes Debates to a New Generation
From the NYT: "YouTube, which is owned by Google, and CNN are co-sponsoring a debate among the eight Democratic presidential candidates on July 23 in South Carolina, an event that could define the next phase of what has already been called the YouTube election."

Cellphones and Computers Rank Higher Than Televisions in the 18-to-26 Age Group
From the NYT -- an infographic in support of a story about broadcasters creating mobile content indicates that younger generations prefer their computers and cellphones more than their televisions.

Yes, the Screen Is Tiny, but the Plans Are Big
ESPN isn't alone. Other companies, like CBS and MTV, as well as news organizations like The Associated Press and magazine concerns like the Hearst Corporation, are investing in original cellphone content.

Canadian New Media Fund Gets $27.3M from Government
From CBC: "Administered by Telefilm , the Canada New Media Fund was created in 2001 to support the development, production, marketing and distribution of original Canadian new media projects in both official languages."

Ad Revenues -- Up 16% Online, Down 0.3% For Radio

From TNS Media Intelligence: "Internet display advertising is projected to lead the market with 16.0 percent growth in 2007. Network TV expenditures are expected to increase by just 1.3 percent. Small declines are also projected for Radio (-0.3 percent)."

RADIO

Big Radio Makes a Grab for Internet Listeners 
From the NYT: "Confronted by a slow erosion of listeners who are turning to iPods, podcasts and other sources for entertainment, the radio corporations are trying to merge their over-the-air music and D.J. chatter with the Web."

EDUCATION

NBC Developing Educational Site for Students
From the NYT: "The network is to announce an online venture intended as a supplement to Advanced Placement high school courses in three subjects: American history, government and English. The effort draws heavily on its exhaustive film and video archives."

Confessions of a Podcast Junkie

Graduate student Carie Windham has written a great article on the personal and educational aspects of podcasting.  Link:  EDUCAUSE Review [pdf version]  --Dennis

Building conceptual bridges to a new media world

Jon Udell writes:

When Ryan Sholin’s manifesto on the future of newspapers appeared the other day, the blogosphere cheered loudly. “Great summary,” said one commenter, “Too bad they’re not listening.”  ¶  “They” are the newspaper writers, editors, and journalists — and the J-school teachers — whose attitudes and skills require a major overhaul:

Get over the whole bloggers vs. journalists thing…

…you and Mr. Notebook need to make some new friends, like Mr. Microphone and Mr. Point & Shoot.

Although everything on Ryan’s 10-point list is devastatingly true, it’s important to consider all the reasons why “they’re not listening.” ...

Link:  Jon Udell.

The P2P mistake at Ohio University

The president of BitTorrent, Ashwin Navin, writes:

Ohio University recently informed students that the use of peer-to-peer technology has been banned from the campus computer network. The reasons cited range from network congestion to malicious software to piracy.  ¶  While the university acknowledges that there are legitimate uses of P2P technologies, the blanket ban on the technology stands.  ¶  By instituting this ban, Ohio University has demonstrated a serious lack of understanding of P2P technology's value and role on the Internet. Furthermore, the school has closed its doors to innovation and shirked its responsibilities as an educational institution. ...

Link:  CNet News.com.

Also see Eric Bangeman's, Schools take wait-and-see approach after Ohio U bans P2P traffic.  Link:  Ars Technica.

Also see Ohio University announces changes in file-sharing policies.  Link:  Ohio University press release. 

File this one under cutting off your nose to spite your face.  --Dennis

Learning Guitar for Free (for Now) on YouTube

Frank Langfitt had a great piece on NPR's All Things Considered yesterday about people who are teaching guitar over the Net, specifically, using YouTube.  Included in the story was this about the seemingly asinine copyright rules under which we live:

... But if learning pop songs for free online sounds too good to be true, it may be.  ¶  John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, says most of the songs Sandercoe and Taub teach are under copyright. He thinks it's only a matter of time before a licensing company orders YouTube to take them down.  ¶  "There's a very strong argument that the re-use of well-known chords in the sequence the instructor played them would be a violation of the copyright," Palfrey says. ...

Link:  NPR.  Be sure to listen to the audio version of this rather than just reading the transcript.  --Dennis

The Digital Horizon

In spite of its geographically constrained name, the Iowa DTV Symposium is a very good national meeting, sponsored by Iowa Public Television, that happens each fall in Des Moines.  This year, IPTV asked Todd Mundt, himself a very savvy "newmediaite," to interview several of the speakers.  They've just posted seven of these (about a half hour each, Real and downloadable M4V formats) online.  The interviews feature yours truly; Michael Geoghegan, author of Podcasting Solutions: The  Complete Guide to Podcasting; Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University; Maryann Baldwin, director, Magid Media Futures; James Pence, marketing director, Teacher's Domain, WGBH; Sara Linner, executive producer of new media, Nebraska public television; and change consultant Rob Paterson.  Link:  Iowa PTV.

