"Pivot makes it easier to interact with massive amounts of data in ways that are powerful, informative, and fun. We tried to step back and design an interaction model that accommodates the complexity and scale of information rather than the traditional structure of the Web."

Jane Hart describes five kinds of learning that social learning environments "have to support", describes Elgg as a platform for social learning, and lists some success factors based on her consulting for (no surprise) Elgg-using organizations.

"One month after long-time Ning CEO Gina Bianchini was replaced by COO Jason Rosenthal, the company is making some major changes: It has just announced that it is killing off its free product, forcing existing free networks to either make the change to premium accounts or migrate their networks elsewhere. Rosenthal has also just announced that the company has cut nearly 70 people - over 40% of its staff."

"Last week I got exposed to the other side of Facebook, namely their ability to rescind or suspend accounts without any notification, explanation, or seemingly any recourse."

"A recent experiment we did asked the question: What happens if you combine lessons from web 2.0 and social media to the process of developing a rubric? The result? We've built what we call "Social Rubrics". Essentially this tool facilitates the process of building a rubric for teachers (and students) in a much more open and collaborative way." A plug-in for Elgg.

How do you create a social learning enviornment for free, but wihtout a mish-mash of incompatible tools? Jane Hart investigates"... Google, which at least gives single signon, but other integrations are noteably lacking.

"In three issues for Inside Learning Technologies, Jane Hart shares the rpos and cons of building three types of social learning environment, and how to deliver them at low or no cost."

Assessment is not even mentioned, but the series is still useful.

Ravitch, the prominent scholar, historian, and former George H.W. Bush administration official, greeted a standing-room-only crowd at NSBA's conference on Saturday, and she first proved that the one thing that has not changed is her bluntness. "I've written a lot of articles that were wrong-wrong about merit pay, charter schools, and accountability."

"a handful of states have been spared the brunt of the recession so far, providing an opportunity for them to improve their national standing in terms of higher education. Leading those states by far is North Dakota, whose higher-education system has seen an 18.5-percent increase in state funds over the past two years. "

A tough competitive environment...

"The professor said he did find a way to greatly reduce cheating on homework in his class. He switched to a "studio" model of teaching, in which students sit in small groups working through tutorials on computers while professors and teaching assistants roam the room answering questions, rather than a traditional lecture. With lectures, he detected cheating on about 11 percent of homework problems, but now he detects copying on only about 3 percent of them. It might help that he shares findings from his study to his students, showing them that cheaters are much more likely to get C's and D's on exams than those who work out homework problems on their own. "

A physics professor figures out how to detect cheating on homework, (an assessment), triangulates with another assessment (OK, it's an exam) to determine the impact on student learning, and modifies his teaching practice, reducing cheating from 11% to 3%.

A new "twist" on timelines.

Research vs. instruction: numerous assessment issues dog this debate.

Nevada universities are preparing to close colleges, departments, and programs; demoralized professors are fleeing the state; and thousands of students are being shut out of classes at community colleges. The prospect of shutting down an entire institution remains a "distinct possibility" for the future, the chancellor says. The resiliency of public financial support for American higher education is threatened, putting quality, capacity, and the underlying ability to meet student and societal needs at risk.

Washington is not the hardest-hit state. Our work can be seen as having a direct bearing on this crisis.

"Wave doesn't offer a built-in way to export the content of a wave to a file, but the PDF Wave Exporter is a start."

"A million dollars a year is a lot of money, yet colleges can hand over that much or more every year to software companies that supply and maintain essential systems for accounting, human resources, and student enrollment. Now, fed up with the fees, some colleges are ditching giant vendors for a small company that promises to support this software at half the price."

What this article fails to mention is that when you can get support only from the vendor, their incentive to provide good service is minimal, because the lock-in (the cost of moving to another platform) makes change-over almost unthinkable.

""We think that humans build relationships precisely for this reason, to distribute problem solving across brains," said James A. Coan, a a psychologist at the University of Virginia. "We are wired to literally share the processing load, "

A biological aspect of social learning, in an article about the power of human physical contact.

"Q: What elements help make institutional effectiveness assessment successful? Suskie: One factor really stands out: If institutional leaders really value assessment results and use them to inform important decisions on important goals, your institutional effectiveness efforts will be a resounding success."

"You can learn a great deal about customers by studying the broader context in which they use your product or service. To do this, ask what your customer is doing three minutes immediately before and three minutes after he uses your product or service."