Group items tagged

"There are countless author and book production platforms to choose from these days. So why would you want to use a new one like PressBooks? In this TOC interview, I sat down with Hugh McGuire (@hughmcguire), co-author of "Book: A Futurist's Manifesto" and founder of PressBooks to help answer that question. I should point out that I'm a fan of the platform. In fact, that's one of the reasons we agreed to have Hugh create and produce "Book: A Futurist's Manifesto" on PressBooks."

"As we near the halfway point in 2012, perhaps it's time to look back at some of the major stories, trends and developments in social media since the start of the year. Check out this neat infographic that highlights some of the biggest stories in social media, broken down month-by-month starting in January and ending in May. The infographic was created by NowSourcing, a social media firm based in Louisville, Ky."

"In 1939 a young musician from the Zulu cultural group in South Africa, penned down what came to be the most popular albeit controversial and internationally acclaimed song of the times. Popular because the song somehow found its way into international households via the renowned Disney's Lion King. Controversial because the popularity passage of the song was tainted with illicit and grossly unfair dealings tantamount to theft and dishonest misappropriation of traditional intellectual property, giving rise to a lawsuit that ultimately culminated in the out of court settlement of the case. The lessons to be gained by the world and emanating from this dramatics, all pointed out to the dire need for a reconsideration of measures to be urgently put in place for the safeguarding of cultural intellectual relic such as music and dance."

Minor infringements in OER platforms could close the whole system down.

(Note - free ebook version) - At the end of the twentieth century, intellectual property rights collided with everyday life. Expansive copyright laws and digital rights management technologies sought to shut down new forms of copying and remixing made possible by the Internet. International laws expanding patent rights threatened the lives of millions of people around the world living with HIV/AIDS by limiting their access to cheap generic medicines. For decades, governments have tightened the grip of intellectual property law at the bidding of information industries; but recently, groups have emerged around the world to challenge this wave of enclosure with a new counter-politics of "access to knowledge" or "A2K." They include software programmers who took to the streets to defeat software patents in Europe, AIDS activists who forced multinational pharmaceutical companies to permit copies of their medicines to be sold in poor countries, subsistence farmers defending their rights to food security or access to agricultural biotechnology, and college students who created a new "free culture" movement to defend the digital commons. Access to Knowledge in the Age of Intellectual Property maps this emerging field of activism as a series of historical moments, strategies, and concepts. It gathers some of the most important thinkers and advocates in the field to make the stakes and strategies at play in this new domain visible and the terms of intellectual property law intelligible in their political implications around the world. A Creative Commons edition of this work will be freely available online.

Warners take down films from site that are there legally and have nothing to do with Warners.

"How often do we read about the importance of teachers in education? It must be every day, it seems. We are told about 'strong empirical evidence that teachers are the most important school-based determinant of student achievement' again and again."

Feed from Downes on Moocs and list of past Moocs.

The lock down by big business continues with HTML5 proposals for DRM.

"...I've been musing on how I integrated social media [twitter, wikis, zotero, google wave & docs] into my classes" via Stephen Downes who noted "you can't just take these new technologies and cram them into an old-word [sic] course"

What is HTML5 and how will it effect online learning?

"creating and maintaining your reading lists easier than writing them down in a word document."

Pepperdine Uni has managed access to Google Apps, Yammer, Elluminate, VoiceThread and more to create their online learning environment. This video gives a run down of the features.

"The development of the information society and the widespreaddiffusion of information technology give rise to new opportunities for learning. At the same time, they challenge established views and practices regarding how teaching and learning should be organised and carried out. Higher educational institutions have been using the Internet and other digital technologies to develop and distribute education for several years. Yet, until recently, much of the learning materials were locked up behind passwords within proprietary systems, unreachable for outsiders. The open educational resource (OER) movement aims to break down such barriers and to encourage and enable freely sharing content."

Interesting website that lets you drill down into associated keywords for your search term.

John Beasley-Murray's user page on Wikipedia where he describes creating a writing assignment for his students and the ups and downs of the exercise.

"I'm convinced, however, that lecture capture is a fundamental enabling and catalyzing technology for improving learning (and may be a tool to open access and drive down costs as well)."

"Our Space is a set of curricular materials designed to encourage high school students to reflect on the ethical dimensions of their participation in new media environments. Through role-playing activities and reflective exercises, students are asked to consider the ethical responsibilities of other people, and whether and how they behave ethically themselves online. These issues are raised in relation to five core themes that are highly relevant online: identity, privacy, authorship and ownership, credibility, and participation. For more information, download the Introduction to Our Space [pdf], FAQ [pdf], and Road Map [pdf]. All curricular units and lessons are free and available for download below. The full casebook [pdf - 133MB] can be downloaded using the link at the bottom of the page." Critiqued by @downes for not addressing the issue properly "This is "a set of curricular materials designed to encourage high school students to reflect on the ethical dimensions of their participation in new media environments." The content divides into five major subject areas: participation, identity, privacy, credibility, and authorship and ownership. I'm not sure these are the top five things I would list when thinking of ethical dimensions of new media environments. While it's useful that there is a section on flamers, lurkers and mentors I think there should be something about hate, racism and bulling. And while a section on credibility is a good idea, it should be based on the principles of reason and inference, not outrageously bad definitions like this: "Networking-the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information." And this: "Collective intelligence-evidence that participants in knowledge communities pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal." Wow, those are just wrong. Maybe I need to review this and criticize it more closely."