Group items tagged

Civil liberty and freedom versus copyright. Which has the best moral right to win?

"Funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, College Open Textbooks is a collection of colleges, governmental agencies, education non-profits, and other education-related organizations that are focused on the mission of driving the awareness and advocacy for open textbooks. This includes providing training for instructors adopting open resources, peer reviews of open textbooks, and mentoring online professional networks that provide support to authors who open their resources. Through our community outreach, we have found that open textbooks should be: easy to use, get and pass around, editable so instructors can customize content, cross-platform compatible, printable, and accessible so they work with adaptive technology."

Short comparison of revenue and profit of these 3 players.

"The Public Domain Review is a not-for-profit project dedicated to showcasing the most interesting and unusual out-of-copyright works available online.  All works eventually fall out of copyright - from classic works of art, music and literature, to abandoned drafts, tentative plans, and overlooked fragments. In doing so they enter the public domain, a vast commons of material that everyone is free to enjoy, share and build upon without restriction.  We believe the public domain is an invaluable and indispensable good, which - like our natural environment and our physical heritage - deserves to be explicitly recognised, protected and appreciated.  The Public Domain Review aims to help its readers to explore this rich terrain - like a small exhibition gallery at the entrance of an immense network of archives and storage rooms that lie beyond. "

"That the acronym MOOCs rhymes with "nukes" seems apt. Massive open online courses, or MOOCs - led by two profit-making start-ups, Coursera and Udacity, founded by entrepreneurial Stanford professors - are a new disruptive force in education. "

"If you are a large for-profit education company-say, an LMS vendor or a textbook company-give $5,000 to the DS106 Kickstarter project. At that level of contribution, in addition to all the benefits of the lower levels, you'll get a mention as doing a really swell thing on the fabulous e-Literate weblog."  Instructure did this thing!

Free book on future of the internet download under read now) Bunch of essays about impact of internet on society, how internet should be managed, privacy, intellectual property etc . Various perspectives but published by a libertarian think tank. Critical of Lessig for proposing controls on internet development. Some good reads (Dean, beware - lawyers). Also check out the video presentations - panel discussions - some fascinating stuff. This book is both a beginning and an end. Its publication marks the beginning of TechFreedom, a new non-profit think tank that will launch alongside this book in January 2011. Our mission is simple: to unleash the progress of technology that improves the human condition and expands individual capacity to choose.

This controversial anti-piracy legislation is all about studios and other corporations making excuses for their technological backwardness and looking out for their short-term profit

Some thoughts on how Coursera might make money - and some insights into how they currently organise e.g. more than $1m per staff member in venture capital available.

A rash of note sharing services are developing, some 'official', some not, some for profit, some not. Has some of the usual 'terrible' quotes embedded.

A group looking to extend education beyond testing and into life skills. "A gulf has opened up between what education systems provide and what children and young people need. Our schools and colleges rightly try to to ensure that young people are literate, numerate and gain academic qualifications. But the emphasis on testing and passing exams often squeezes out other skills that are just as vital in today's world. The leading non-political and non-profit-making organisations that have come together to form Whole Education are determined to change this. They want all young people to receive a well-rounded education that they can relate to. They want all to learn practical skills such as communication and teamwork, to develop qualities such as resilience and empathy and to acquire knowledge that goes beyond literacy and numeracy to an understanding of our culture. A Whole Education will combine practical skills with theory, vocational and academic study for all young people whatever their ability."

"NCAT is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to the effective use of information technology to improve student learning outcomes and reduce the cost of higher education."

"Einztein, a non-profit online education search guide, launches the public beta of its service today, with a curated collection of more than 2,000 complete online courses across 35 subject areas."

Big set of resources on using social media. Mainly aimed at non-profits but many monitoring tools and tutorials that should make it useful for a range of people - education included.

Slightly old hat nowadays but handy take on natives over-hype.