Photo-credit awaited
So the question being asked around the world in the wake of Obama's online forum is the following: Who is this Richard O'Dwyer, and why is he so important?
International Business Times, 30 January 2012
A query about Richard O'Dwyer, a 23-year-old Sheffield Hallam undergraduate who faces jail if sent for trial and convicted in the US, was the most [2,073] asked of more than 133,000 questions submitted to a live online Google+ "hangout" with the [U.S.] president broadcast on Monday.
The Guardian, 31 January 2012
Recent actions of the U.S. government have shattered our understanding of copyright. Universities now need to provide new detailed guidance to faculty and students. They will also need to action to protect Internet Domain Names of their affiliates.
On January 13th a Magistrates' Court in the United Kingdom ruled that Richard O’Dwyer, a student at Sheffield Hallam University, could be extradited to the U.S. on U.S. charges of copyright infringement, even though he has never left England and never had infringing files on this computer.
One week later two helicopters, 76 New Zealand police and 4 U.S. FBI agents raided and searched Kim Dotcom’s home in Auckland arresting Dotcom and four colleagues 1. The U.S. Department of Justice seized Megaupload.com and fifteen other domain names, all but one of his bank accounts, and his physical assets. Computers were seized for evidence. He is currently in custody. The New Zealand police were careful to say they did not file charges, but rather executed the raid on behalf of the U.S. government.
The strategy used by the U.S. government against O’Dwyer was explained by a U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforcement [ICE] official who said: “This was like drugs. You want to cut out the middle man.”
Linus Torvalds on why the Raspberry Pi is important
This week's New Scientist has an interesting interview - login required - with Linus Torvalds, the initiator and leading light in the creation of the Linux operating system that powers the Web and sits at the heart of Android.
Torvalds makes a couple of interesting points - emphasis added below - about the Raspberry Pi and about why open source software matters so much for the coming "Internet of things".
Q. What about Raspberry Pi, a Linux-based computer costing $25? Will that change things?
A. What's interesting about Raspberry Pi is that it's so cheap almost anybody can buy it as a throwaway - throwaway in the very good sense that it could get people involved in computers who otherwise wouldn't be. For a lot of people, it will be a toy gathering dust, but if 1 per cent of the people who buy it are introduced to computers and embedded programs, that's huge. It can get people into the mindset of using a computer to do everyday jobs that even five years ago it would have been ridiculous to use a computer for because they were big and expensive. With Pi, you can say, I wouldn't use a real computer for this, but maybe it can control my water heater.
Q. Is a future where homes are run by computer only possible with open source? If Raspberry Pi had to run Windows, would it be too expensive?
A. Yes. Open source is a very powerful way to try something new. The thing about trying something new is that 999 out of 1000 cases will fail. Having this, easy entry into trying something new means having one case where it works is very good. Raspberry Pi is a way to allow experimentation on an even smaller scale because you have the hardware, too. When you aim for that price you can't afford not to use a free, open operating system.
For some other views see Donald Clark's Raspberry Pi: 7 reasons why it won't work, Google's Eric Schmidt applauds the $35 Raspberry Pi computer, and Mark Johnson's
Posted on 08/06/2012 in News and comment | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Udacity: 1) new courses and 2) secure exams run by Pearson
Udacity is developing quickly, with two announcements last week that signal the direction it is taking.
Firstly five new "premiere" courses have been added:
All start on 25 June.
Secondly, in partnership with Pearson's testing company VUE, students will be able to sit secure exams at one of 4000 centers worldwide in 165+ countries, the aim being to make success on a Udacity course count towards a qualification that is recognised by employers.
Note that in May 2012 VUE acquired another big (or bigger) testing company Certiport (which has 12,000 authorised testing centres and which runs the certification processes for industry-accredited training programmes such as those provided by Adobe, Autodesk, CompTIA, and Microsoft). So expect the number of centres where Udacity students can get tested to increase further.
According to Udacity's announcement "There will be a nominal fee required to take the exams, which will offset the cost of physical testing centers and staff."
