Another worth read on why we should be aware of the current "assault" on the open web and the efforts to take back control from users and into the hands of communications, media and publishing corporations.

Amplify’d from www.scientificamerican.com

Too often, we don't appreciate what we have until it's gone. That could happen with the World Wide Web—unless we protect the basic principles on which the Web is built.

Protecting the Web's principles is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity, our free speech, even our liberty. It is also necessary if the Web is to bring us much more online power than it already does.

The reason the Web has remained open is because Berners-Lee, and the Web consortium, have protected the founding principles. Is society so crass that it won't stand up for ideals that go beyond a profit motive? Many more truly human benefits, as well as commercial successes, can come from an open Web than from a commercially controlled Web. Read more at www.scientificamerican.com

I wish more influential people engaged in the fight against the "closing" and "controlling" of the web.

Amplify’d from www.scientificamerican.com

The Web as we know it, however, is being threatened in different ways. Some of its most successful inhabitants have begun to chip away at its principles. Large social-networking sites are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web. Wireless Internet providers are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals. Governments—totalitarian and democratic alike—are monitoring people’s online habits, endangering important human rights. If we, the Web’s users, allow these and other trends to proceed unchecked, the Web could be broken into fragmented islands. We could lose the freedom to connect with whichever Web sites we want. The ill effects could extend to smartphones and pads, which are also portals to the extensive information that the Web provides. Why should you care? Because the Web is yours. It is a public resource on which you, your business, your community and your government depend. The Web is also vital to democracy, a communications channel that makes possible a continuous worldwide conversation. The Web is now more critical to free speech than any other medium. It brings principles established in the U.S. Constitution, the British Magna Carta and other important documents into the network age: freedom from being snooped on, filtered, censored and disconnected. Read more at www.scientificamerican.com

Amplify’d from www.ascilite.org.au

Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 2010, 26(5), 704-716.

An examination of the role of the e-tutor

Annegret Goold, Jo Coldwell and Annemieke Craig Deakin University

As online learning environments continue to evolve, both teachers and students need to adapt to make the most of opportunities afforded by these environments for teaching and learning. The focus of this paper is on the changing role undertaken by tutors in online learning environments. We present a brief review of the current perspectives on the roles and responsibilities suggested for the e-tutor for effective teaching, and then report on a study where roles of e-tutors in a large wholly online unit were examined. The study supports the view that although the role of the e-tutor is similar to that of the face to face tutor in some respects, there are sufficient differences to make e-tutoring challenging to those who have not undertaken such online activities previously. Ongoing professional development is required to meet the changing demands of the technological environment, as well as the changing needs of students. Read more at www.ascilite.org.au

Tony Bates uses some strong words to comment on a study by Figlio, D., Rush, N. and Yin, L. (2010), but it's more than justified. How many studies and "expert" opinions on online learning reflect the utmost ignorance of what it is or what it should be? Tony Bates has the authority to say this and his words are well worth remembering.

Amplify’d from www.tonybates.ca

This is another useless comparative study between online and face-to-face teaching, This study looked at 312 undergraduate students in one microeconomics course in one unnamed state university and found that male, Hispanic and low achieving students did worse online than in face-to-face classes. From this the NBER had the cheek to conclude that online learning is not all that it’s cracked up to be.

However, the online courses in this study were just video recordings of the classroom lectures. Is it surprising that the online students – especially the more disadvantaged – did less well? Will someone please tell universities and colleges in the United States that they need to redesign courses for online teaching?

Merely putting lectures (good or bad) online is bad design.Read more at www.tonybates.ca

URL:  http://terrya.edublogs.org/2010/10/12/on-self-paced-lea...

Terry Anderson seems to move away from the "Community if Inquiry" model and from his earlier views on some advantages cohorts offer for formal education and praises the merits of self-paced learning in continuous enrollment settings, adopting a clear connectivist take on online learning.

Isto deve ser a minha gata a querer dizer-me alguma coisa. Ou será a Mimi 2.0?