A response to Leigh Blackall: The New Colonialism in OER

In many respects, OER and the Creative Commons licenses help propel US centered ideas of copyright and intellectual property, indirectly inserting such ideas on the back of moral concepts such as sharing, freedom and openness, as though sharing, freedom and openness didn't exist before, and that the only way to protect such notions is with … Continue reading A response to Leigh Blackall: The New Colonialism in OER

Defining “Creepy Treehouse” #pcthe

In the field of educational technology a creepy treehouse is an institutionally controlled technology/tool that emulates or mimics pre-existing technologies or tools that may already be in use by the learners, or by learners’ peer groups. Though such systems may be seen as innovative or problem-solving to the institution, they may repulse some users who … Continue reading Defining “Creepy Treehouse” #pcthe

Josie Fraser (@josiefraser) on 3 ways to characterise online identity

There are three main ways we can characterise most peoples online internet and mobile activity and presence. Let me state up front that these distinctions are purposely blunt, but do act as effective and critical distinctions, especially when talking to people about how and why they can manage their online identities. via fraser.typepad.com Josie Fraser … Continue reading Josie Fraser (@josiefraser) on 3 ways to characterise online identity

Preliminary Thoughts on Visualising #opened09 #jiscssbr

via ouseful.wordpress.com This was written about visualising the opened09 Open Education conference. But it is more widely useful as an exploration of the affordances of visualisation generally as an aid to understanding. In the Institutional innovation programme I am trying to understand the basic questions underlying visualisation of the programme: people, projects, technologies, themes and … Continue reading Preliminary Thoughts on Visualising #opened09 #jiscssbr

Drapeau: The rise of the goverati — Federal Computer Week

Who are the goverati, you might ask -- and are you among them? Goverati is a term I coined a few weeks ago while participating in a Social Media Club DC discussion panel. In essence, the goverati are people familiar with government and how it works and who understand new social technologies. They want to network … Continue reading Drapeau: The rise of the goverati — Federal Computer Week

Ensemble OER feeds: War-6; Peace-1 @scottbw

What is Ensemble? Ensemble is a service that enbles you to locate RSS feeds that link to Open Educational Resources. You can search for feeds on particular topics, or browse by institutions or by categories, and then download the results in OPML format for use in a feed reader or other application. You can also … Continue reading Ensemble OER feeds: War-6; Peace-1 @scottbw

Sustainable IT In Tertiary Education (SUSTE-IT) report and tools #jiscssbr

The SUSTE-IT project reflects the increasing importance of ICT-related energy and environmental issues, in the [higher education] sector and elsewhere. For example, there is ever growing consumption (and even more rapidly increasing costs) of electricity in data centres, and in computers and peripherals; legislative and other pressures are requiring reductions in ICT-related carbon emissions, and … Continue reading Sustainable IT In Tertiary Education (SUSTE-IT) report and tools #jiscssbr

Implications of @benwerd on Twitter DoS and single points of failure

The only model that makes sense is a distributed one: it’s a fundamentally harder problem to bring down a decentralized network, because there isn’t a single point of failure. via benwerd.com Ben's got it about right (http://bit.ly/zn868). I have been thinking down these lines, too, "mesh networks, distributed databases and natural language processing": - More … Continue reading Implications of @benwerd on Twitter DoS and single points of failure

A support project assembly? #jiscssbr

Yesterday the JISC convened a meeting of people and projects providing support to JISC programmes. I attended with our colleague Patsy Clarke. Paul Bailey was at the meeting, too, balancing his JISC hat with his Institutional Innovation Benefits Realisation hat. via assemblies.inin.jisc-ssbr.net This is a note to cross-reference and link to a piece I wrote … Continue reading A support project assembly? #jiscssbr

Jock Coats, local Lib Dem activist, wants private rubbish collection?

Time to open up waste collection to proper competition I'd say. These people are your servants not your masters. via jockcoats.me Jock Coats writes in Refuseniks (http://jockcoats.me/refuseniks), objecting to the council trying to maintain city-wide standards of service for rubbish collection. He says, with some contempt, that "These people are your servants not your masters" … Continue reading Jock Coats, local Lib Dem activist, wants private rubbish collection?