The tie-up is a good example of deciding sensibly when to do things yourself (i.e. making and running courses), and when to work with others who already have capability alongside a very large scale operation (as in Pearson's case), that you can draw upon. On the other hand, if (and that is a big if) a way could be found to deliver uncheatable tests straight to a learner's desktop, then that would strip out the additional layer of complexity that running tests through someone else's systems and facilities will inevitably involve.
PS - I am gradually making progress in and enjoying my Udacity CS101 "introduction to computer science" course. I will report on this soon, drawing out the design and other differences between CS101 and the prototype AI course I did last year. In other news, I'm really pleased to learn that Riga-based Gundega Dekena (who wrote this Fortnightly Mailing guest contribution that compares three of last year's "Stanford" online computer science courses) is now working for Udacity as the course manager for the Programming a Robotic Car course.
Posted on 03/06/2012 in Moocs, News and comment | Permalink | Comments (1)
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Snippets from 19 May to 3 June
Here in one place are some largely unfiltered snippets from my FriendFeed "stream" (about 2 posts per day) for the period 19 May to 3 June 2012.
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Posted on 03/06/2012 in News and comment, Nothing to do with online learning | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Scaling up: a hindsight-laden reflection on the launch of the Ufi Charitable Trust
The Ufi Charitable Trust launched on Wednesday of this week. The Trust has an endowment of ~£50m. Its mission is to "to achieve a step change in learning and employability for all adults in the UK, through the adoption of 21st century technologies".
The original University for Industry (Ufi) has played a varying part in my working life for the last 15 years. So attending the launch of the independent charitable trust that is now Ufi got me thinking about the origins of the organisation and about whether well over £1.5 billion of public funding could have been better used.
Continue reading "Scaling up: a hindsight-laden reflection on the launch of the Ufi Charitable Trust" »
Posted on 25/05/2012 in News and comment | Permalink | Comments (8)
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Learning Technologies in adult learning: influence how a charitable trust employs >£40m to achieve its mission
Last year, with Dick Moore, Adrian Perry, and Clive Shepherd, I was commissioned to report to the Ufi Charitable Trust (UCT) on "priorities for interventions by the Trust and others through learning technologies in adult learning and employability in the UK". This followed the Trust's October 2011 announcement of the sale of Ufi Limited. The Trust intends to apply the proceeds of the sale - which exceed £40m - to the mission of achieving "a step change in adult learning and employability for all in the UK, through the adoption of 21st century technologies". This 10 minute survey provides an opportunity to influence the way in which UCT employs its funds to achieve its mission. The closing date for completion is 6 March 2012.
Posted on 18/02/2012 in News and comment | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Richard O’Dwyer, a student and his computer – an American perspective by Jim Farmer
Photo-credit awaited
So the question being asked around the world in the wake of Obama's online forum is the following: Who is this Richard O'Dwyer, and why is he so important?
International Business Times, 30 January 2012
A query about Richard O'Dwyer, a 23-year-old Sheffield Hallam undergraduate who faces jail if sent for trial and convicted in the US, was the most [2,073] asked of more than 133,000 questions submitted to a live online Google+ "hangout" with the [U.S.] president broadcast on Monday.
The Guardian, 31 January 2012
Recent actions of the U.S. government have shattered our understanding of copyright. Universities now need to provide new detailed guidance to faculty and students. They will also need to action to protect Internet Domain Names of their affiliates.
On January 13th a Magistrates' Court in the United Kingdom ruled that Richard O’Dwyer, a student at Sheffield Hallam University, could be extradited to the U.S. on U.S. charges of copyright infringement, even though he has never left England and never had infringing files on this computer.
One week later two helicopters, 76 New Zealand police and 4 U.S. FBI agents raided and searched Kim Dotcom’s home in Auckland arresting Dotcom and four colleagues 1. The U.S. Department of Justice seized Megaupload.com and fifteen other domain names, all but one of his bank accounts, and his physical assets. Computers were seized for evidence. He is currently in custody. The New Zealand police were careful to say they did not file charges, but rather executed the raid on behalf of the U.S. government.
