Danny's Web

在我们的成长过程中，导师起的作用很大。不同的生活阶段，会有不同的导师。Isaac Mao是引导我网络化生存的导师，Stephen Downes则是引领我进入网络开放动态学习的导师。我喜欢称Stephen为“老史”。

上面就是老史。喜欢骑自行车，头发总是乱糟糟的“老头”，其实还不到50岁，居住在加拿大东部的一个风景迤逦的小城蒙克顿。据曾在台湾见过老史的邹景平老师说，现实中的老史为人内向而害羞。他在加拿大国家研究委员会工作，任职E-Learning工作组。加拿大的现代教育比较发达，作为这样一个教育发达国家的国家研究委员会研究人员，老史的水平肯定是不低的。不过，真正让他闻名遐尔的，倒还不是这个工作单位；是在网络上十多年的勤奋耕耘，和绝对的开放共享心态，造就了今天的大师。

近一年追踪翻译老史的“Blog”OLDaily，以及数篇他的专业长文，在文字与观点间，感受到的是一个关怀高远深切，甚至有点小小的较真儿劲头的研究大家。03年7月，我转引过他当时在自己的站点Stephen's Web上放置的一个“愿景说明”：

"I want and visualize and aspire toward a system of society and learning where each person is able to rise to his or her fullest potential without social or financial encumberance, where they may express themselves fully and without reservation through art, writing, athletics, invention, or even through their avocations or lifestyle. Where they are able to form networks of meaningful and rewarding relationships with their peers, with people who share the same interests or hobbies, the same political or religious affiliations - or different interests or affiliations, as the case may be. This to me is a society where knowledge and learning are public goods, freely created and shared, not hoarded or withheld in order to extract wealth or influence. This is what I aspire toward, this is what I work toward."

短短一段话，其志趣与关怀跃然纸上，全然可以看出这是一个怎样的人。前几年，我还只是作为普通读者来阅读老史的文章，去年开始作教育翻译后，开始深入老史的思想和知识世界。不到一年，老史已在我身上留下了重要的影响。稍许列列：

1、相信人类必将在技术的支持下，实现学习与成长的自由。就算是前面几年写blog，感受到了blog的学习价值，我也不会象今天这样相信，技术必将给人类带来学习与成长的自由。老史大学学哲学，写文章一般有比较清晰的逻辑脉络，同时不乏基于人类本性的深刻分析。他逐步递进地分析互联网学习领域的演变，会让你意识到，技术正在深刻改变人类获取知识的方式，正在改变人类学习的形式。而这种改变，已经在无可逆转地改变人类社会，并会在未来帮助我们走向学习与成长的自由之境。

2、未来的教育世界，是开放和分享观念的天下。老史是一个非常开放的人，曾在邮件中表示，他的所有专业文字均可自由被使用。他还在OLDaily中进行评论时，提到自己更加重视在互联网（自己的网站以及网络媒体）上发布专业文字，是因为这样做可以接受到来自读者更加严苛的评判。在他将自己的思想成果毫无保留地公布给世界时，他自身就在实践一个开放分享的范例。

3、未来的学习将是网络化的学习。追踪老史，发现他是英语世界网络化学习研究网络中一个很大的节点，围绕他，可以看到很多很多的其他节点。我们翻译的OLDaily是一个评论网站，通过老史的评价，可以很快地了解到这些节点的特色，进而可以观察他们周遭的新世界。网络的世界就是这样的神奇。更神奇的是，在这种徜徉中，我们获得了快速成长，那么简单，那么容易。

4、人的脑袋潜力实在是大啊。阅读老史过滤那些资讯的时候，时常感慨这家伙脑袋容量太大。这几个月一直在学习老史过去七年的OLDaily，每每阅读后，又会对他这样的脑容量感觉理所当然。如果你能连续这么多年，坚持每天都这样去学习思考与全世界交流，脑容量能不大？？？得承认，老史除了带给我大量引导性的资讯外，影响了我的思想外，还在此处影响到了我的学习成长态度。