The PowerPoint for my session at this meeting, "Opening the Gate: Expanding Local Service Through Online Content Partnerships," is now posted to the essays and presentations section of this weblog (left).   --Dennis

Google OpenCourseWare

Open courseware is a movement in higher education to make course materials available to any interested party.  The best known one is the MIT OpenCourseWare initiative, with over 1,200 courses covered, but there are others in the U.S. and elsewhere.  David Wiley of OpenContent has put together a Google OCW page where you can do metasearches across all of them.  Thanks to Joseph Hart at the EduResources Weblog for the tip.  --Dennis

Larry Grossman on Digital Opportunity Investment Trust

Larry Grossman is a former president of PBS and also had a long distinguished career in commercial television.  He's co-chair (with former FCC chair Newton Minnow) of the Digital Promise Project, which is sponsoring an initiative to create a Digital Opportunity Investment Trust (DO IT) that would utilize modern digital distribution technologies to support the public good.  The initiative has been around awhile, so if you're wondering what they've been up to lately (or have never heard of it), check out a speech that Grossman gave a few days ago at the University of Nebraska.  Link:  Digital Promise [pdf].  --Dennis

The Digital Learning Challenge: Obstacles to Educational Uses of Copyrighted Material in the Digital Age

I've not read this yet, but it has a good pedigree.  William Fisher and William McGeveran have published a paper with this title of interest to anyone in the electronic use of intellectual property.  Thanks to Janis Hall, who runs the academic services unit in my organization, for the tip.  Link:  Berkman Center for Internet & Society.  --Dennis

Simulated slide rule

Oh boy, is this ever cool!  Derek Ross has posted a simulated (working) Pickett N3-T slide rule on his site, AntiQuark.  As someone whose undergraduate career predated handheld calculators, I've spent a lot of time with these.  Thanks to Doug Vernier via Ralph Hogan.  --Dennis

Imagining your public TV station in 2012

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been sponsoring a planning project, now winding up, under the able leadership of Jim Pagliarini, CEO of Twin Cities Public Television.  As part of the exercise, a number of public television CEOs, including yours truly, were asked to imagine their stations in 2012 from three perspectives:  (1) from the viewer's living room, (2) from the board room of a local foundation, and (3) from inside the station.  In spite of that being 42 dog/Internet years away, I contributed one as did Jim and a dozen others.  They are linked below from the web site of American public television's Affinity Group Coalition web site.  --Dennis

- Randy Feldman, WYES/New Orleans, LA

- Peter Frid, NewHampshire Public Television

- Dennis Haarsager, KWSU/Pullman, WA

- Greg Giczi, KAET/Tempe, AZ

- John King, VPT/Colchester, VT

- Ted Krichels, WPSU/University Park, PA

- Kliff Kuehl, KNPB/Reno, NV

- Maynard Orme, OPB/Portland, OR (retired)

- Jim Pagliarini, TPT/St. Paul, MN

- Kathleen Pavelko, WITF/Harrisburg, PA

- Rus Peotter, WGBY/Springfield, MA

- Norm Silverstein, WXXI/Rochester, NY

- Chet Tomczyk, WTVP/Peoria, IL

- JoAnn Urofsky, WUSF/Tampa, FL

Podcasts without the 'Pod

Cara Lane has published an evaluation of the use of podcasting at the University of Washington.  We had similar results in a limited test at Washington State University.  To me, one of the most striking findings was that, even though 63% of the students reported owning an iPod or other MP3 player, only 14% used the podcasts on a player (and four out of five of the 14% were using the MP3 player in a location that had access to a computer).  86% of the students used the podcasts on a computer.  Sure makes one wonder if podcasting is the right label. [Click graphic for larger image.] --Dennis

Open Content and the Emerging Global Meta-University

I've been following the very interesting MIT OpenCourseWare initiative though wish I had more time to explore its extremely rich archive of courseware.  Charles Vest, MIT's president emeritus, has written a lengthy article about this and related initiatives that I recommend.  Link:  EDUCAUSE Review (also available as a PDF).  -- Dennis

There's No Such Thing as a Learning Object

Michael Feldstein writes:

... I believe the term "learning object" has become harmful. It hides the same old, bad lecture model behind a sexy buzz phrase. If we're really serious about stimulating learning, then we should think in terms of something like a cognitive catalyst. Rather than just serving up digital content and assuming the students will absorb it, we should be creating artifacts that function like enzymes for the intellectual digestive system. We want to increase the likelihood of a chemical reaction between a piece of information and a human mind. To me, this is the essence of teaching. ...

