Alan gave a great opening keynote at CeLC2010, making the case for [quiet revolution](http://secretrevolution.us) (or at least innovation and change) within existing institutions. Time to turn up the heat...

Burning Oil

Originally uploaded by duncandavidson.

jesus. water is NOT supposed to look like this.

A set of potentially incredible and useful resources. Wrapped in a clumsy, ugly, difficult, annoying and frustrating Flash-based LMS. Unbelievable.

It's got such gems as this:

I honestly don't know what to do on that screen. Turns out, you click the checkboxes to reveal text. Look! It's inter-activeâ„¢! Unbelievable.

James Duncan Davidson, Kris Krug and Pinar Ozger are on a photo expedition covering the oil leak in the Gulf. The photos they’re managing to get are surreal. Water isn’t supposed to look like that.

Photo by James Duncan Davidson

Photo by Kris Krug

Photo by Pinar Ozger

Photo by James Duncan Davidson

Photo by Kris Krug

I read a whole bunch of posts today on the topic of comments on blogs, triggered by some critiques of Gruber's Daringfireball which hasn't ever had comments. Gruber wrote a post about the Google/Admob/Apple drama, and was called out for not having comments on his blog, and how that's bad form. Gruber responded with this:

You write on your site; I write on mine. That's a response.

and

Comments, at least on popular websites, aren't conversations. They're cacophonous shouting matches. DF is a curated conversation, to be sure, but that's the whole premise.

I hadn't heard the term "commonplace book" before, but it sounds like a perfect description of the "outboard brain" - the main reason I started blogging. It wasn't about publishing anything, or discussing or commenting or connecting. It was documenting a flow of ideas and contexts.

Steven Berlin Johnson gave a talk back in April, describing the history of the commonplace book. He was using it as an introduction and context for the need to be able to remix content - as an argument against locked down electronic books that implement DRM to prevent copy and paste - and it nicely describes both the need to remix, and the need to document.

When I started at the Teaching & Learning Centre, I knew a bit about what Randy Garrison was doing - he was the new Director of the TLC, and he'd been working on something called "[community of inquiry](http://communitiesofinquiry.com)" - but I didn't know too much more than that. I didn't pay it much attention, since it didn't overlap what I was doing very much.

Years passed, and I'm now planning the research proposal for my MSc thesis. And it turns out that the Community of Inquiry model is probably the best fit for what I want to do to investigate differences in discourse between two cohorts. More info on my research proposal at a later date...

Niu, H. & van Aalst, J. (2009). Participation in Knowledge-Building Discourse: An Analysis of Online Discussions in Mainstream and Honours Social Studies. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology. 35(1). pp. 1-23

Abstract: Questions about the suitability of cognitively-oriented instructional approaches for students of different academic levels are frequently raised by teachers and researchers. This study examined student participation in knowledge-building discourse in two implementations of a short inquiry unit focusing on environmental problems. Participants in each implementation consisted of students taking a mainstream or an honours version of a tenth grade social studies course. We retrieved data about students’ actions in Knowledge Forum® (e.g., the number of notes created and the percentage of notes with links), and conducted a content analysis of the discourse by each collaborative group. We suggest the findings provide cause for optimism about the use of knowledge-building discourse across academic levels: there was moderate to strong evidence of knowledge building in both classes by Implementation 2. We end with suggestions for focusing online work more directly on knowledge building.

yes, HTML5 is essentially a diluted buzzword for "something shiny on the web that doesn't use flash" - BUT - by using standards, you get to have content used in ways you haven't predicted. For instance, Grant Hutchinson has been playing with a Newton-powered webserver (not linking directly to the server to spare it from the network) for years.

Today, he fired up the web browser on one of his Newtons, and pointed it at the Apple HTML5 showcase site. What happened? Fireworks? Crashes? Missing content? Plugin Required error messages?

I’ve been playing with settings and techniques for minimizing the amount of data gathered about me online. DoubleClick is probably the most invasive, as it silently tracks you as you wander the web, quietly recording what you do, and how you got there, as part of Google’s advertising distribution network.

It has an opt-out policy, and they provide a page with a link that is supposed to set a cookie to flag you as opted out - verboten for tracking - but it doesn’t seem to work. I’ve got the opt-out cookie set, but every day, I have fresh cookies from DoubleClick, waiting to be deleted.

*I sent a copy of this letter to my alderman today, to ask him to support improving Calgary's bicycle infrastructure*

I [just read that there is a vote coming up in council](http://www.civiccamp.org/2010/06/a-comprehensive-bike-strategy/), regarding a potential bicycle strategy for the City of Calgary.

I urge you to support endorsing a comprehensive bicycle transportation strategy, aimed at making Calgary a bike-friendly city. It is currently extremely unfriendly, even dangerous, to those of us who ride bicycles.

Murphy, A. (2008). A framework for identifying and promoting metacognitive knowledge and control in online discussants. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology. 34(2) pp. 1-18.

Abstract: The effectiveness of computer-based learning environments depends on learners’ deployment of metacognitive and self-regulatory processes. Analysis of transmitted messages in a context of Computer Mediated Communication can provide a source of information on metacognitive activity. However, existing models or frameworks (e.g., Henri, 1992)¹ that support the identification and assessment of metacognition have been described as subjective, lacking in clear criteria, and unreliable in contexts of scoring. This paper develops a framework that might be used by researchers analysing transcripts of discussions for evidence of engagement in metacognition, by instructors assessing learners’ participation in online discussions or by designers setting up metacognitive experiences for learners.