5、学习要学最优秀的，交流要找最强的。互联网学习领域，老史就算不是唯一的选择，也是不应回避的选择。而且，前面讲过，那么简单，那么容易，你可以和这位大师交流了。

前面我有个想法，明年要去加拿大采访老史。那会是一种怎样的会面呢？

刚刚介绍过Edublog Adwards获奖者名单，喜欢”折腾“的Stephen Downes”致意性“地列举出了一个自己眼中的”非Edublog Adwards获奖者名单“:-) 他说：”They are some websites I felt ought to be highlighted for their quality, insight and contributions this year even though they were overlooked by the Edublogs.“ OLDaily 的长期读者应该会留意到，下面这个名单中的好些blog，都是OLDaily评介追踪的常客。Stephen在英文原帖最后提到了目前暂时处于修缮期的Edu_RSS服务，包含了数百个国际教育blog，这张清单，也应该是这数百个blog中的精华。如果说Edublog Adwards名单是网络群体选择的教育blog最佳，这个”非Edublog Adwards获奖者名单“则是专家筛选的典范。（由于英文原文所在的blogspot站点目前无法访问，特此将名单内容全文转载。）

Best educational use of a virtual world: Media Grid Immersive Education

"Immersive Education is an award-winning learning platform that combines interactive 3D graphics, commercial game and simulation technology, virtual reality, voice chat (Voice over IP/VoIP), Web cameras (webcams) and rich digital media with collaborative online course environments and classrooms."

What I like about this initiative is that it is not bound to a single platform, that it is actively contributing to specifications and technologies that help virtual worlds together, and that it is actively exploring ways in which immersive technologies can be used to support learning.

Best educational use of a social networking service: OU Course Profiles on Facebook

What makes this different from the typical use of a social networking service is that it is substantiall about using a social network service to support learning, rather than simply using it to connect the same old group of people together. What I mean by this is that it is intended for students and that it inserts a useful educational service into the social network application (in this case Facebook). Here's a slide show and more description of the app.

Best educational wiki: WikiEducator

Numerous educational wikis could have taken the podium here - Curriki, Wikiversity, more. WikiEducator is chosen as the most (apparently) active of these initiatives. "WikiEducator is a dynamic and exciting community of educators who believe passionately that learning materials should be free and open to all." Be sure to check out WikiEducator's definition of libre knowledge.

Best educational use of video / visual: Civilization III and World History

This is a 10 minute video describing how Civilization III, a computer game, is used in history classes at Kimball Union Academy, featuring Lyn Lord. This video, one of the highest rated and most viewed on the popular TeacherTube educational video hosting site, mixes screen captures and commentaries showing how the popular video game can support learning.

Best educational use of audio: iTunes University

This was probably the most publicized of the educational podcast initiatives of 2007 and certainly the most influential. The service launched in 2005 with a series of podcasts from Stanford and spread to a number of other universities. The Best of iTunes University site shows just how pervasive this initiative has become.

Some people (including myself) have criticized the initiative for being commercial and proprietary. Which it is. But it is worth noting that there is (to my knowledge ) no comparable free (libre?) and open audio content available from any other collection of universities. Although educational podcasting will already remain a niche market (it's hard to compete with Radiohead) but remains nonetheless important for thousands of people.

Best elearning / corporate education blog: Off Course-On Target

Wayne Hodgins has been around forever, but blogging is a new medium for him, as most of his work has been done in standards committees and academic papers dev eloping and advocating the concept of learning objects. Whatever your views of this persepective on online learning, his blog posts are consistently the most original and informative coming fromthe corporate perspective (and make no mistake - the corporate perspective these days is overwhelmingly the world of SCORM, learning objects, and metadata standards).

Best educational tech support blog: Computer Science Teacher

Alfred Thompson is rooted in the world of Microsoft products, a fact that irks me every time I read one of his posts. But I do read one of his posts because of the steady and consistent stream of practical advice being handed out on his blog. Though aimed ostensibly at computer science teachers, the blog is a constant source of technial advice for any teacher using computers (um, and Windows).

Thompson is (for me) the representative read from an entirely different blogging community from the one we're used to reading. He works for Microsoft and has a direct connection not only to computer science teachers but also the Microsoft developers' network. This gives him a unique perspective and an informed view.

Best library / librarian blog: ACRLog

This has been one of the most consistent high-quality blogs of any type, and I must admit to having been astonished to see it skipped over in the nominations for the Edublogs. It is probably because the blog owners resist efforts to rank it and reward it - probably the best attitude to take. Certainl a lot more dignified than shameless campaigning.