Link:  eLearn.  Thanks to Stephen Downes.  --Dennis

Video Conferencing and Music Performance Education

Christianne Orto writes: "... We [at the Manhattan School of Music] initially explored videoconferencing technology to accommodate the touring schedule of world-renowned violinist, conductor and MSM faculty member, Pinchas Zukerman, so that he could teach his students while concertizing around the globe. The program proved so successful that Manhattan School of Music decided videoconferencing presented great opportunities for the conservatory environment. We have since expanded our program to include master classes, workshops, clinics, one-on-one teaching, education and community outreach, professional development, coaching and the creation of a new elective class, 'Videoconferencing for Performers & Educators,' designed to expose students to the virtual learning environment. ..."  Link:  Campus Technology.  Thanks to Ralph Hogan for the tip.  --Dennis

Learning On The Move: MLearning Is Next

Robin Good writes:  "... as more and more people live their daily lives while moving, commuting, traveling for work or leisure, just-in-time access to what you need to know becomes increasingly an asset modern people can't do away with.  ¶  But as business workers interpret just-in-time, on-the-move information access a "given" of their ecosystem, educational institutions and schools certainly have not been looking positively at the array of just-in-time learning opportunities that mobile media devices can deliver to anyone. ...¶... Learning within context, at-the-time when you need it, and by exploring and calling up the precise information you need to know about, it is a fundamental paradigmatic shift from the way we conceive education today.  ¶  By mixing e-learning and mobile computing, a new form of education may be created. It is called mobile learning, or m-learning.  ¶  Given its definition m-learning could very well be a new form of personal learning that never ends, allowing more and more people to realize how much of our lifetimes on this planet are truly extended adventures in personal learning. ..."  Link:  MasterNewMedia.

Digital Future Initiative Summit

On Thursday, 12/15, PBS sponsored a Digital Future Initiative Summit in Washington, DC to unveil the report of its panel [pdf] chaired by James Barksdale and Reed Hundt.  The panel's work was funded by the John D. and Catherine MacArthur Foundation.  Among its wide-ranging recommendations was the following:

PBS, NPR, PRI and local stations, together with other leading national and local partners, should create an unprecedented new content archive and delivery system -- a Public Service Media Web Engine -- to enable Americans to access public service media anywhere, anytime and on-demand.  This Web Engine should provide a readily searchable archive, surrounded by supporting functions and services for content creators, distributors and end-users.  Easily accessible through Web portals like pbs.org, npr.org and station websites, the engine would provide virtually unlimited "shelf space" for current and archived content, increasing the utilization of all content across both space and time, thereby improving the economics and audiences of public service content.

Among the 34 (count 'em) speakers in the 5-hour summit were WGBH VP/CTO David Liroff, Shiloh Group CEO and PBS board member Tom Wheeler (also see), and yours truly, whose remarks were, as you might imagine, consistent with this recommendation.  David and I are part of the Public Service Publisher Initiative, an ad hoc group of public broadcasting stations and independent producers who are working with the non-profit Open Media Network to do just that.

The panel's work is valuable beyond this recommendation, of course.  Now, if we can just keep it from joining the big library of "shelfware" that our industry seems to be good at creating.

Also see Jeremy Egner, Digital Futures Panel zooms in on specific services pubcasting should offer, in the public broadcasting newspaper, Current.  --Dennis

Podcasting classroom lectures

Anyone interested in the use of podcasting in higher education might want to check out a posting that I made tonight to my weblog at Washington State University.  It reports on a WebEx conference that I attended today which related the experience of Purdue University in this regard.  --Dennis

Web 2.0: Building the New Library

Paul Miller explores the concept of 'Web 2.0' in the online journal, Ariadne, and asks what it means for libraries and related organizations.  Link:  Ariadne.  Miller also has a nice weblog called Thinking about the Future.  --Dennis

Interview with Clifford Lynch

Matt Pasiewicz has an interesting wide-ranging audio (MP3) interview with Clifford Lynch, executive director of the Coalition for Networked Information.  I've heard Cliff speak three or four times and he was very generous with his time and advice at the meeting nearly a year ago which resulted in the formation of the Public Service Publisher initiative which I chair.  A very thoughtful person -- good listening for the education, library and public media communities.  Link:  EDUCAUSE.  --Dennis

Digital asset management – a report on current trends

Update 11/7/2005.   The presentations for this conference, Managing Digital Assets: Strategic Issues for Research Libraries, are now available online.  Link:  Association of Research Libraries.

