Nov

30

Is this a signal about the direction of Foundation Degrees in the UK?

November 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment

“The best and brightest take a detour” Enrollment in honors programs at community colleges seems to be growing faster than overall enrollment at the [colleges], which surged by about 10 percent this year in the Washington region, as students of various age groups and socioeconomic levels sought affordable higher education.
via Daniel de Vise [...]

Nov

25

Google hypocricy? Racism OK in the west; Tibetan politics a reserved right requested individually by China?

November 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment

“Individual citizens and public interest groups do periodically urge us to remove particular links or otherwise adjust search results. Although Google reserves the right to address such requests individually, Google views the integrity of our search results as an extremely important priority.
“Sometimes Google search results from the internet can include disturbing content, even from innocuous [...]

Nov

22

It’s nothing personal: Identity, learning environments and covert curricula

November 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dave Cormier appears to be arguing for a particularly strong form of cultural determinism in his post, “Does the PLE make sense in a connectivist context?” and in his reply to comments. He is troubled by the use of the word “personal”:
… why call it personal? That’s the thing that i keep coming back to… [...]

Nov

21

Curriculum design for new social media - a great illustration of incorporating digital literacy into the curriculum #pcthe

November 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment

In “Introduction to Mass Communication,” I’d like to see more discussions about how personal communications can easily become mass communication because the Web has hyperlinked everything.  Students should explore the changing models of mass communications – how int he past, content used to be broadcast to the masses, and would then be shared person-to-person.  Today, [...]

Nov

21

Thoughts on a PLE

November 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment

I wrote the following as a comment on Dave Cormier’s blog post, “Does the PLE make sense in the connectivist context?“
The reification of the PLE is for me the problem. We all have personal learning environments in the sense of from time to time framing our world around “learning”. What’s in the frame? That’s our [...]

Nov

16

49M (15%) of Americans lack dependable access to food; this is not good. When people go hungry they get pissed off

November 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment

The number of Americans who lack dependable access to adequate food shot up last year to 49 million,
via washingtonpost.com
Put aside the swipes at super-size meals and easy obese targets, this Washington Post article about a US Department of Agriculture report makes shocking (to me) reading: “Among people of all ages, nearly 15 percent last year [...]

Nov

16

Among many reasons I will not have an iPhone & will split my PLE between vendors

November 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Apple’s filed a patent on a design for a device that won’t let its owner use it unless that person demonstrates that she has complied with an advertiser’s demands by paying attention to an ad and taking some action indicating her dutiful attention.
via boingboing.net
Google may be no saint and privacy is a problem, but Apple’s [...]

Nov

15

@helenbeetham good post on why talk about texts? Image search for knowledge on the rise

November 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment

There is absolutely no doubt that academic practices are changing - in fact text and what we can do with it is probably changing faster than other modes are being adopted - for me the question is how we reframe in the new knowledge media landscape what is valuable about academic modes of communication.
via design-4-learning.blogspot.com
There [...]

Nov

15

BIS “Lacks concern for citizens” re Post Office closures according to MP, head of public accounts cttee

November 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Edward Leigh MP, chairman of the [Public Accounts] Committee, today said:
“The closure of the local post office can be a real blow to the community. So the inadequate assessment by the Department [of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS)] of the social and economic costs of its programme to close some 2,500 post offices showed a real [...]

Nov

14

Let’s be clear. Electric cars are not the answer

November 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Plugging [an electric Mini] in is, Steinberg said, the equivalent of adding one or two homes to the neighborhood’s grid. He believes the widespread adoption of electric cars, which are expected to hit the market next year, will require upgrades across the grid. This is especially true because BMW expects to see “pocket effects” [...]

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