The strategy used by the U.S. government against O’Dwyer was explained by a U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforcement [ICE] official who said: “This was like drugs. You want to cut out the middle man.”
Continue reading "Richard O’Dwyer, a student and his computer – an American perspective by Jim Farmer" »
Posted on 07/02/2012 in JimFarmer, News and comment | Permalink | Comments (1)
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Electronics and the Dim Future of the University
John Naughton's Welcome to the desktop degree... today pointed to Electronics and the Dim Future of the University by Eli Noam, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Science (Vol. 270, pp 247-249, October 13, 1995), in which Noam (who has been ploughing a deep furrow at Columbia University for over 30 years as a professor of economics and finance) provides a brief, forceful, and exceptionally far-sighted analysis of why the Internet, computing, and the exponential growth in the production of scientific and other knowledge, will change universities.
The article deserves to be read in full.
To whet your appetite here are its concluding three paragraphs.
Continue reading "Electronics and the Dim Future of the University" »
Posted on 05/02/2012 in News and comment, Resources | Permalink | Comments (2)
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Montessori schooling
Laura Flores Shaw's interesting piece in today's Huffington Post Montessori - The Missing Voice in the Education Reform Debate reminded me of Donald Clark's 2006 Brin, Page, Bezos and Wales? which pointed out that all four of them and - but NB! the 16 February 2012 comment from David Jennings on Donald's 2006 post - (and Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Mahatma Gandhi, Sigmund Freud, Buckminster Fuller, Leo Tolstoy, Bertrand Russell, Jean Piaget and Hilary and Bill Clinton before them) had early Montessori schooling.
Shaw writes:
Posted on 03/02/2012 in News and comment | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Taking the red pill: Sebastian Thrun's candid reflection on the AI course
After a horribly embarrassing introduction, this 25 minute talk yesterday by Sebastian Thrun gives Thrun's own candid and personal reflection on last Autumn's AI course, which had 160,000 sign-ups (nearly 100,000 of whom were on the advanced track), 46,000 submitters of the first homework, 23,000 submitters of the mid-term exam, and 20,000 who completed the final exam.
Highlights of the talk:
Udacity aims to enrol 500,000 students on its first two courses: CS101- Building a search engine; CS373 - Programming a robotic car.
My own and others' reports from the AI course.
Posted on 24/01/2012 in ai-course, Lightweight learning, News and comment | Permalink | Comments (1)
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A reaction to Apple's "reinvention of the text book"
Jeevan Vasagar, the Guardian's Education Editor, asked if I'd be willing to comment on today's event and announcements in New York by Apple about education.
This prompted me to follow the event using the Verge's live pictorial blog, from which you yourself will get the gist of what Apple is doing. There is more on ZDNET; and there is this piece in the Guardian. [At the bottom of this post I am adding links to pieces I come across that seem to shed useful further light.]
My reaction?
It is difficult to see how the impressive-looking tools, content and services announced today by Apple will not be the kind of "game changer" that we've got into the habit of expecting from Apple.
Students, particularly in the US, pay a lot for prescribed textbooks even if they manage to buy them second hand. Provided they own an iPad and provided the right text-books are available (the second proviso is even more serious than the first) then Apple's text book service will provide a more interactive and probably pedagogically more effective experience than will the use of conventional text books; and at a much lower price.
Alongside this, and only from the look of it, the text book writing software that Apple will be giving away will be of intense interest to teachers and content developers in the Apple-using world. It remains to be seen whether the teacher-creators will be any match, in the quality and/or slickness of what they make, for the big publishers with whom Apple is already working, or for the smaller content developers and in-house production teams in universities who get started with the software now.
But there are lots of issues. Here are three.
Over the next 18 months we are going to find out.
Note 1. I am grateful for feedback from several members of the Association for Learing Technology - for which I work part time - helped me work out what to say to the Guardian - and influenced this piece in other ways.
Note 2 - added after original publication. Links to other interesting posts I come across on this topic are below.
Posted on 19/01/2012 in News and comment | Permalink | Comments (2)
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