Al Cornish of Washington State University (home of my day job) has a nice post reporting on a higher education DAM workshop he attended last week in Washington, DC.  Link: 

Library Technology Issues. --Dennis

Education Podcast Network

"The Education Podcast Network is an effort to bring together into one place, the wide range of podcast programming that may be helpful to teachers looking for content to teach with and about, and to explore issues of teaching and learning in the 21st century.  ¶  Most of the producers of these programs are educators, who have found an avenue through which they can share their knowledge, insights, and passions for teaching and learning and for the stories that they relish and teach. The directory will grow as more people come forward with their stories and ideas, and we hope that you will start to share your ideas with the larger education community by producing your own program. ..."  Link:  epnweb.org.

What E-Learning 2.0 means To You

Stephen Downes writes:  "PowerPoint Slides and MP3 Audio of my presentation today at the Transitions in Advanced Learning Conference in Ottawa. In this talk I discuss the changing nature of knowledge and learning, illustrate how this changing nature leads to what is being called Web 2.0o, and outline the nature and success factors involved in designing learning resources and services in this environment. ..."  Link:  Stephen's Web.

At Duke U., Public Radio Comes to iPods

... Under the arrangement [with Public Radio International], Duke professors will be able to use portions of popular public-radio shows like "This American Life" and "Studio 360" in class at no charge. And students will be able to download some of the shows to their portable MP3 players. ...  Link:  Chronicle of Higher Education.

PBS announces VOD deal for schools

PBS and WGBH have inked a deal with Library Video Company to provide schools with their choice of educational video -- all available on demand. ...  Link:  Press release at lost remote.

Audible hopes to score with downloadable learning

Audible, which sells audio books and periodicals, has teamed up with publisher Pearson Education to bring more downloadable learning products to college students.  ¶  Under the deal, announced Friday, audio products developed by the two companies will be available for download on Audible.com, the companies said. Learning materials can be downloaded to different devices such as smart wireless devices and portable music players including Apple Computer's iPod. ...  Link:  CNET News.com.

MusicGrid: A case study in broadband video collaboration

Abstract:   The technical requirements for widespread deployment of broadband video over the Internet are rapidly being met. But a harder challenge remains: how can video–based technologies promote collaboration and learning?  ¶  We present a case study: the MusicGrid Project. Running from 2002 to 2004 with partners in several Canadian and international locations, this modestly funded initiative ran over one hundred successful multi–site education and performance sessions. The rationale, development, and operation of the project are discussed, along with general lessons learned. We believe that our experience and the opportunities and issues identified will be useful to all those interested in large–scale, video–based collaboration projects. ...  Link:  First Monday.

Podcasting And Vodcasting In Higher Education: How Disruptive Will They Be?

Robin Good writes:  "Although Podcasting and, more recently, Vodcasting (or video-casting) have taken the online world by storm, with geeks and their like adopting these new RSS 2.0-based digital content broadcasting and distribution technologies with huge enthusiasm, their impact outside of geek-dom has, so far, been quite limited.  ¶  However, in a recent white paper (PDF) published by Peter Meng, a Technical Business Analyst at the University of Missouri, the potential impact and application of these technologies in the world of education is analyzed in a clearly written and thorough manner.  ¶  The white paper, entitled "Podcasting & Vodcasting – Definitions, Discussions & Implications" and published in March 2005, provides a non-geeky description of how these technologies work, the software and hardware required, the potential applications within a higher education context and the implications on an educational organization's IT infrastructure that may result from potential wide-spread adoption among teachers and students. ..."  Link:  Robin Good weblog.

The Future of Integration, Personalization, and ePortfolio Technologies

Susan LaCour writes:  "Most educators accept the premise that, in an ideal world, learning would be delivered in the manner and environment that best suit the needs and learning styles of individual learners. In the future, technologies like personalization, integration, and electronic portfolios will progress toward this ideal by broadening the learning universe. ...¶... In the future, the adoption of personalization technologies and electronic portfolios will extend well beyond higher education to businesses, state governments, K-12 educational institutions, and others in the broader community."  Innovate.  Free registration required. --Dennis

University launches semantic web interface

The University of Southampton has launched a new semantic web interface, called mSpace, that it says will make searching for information online, and learning about a subject, much easier. ¶ mSPace is a framework that gathers information sources and presents them to the user in a single window. It can potentially be applied to any subject, provided the basic information is available. The researchers say this means users will no longer have to wade through lists of undifferentiated data when researching a subject.The University of Southampton has launched a new semantic web interface, called mSpace, that it says will make searching for information online, and learning about a subject, much easier. ¶ Dr monica schraefel (sic) headed the research project, and put together a demonstration based on a search for information about classical music. ... Link: The Register via Slashdot.

