Peter May talks about "Virtually Dead" on Info Island

Peter May appeared as his avatar Flick Faulds to discuss his book "Virtually Dead" - a murder mystery where Second Life and real life intersect. Great fun! At one point he was asked to read a passage out of the book and went to get a copy and came back without his glasses. The audience suggested "Check your inventory!" A snapshot here of the event held on Info Island in Second Life: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ilenef/4320678872/

Sloan report - Online Higher Education Enrollment

Stephen Downes reported on Kevin Carey's comment on the Sloan C report Learning on Demand: Online Education in the United States, 2009. Carey noted that the current Kaplan University ads are a "direct and harsh critique of traditional colleges and universities..." http://www.quickanded.com/2010/01/steady-long-term-trends-rule-the-world.html - and what's remarkable about that is I was thinking the same thing when I saw a Kaplan University ad the other day. Good advertising! As I write this, ads are available at http://talent.kaplan.edu/campaign.aspx. See what you think!

Impact of Opencourseware on Paid Enrollment in Distance Learning Courses

Justin K. Johansen's dissertation - The Impact Of Opencourseware On Paid Enrollment In Distance Learning Courses - explores MIT's OpenCourceWare Initiative and Brigham Young University's OCW Independent Study Program - and subsequent enrollment in the same BYU courses for credit. David Wiley points out (http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/1231) that this study presents evidence that a university can provide open access to courses and garner tuition-paying students. Interesting!

Metasearch EBooks: AddAll

A metasearch tool for ebooks reported on ResearchBuzz:
Metasearch Ebooks with AddAll
http://www.researchbuzz.org/wp/metasearch-ebooks-with-addall/
One of these days I'd like to have every Dorothy Sayers "Lord Peter Whimsey" detective novels on an ereader. Well, assuming I could afford all of them, it looks like this search engine helps identify what's available.