Writes one of the authors (theirs is a group blog): "I suggest that if we want to acknowlege our community’s bloggers who are doing really good work (high quality writing, regular postings, originality of ideas and topics, innovative suggestions, etc.) let’s all contribute to an annual listing - not numeric rankings - but a collection of ten blogs worthy of our praise." I concur, and that's what I'm doing in this post.

Best teacher blog: The Open Classroom

Though this category saw by far the most nominations, it still managed to overlook consistently strong entries from Clarence Fisher, Chris Sessums and Heather Ross. I was tempted to opt for a Canadian in this category, but opted to highlight Australian nglish teacher Jo McLeay, who has been writing consistently and quietly for several years now. She also practices what she preaches, linking to a number of her classroom blogs. She uses many of the Web 2.0 tools and is plugged in to the Australian edublogging community.

Most influential blog post: Death threats against bloggers are NOT 'protected speech'

Though Kathy Sierra was widely read in the blogging community at large, she was arguably an edublogger - certainly, her work was widely cited in our community and I suspect that had she not stopped blogging shortly after posting this bombshell she would have certainly shown up in the Edublog Awards in severl categories. Sierra combined an intuitive sense of design with a deep knowledge of online communication to create posts that were memorable and wity.

And yet, because of the events described in this post, I refer to her work in the past tense. She abruptly withdraw from the blogging scene after a series of harassing and blatantly sexist attacks. Her experience was hardly unique; since then I have read numerous other accounts of gender-based online abuse, and of course you can find it if you look in almos any YouTube or Digg comment stream. What these tell us about the current state of our society is disturbing. But at least - to judge both from the hit and link counts in Edu_RSS and the 1165 comments on her website, Kathy Sierra's message has certainly hit home.

Best resource sharing blog: Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day

It was nice to be nominated in this category myself, for OLDaily, but to be honest, I expected to compete against - and lose to - Jane Hart's incredibly useful contribution to the field. Hart has a wealth of experience in the field, having most recently co-founded the consulting firm Waller Hart Learning Architects. In the meantime, her daily resource offers sites, services and tools that are invariably of interest and frequently of direct practica impact.

Best new blog: Helge Scherlund's eLearning news blog

It's hard not to want to give the nod to Sue Waters, but she was nominated, and anyways, Helge Scherlund burst onto the scene with a fresh and informative weblog summarizing resources, websites, and journal articles. She would also have been a wonderful candidate in the best resource-sharing blog category. Scherlund is summarizing - and making accessible - resources that mostly do not grace other edubloggers' pages, making her work well worth reading, especially by those now limiting their reading to a smaller circle of writers treading more familiar territory. She brings an academic edge into what is often a non-academic field, and for that should be recognized.

Best group blog: The Pulse

Hosted by District Administration magazine, the Pulse is one of those blogs that you at one wish would publish more and more and wish would cease and desist. With opinions ranging from insightful to infuriating, with a literate and experienced writing staff, the Pulse distinguishes itself with quality writing, informed opinions, and more controversy than you can shake a stick at. It is a site definitely deserving of wider attention.

I also want to add as an honorable mention in this category the ongoing dialogue between Diane Ravitch and Deb Meier in Bridging Differences. The debate covers most of the controversial issues in education over the last 15 years, framed by two people who were at the centre of those debates. It is continually interesting to see their views at once shift and at the same time hold fast to basic convictions. Again, what makes this blog work for me is the literate and informed quality of the writing.

Best individual blog: Cool Cat Teacher Blog

This was probably the best nominated of the categories. I would have added Doug Noon, Artichoke, Christopher Sessums, Seb Schmoller and Scott Wilson. But the writer who most deserved a nomination - and didn't get one - was in my opinion Vicki Davis. A teacher from Georgia who writes with a consistently hopeful and uplifting tone, Davis is unquestionably one of the major thought leaders in the American K-12 blogosphere and certainly one of their most articulate representatives. I don't always agree with davis - and to be honest, sometimes roll my eyes - but her popularity both in my Edu_RSS statistics and the wider web at large do not lie.