Is Instructional Video Game an Oxymoron?

... Some Web sites, like that of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have had instructional games since the late 1990's. But according to Kurt D. Squire, an assistant professor of educational communication and technology at the University of Wisconsin, the use of such games is growing exponentially as more organizations see interactive games as a way to capture and hold the attention of people bombarded with numerous competing messages. ... Link: The New York Times.

Educational Potential Of Video Games: Futurelab Finds Out - Robin Good's Latest News

According to researchers at Futurelab, a British nonprofit investigating how technology can be used for innovative learning, videogames have the potential to be highly effective tools for holding students' attention and teaching them about a variety of topics. ... Link: Robin Good's Latest News.

The Future of Gaming

Gens Johnson copied me on a report she wrote up on sessions she attended at the IEEE Consumer Communications & Networking Conference in Las Vegas, Jan. 3-6.  I thought that her description of the Future of Gaming panel was particularly interesting and she's kindly permitted me to quote it here. --Dennis

"The Future of Gaming panel was one of the most intriguing. First, make note that gaming (not gambling! Despite being discussed at a conference in Vegas) is forecast to increase by 3300% from 2001 to 2006. It will be driven by the subscription model, rather than buying games for your box. One-half of the U.S. population (age 6 and above) play.  40% are female. The average age is 29 years. And it is regarded as a family activity with parents playing with a child. The spontaneous network of video gamers function as an “innovation network” of (unpaid) people who test, provide QA feedback, product improvement suggestions, and self-educate themselves as the game development workforce of the future (often by hacking).  See virtual-u.org and whyville.net.

A large growth area for games is learning and training. Games provide an immersive experience. Useful skill improvements and learning are measurable results of games as learning media. Emerging applications include health education (e.g., “Glucoboy” that rewards diabetic kids for managing their insulin) and location-based (LBS) applications.  LBS combines GPS info and real-life place/events to create an “augmented reality.”  Examples are the back-seat car game for kids that references things they see out the window, or multi-user games that bring people to meet face-to-face using wireless data/PDAs/GPS portable devices. The military is funding a lot of applied research and development in games.

Creating a mixed reality requires location awareness, seamless roaming, micro-payments, and a persistent VR. The virtual world infrastructure needs the same components as the real world in terms of “location, identity, collaboration, content, and commerce.” I was interested to hear augmented reality defined in terms of three dimensions (hey! matching up with the three dimensions that I identified in my Ph.D. research in ’94): a presence metaphor (I called it “here & now”), reproduction fidelity (I called it “degree of mediation”) and involvement or reflexivity (I called it “readiness-to-hand”).

70% of the networked bandwidth is currently consumed with peer-to-peer (P2P) communications. People-to-people are generally 1:1. People-to-things are 1:8.  Things-to-things are 1:50. Client-server P2P communication increases networking demand enormously. The core network tends towards indexing and directory functions to route and find P2P resources. There were clearly two camps on whether gaming was going to push broadband connectivity to the home up into the 100Mbps range, or not. One camp maintains that you only need to send command and control information; the other side says that the immersive and detailed video will be sent P2P in the multi-user game environment."

Learning Objects, Metadata, Blogs and RSS: The Future Of Online Education According to Stephen Downes

Robin good has made available an audio interview he did with Canadian ed tech guru Stephen Downes.  Worth listening to. --Dennis

Wikis as educational tools

Robin Good's weblog has an interesting article, Double-U-Eye-Kay-Eye WIKI Radio: Who's Calling, that reports on a multimedia Wiki "radio station" set up using Macromedia Breeze by the University of British Columbia's Brian Lamb (not to be confused with the American head of C-SPAN of the same name).  The point of WIKI Radio is to illustrate the use of Wikis as educational tools.  Interesting work. --Dennis

Higher Learning in the Digital Age: An Update on a National Academies Study

James Duderstadt is one of the most tech-savvy people ever to occupy a university president's chair.  He's now President Emeritus of the University of Michigan and their University Professor of Science and Engineering.  His address to the EDUCAUSE 2004 meeting with the above title is available here. --Dennis

Google Plans New Service for Scientists and Scholars

Google Inc. plans to announce on Thursday that it is adding a new search service aimed at scientists and academic researchers. ¶ Google Scholar, which was scheduled to go online Wednesday evening at scholar.google.com, is a result of the company's collaboration with a number of scientific and academic publishers and is intended as a first stop for researchers looking for scholarly literature like peer-reviewed papers, books, abstracts and technical reports. ... Link: New York Times.