Posted 10:54 PM by George Siemens
Death of the Internet via Weblogg-ed
Quote: "The Internet’s promise as a new medium -- where text, audio, video and data can be freely exchanged -- is under attack by the corporations that control the public’s access to the 'Net, as they see opportunities to monitor and charge for the content people seek and send. The industry’s vision is the online equivalent of seizing the taxpayer-owned airways, as radio and television conglomerates did over the course of the 20th century."
Comment: Little doubt that the Internet is "closing"...beginning stages is evident by the amount of subscription based sites (while not charging yet, the structure is in place). Notable thought: "Consumption-based pricing and other restrictive access controls contradict the spirit of openness and innovation that built the Internet in the first place, and will do irreparable harm to its future as a medium for small business initiatives, non-commercial users and democratic discourse. "...education institutions will be the first (and greatest) victim.

Posted 10:42 PM by George Siemens
Intel's Gamble
Quote: "You know that saying, 'The Internet changes everything'? People now are backing away from it, but I say, Just wait five years. Hundreds of billions of dollars we now spend on voice telecommunications will become a freebie--just like [Cisco CEO] John Chambers has said. That's Moore's Law at work. The entire entertainment industry will be digitally distributed over broadband networks. [Media companies are] going to tip over, because one of them, with its back to the wall, will make the transition, and the others will have to follow. That's Moore's Law at work. Houses will be wireless, broadband will be delivered wirelessly, and home and portable computers and consumer electronics are going to be built to facilitate all of the above. Okay, it hasn't happened in the first five years; it's going to take ten. And there will be a lot of pain for some. But it will happen, and we'll all benefit.""
Comment: Article is mainly focused on Moore's law...but eventually moves onto wireless...the last paragraph is where the important points are made (and that is quoted above!)

Posted 6:36 PM by George Siemens
Eduzope initiative seeks to combine standards support with open source
Quote: "Two trends are starting to dominate IT government policy making in Europe: standard compliance and open source licensing. E-learning is no exception there, and the Eduzope ("The aim of the EduZope project is to produce an open source authoring environment for standardized learning materials and a Learning Content Management System (LCMS) based on the ZOPE web application framework") initiative has sprung up to cover both bases."
Comment: As I've said before...I'm really surprised that education does not rely more on the open source movement. The two were made for each other. Anyway, I'm interested in how eduzope will unfold...starting November, I'll be looking at the suitability of Zope as a means of managing department content...which is really only one step away from learning content management.

Posted 5:59 PM by George Siemens
SiteMaker
Quote: "UM.SiteMaker is a program to help University of Michigan faculty, students and staff quickly create websites without having to know about a lot of technical details. All aspects of website authoring with UM.SiteMaker are accomplished using a web browser, by filling in forms, checking boxes, etc. It also allows local support staff to efficiently help with website creation and maintenance."
Comment: This product is not currently available (though a licensing agreement has been signed to make it available to other institutions...but that's not the point. Like Recombo and CourseGenie featured here last week - this is an example of next generation products that take the technology out of elearning (or at least make the technology very easy to use). I think we are just at the beginning stages of these types of products. Technology is moving to the next stage of adoption in education...until now it has been reserved for highly motivated, technically proficient people...so programs like Dreamweaver were fine. However, they are too complex for large scale adoption...hence - user-friendly transparent software.