上面这幅照片来自刚刚完成的OLDaily中文版，一起完成的是2篇：
OLDaily中文版 2007年10月25日
OLDaily中文版 2007年10月26日

按照安排，这两篇帖子分别应该在周五（26日）和周六（27日）完成并发布，因为我们的工作目标是“15小时”（英文原文发布后15小时翻译完成发布）。周五我当班，因自身事务杂乱，没有心情和精力来完成，周六的zihang临时请假没有人替，我自己接了过来，但那天我依然状态低迷，无法顺利完成，一直拖到了今天。从下午开始翻译，一边是现实的工作不断打扰，一边努力让自己沉浸到OLDaily中，通过Stephen的引导来和广阔的在线学习世界交流。断断续续，终于在晚上十点左右完成了翻译。脑袋很累了，要休息了。

OLDaily中文版的长期读者，可能会注意到近期我们的发布不是很顺利，延迟发布的情况发生好几次了。一个多月前，我还很乐观，翻译小组的成员增多到5、6人，每个人一天，有人要两周才会轮到一次，OLDaily的翻译发布有保障了。可是，这一个月内，有组员退出，有组员工作繁忙暂时离职，有组员没有了消息……最萧条的时候，我和Paula作为“最后的终结者”，承包了一周5天的翻译。

推出半年多来，我一直把OLDaily的翻译看成整个教育中文翻译项目中难度最大的部分，原因就在于它的翻译需要持续不断进行，每周五天，要译者很快译完发布，很难有休息打盹儿的时间。而且OLDaily涉及到广阔的知识背景，翻译时更加耗时耗力。一个普通译者，每周翻一次还不算什么，每周翻两次，就相当的费力了。能够坚持不断参与的，就更加不容易。到现在为止，最稳定参与的人，就是最早的两个家伙，Ken和我。有时想想，能够坚持至今，我也挺为自己自豪。

看看Stephen拍摄的这张照片，小城的黎明，远处山后是加州的大火，烟柱可以在照片中清楚看到。不知怎么的，这张照片总给我异样的感觉，总感觉其中有一些震动我的东西存在。是什么呢？难道是持续追踪Stephen同志半年的思考，被他博大的关怀所感动感染？“近朱者赤，近墨者黑”，是不是益学会的伙计们，在老史这样的大师身上开始我们学习的旅程，会走得更高更远？

我打算明年去采访他。

这是一篇评论文章，Stephen Downes评论 Gary Stager《为什么教师们不使用Web2.0 - 从历史的角度观察》一文的主要观点。Stephen有一个习惯，对一些集中列举观点的文章，他会逐条加以点评，阐明自己的看法。Stager那篇文章，就一个重要问题“为什么老师们无法融入web2.0技术之中” 展开阐述，他列举了17条自己的观点，这17条，就成为Stephen点评的载体。由于是点评，采用对话的形式，使得内涵上得以自由展开，因此，本文成为了教育翻译有史以来译介的最有深度和广度的文章。我写的编者按中这样推荐：“关心教育发展与改革、关心未来教育的人们不可不读”，实在不为过。

下面说说这篇No.1文章。

第一次细读，是打印出Paula在lizunlong部分译稿基础上翻译出的全文准备审校时。读过后，脑子就象被洗过一样，虽然还没全部清晰，但大部分的景象都显现了出来。之前我一直比较困惑的是，自己对未来的教育（或称edu2.0、lizunlong的新型教育等）的理解在许多细节上沉淀，自己能明白，也已在工作实践中推动它的发展，可要叫我讲讲，还是无从落口。终于，在Stephen这篇文章中，我看到了足够宽广的对未来教育全景式的阐述（尽管限于篇幅，多半点到为止）。以后谁要再问我，我会说：先去看看《Stager，Logo与Web2.0》，我们再谈:-)

我的收获来自这样几个方面：

理论。文章的最后一句话是“（未来教育）背后的统一理论是什么？是E-learning 2.0, 连接主义, 连接的知识, 学习网络及其他。” 这几篇文章，教育中文翻译已经或正在翻译之中，会尽快系统呈现给读者。相信对现存教育不满意，渴望教育变革，想要解惑的朋友，会从这几篇论文之中，感受到全新教育形态的整体样貌。全新的形态（范式），需要有相对简洁和系统的阐述，需要理论的支撑。Stephen Downes和George Siemens等前沿研究者，正在给我们带来这个解惑的工具，我们会尽快呈现给大家。

学校的价值。学校将会逐渐丧失目前在教育中的主导定位和重要性，成为学习者诸多成长环境之一。这是我在Edu2.0讨论组最新话题中的表述。为何会如此呢？道理非常简单：学校无法真正适应开放的、以个人为主的学习形式，当学习者获得越来越大学习自由时，学校的主导地位自然会退化。Stephen在本文中多处评价了学校，观点直接了当，恐怕会让学校教育者难以接受了：

学校改革行不通。学校是为特殊的目的而设计的，它本身就与当代教育的实践与目标脱节，当代教育不仅要适应信息时代，还应符合个人自由与授权。

“学校”是学术与商业文化的完美混合，你想看到的全都有了：相互隔绝，严格刻板，充满独裁。

人们常常问我，还要多久我们才能看见学校里发生我所描述的变化——网络民主力量带来的变化。我的回答通常是，“我们不会看见。”我们在学习中看见的变化不会在学校产生。这种变化将在学校以外发生，而且很可能让学校成为不相干的局外人。

我的看法是Logo曾经尝试在学校里做的事情，Web2.0将会在学校之外获得成功。

我们期望人们自己寻找方法，而不是听别人说该做什么。在传统学校思维里，老师和学生遵循手册或指南。在新学校思维里，他们自己撰写。

应该有专门的教育应用软件的观点。所有问题都应该在指南里说清楚的观点。影响力应该局限于学校环境的观点。这些观点都不对。事实正好相反。

“大多数学校已经证明它们无法信任老师和学生的在线活动，其结果就是在老师为教学目的而使用网络时，为他们制造愚蠢的障碍。”－－Stager

从制度的角度看，既有制度学校具备强大的制度惯性，将会在很长的时期内存在。这里面有既得利益集团的影响，也现存合理性使然。因此，既没有必要拼命打击学校的不合理性，也没有必要使劲儿拒绝学校的退化，此消彼长的格局会长期存在，大家更该关注自己在这个历史阶段中的位置。这是自己可以选择的，就象Stephen一样：“现在和教师们交谈时，我不告诉他们该如何改进教学方法。我只与他们讨论该如何改善他们的自学方法。”

（再罗嗦几句：这样的选择，最好能够放到更长的历史尺度中去进行，别为眼下的处境所完全局限。历史的演进，是加速在进行的，所以，我自己把握这个历史尺度，更多的是向着未来。）

学习社区和学习者主导的学习。这是我理解未来学习/教育的两个基本形态。前者是群体性的，学校即是其中之一。后者是个体性的。这两者发展的背后，都存在深刻的技术背景。说到技术，恐怕又有很多朋友会表示反对了，似乎技术不该承担如此重要的定位。可是，回顾历史，技术的的确确将我们生存这个世界改变了，而且，正在更深刻地改变我们的今天和明天。教育者不能无视这些现实。看看今天的学习行为，在技术支持下正在发生的重要变化吧。随着学习的自主权越来越多的向学习者转移，教育者最该转换的，其实是最基本的教育观念。

新的随时随地参与式学习。已有读者在留言，edu2.0是不是web2.0的一个部分？这个问题三言两语讲不清楚，也许可以用Stephen所说的“……新方法（我们称为“学习网络”或“连接主义”）侧重教育环境与更广阔的社会环境之间的连续性”来加以回答。我的个人体验是，学习本质上是参与式的学习，无时不在发生，这和我们老祖宗的看法一致。edu2.0最大的改变，是使我们每一个学习者，能够更加自如地实现随时随地的学习。web2.0首先是各种技术工具，但它对教育最大的改变是观念上的影响，分享、参与、协作、自主等等。

这些只是我个人在阅读这篇文章时的自我建构学习。你的感受如何，需要你自己的解读。

再次推荐这篇教育翻译有史以来最有深度和广度的文章：
Stager，Logo与Web2.0（上）
Stager，Logo与Web2.0（下）

Enjoy！

最近，在Edu2.0群组中，有一些对技术的学习价值的争论。我的看法倾向于技术应用意义重大，对学习发展是一种积极正面的推动。先别忙着争论，看看这个演讲：



这是Stephen Downes昨天（9月25日）在美国发表的演讲幻灯。也可点击此链接下载。