GoogleTranslate Service


Eduspaces crosses the pond to mystery new home

December 20th, 2007 by Graham Attwell

Completely tied up in meetings so no time to comment at any length on what has been a somewhat traumatic and very instructive phase in the development of the community.

For those of you who have not been following, the story goes something like this. Open Source boyband lookalikes, Ben and Dave, develop innovative social software application called elgg, originally intended as an e-portfolio. Elgg quickly becomes popular, especially in the educational technology market. However popularity does not turn into hard cash for Curverider.

Slowly, over time, Curverider attract commercial contracts and gain funding from business angels. Obviously wanting to focus on the new business development Curverider announce they are to ditch eduspaces, their education platform and community.

The announcement causes uproar in the edublogosphere. Curverider make a brief statement but refuse to be drawn into any discourse. A number of offers to take over the network emerge. Curverider refuses to respond publicly. After five days it is announced by ‘news‘ – Curverider’s non de plume – that TakingITGlobal were taking over the network.

Members of the network are grateful for the support but non-plussed as to who TakingITGlobal are and why they have been chosen as inheritors of eduspaces.

As Steve Warburton says:

“It is good to have seen so many offers arrive within such a short space of time and from such a variety of sources. What lessons can the community learn from the experience? For me, this has been and continues to be a question about community governance models and I strongly feel the issues surrounding this still need to be voiced and thought through by the community particularly as it now seems likely that it is to be shifted to a new home.”

I totally agree with Steven. The resolution of the eduspaces debacle is almost more disturbing than its outset. A series of offers were made to host eduspaces – a number of them on the public discussion list. other requests for information were posted. There was no public response by Curverider. the community were not involved or even consulted in the process.

Good luck to TakingITGlobal. But why was TakingITGlobal chosen out of all the offers? What were the criteria for selection? I think the community has the right to know.

Longer term this should be a wake up call to the community. A new eduspaces community may arise. But this time the community has to develop forms of organisation. TakingITGlobal can be members of such a community. But they cannot be allowed to ‘own’ Eduspaces in the way Curverider did.

Please follow and like us:

2 Responses to “Eduspaces crosses the pond to mystery new home”

  1. Hugh Switzer says:

    Hi!

    Since I have little information about the transfer of eduspaces to TIG, I thought I would at least demystify who TakingITGlobal is and what we’re all about!

    We’re an international non-profit organization headquartered in Toronto, Canada. TIG provides a portal for young people to find inspiration, access information and get involved in improving their local and global communities. We currently have just under 175,000 members from over 200 countries and territories. A number of years ago, we launched TIGed (TakingITGlobal for Educators) which was designed to help educators integrate classroom lessons with online interactive lesson plans. TIG was also created by and currently run entirely by young people, and we seek to keep youth on the cutting edge of what is happening in both their local and global community.

    You can find out more about us by going to the “about” section on our website here: http://www.takingitglobal.org/about/

  2. Graham Attwell says:

    Thanks Hugh. I have nothing against TakingITGlobal – my criticism is on he manner in which the transfer was done. TakingITGlobal has made a promising start in calling for a representative body for teh community.

  • Search Pontydysgu.org

    Social Media




    News Bites

    Cyborg patented?

    Forbes reports that Microsoft has obtained a patent for a “conversational chatbot of a specific person” created from images, recordings, participation in social networks, emails, letters, etc., coupled with the possible generation of a 2D or 3D model of the person.

    Please follow and like us:


    Racial bias in algorithms

    From the UK Open Data Institute’s Week in Data newsletter

    This week, Twitter apologised for racial bias within its image-cropping algorithm. The feature is designed to automatically crop images to highlight focal points – including faces. But, Twitter users discovered that, in practice, white faces were focused on, and black faces were cropped out. And, Twitter isn’t the only platform struggling with its algorithm – YouTube has also announced plans to bring back higher levels of human moderation for removing content, after its AI-centred approach resulted in over-censorship, with videos being removed at far higher rates than with human moderators.

    Please follow and like us:


    Gap between rich and poor university students widest for 12 years

    Via The Canary.

    The gap between poor students and their more affluent peers attending university has widened to its largest point for 12 years, according to data published by the Department for Education (DfE).

    Better-off pupils are significantly more likely to go to university than their more disadvantaged peers. And the gap between the two groups – 18.8 percentage points – is the widest it’s been since 2006/07.

    The latest statistics show that 26.3% of pupils eligible for FSMs went on to university in 2018/19, compared with 45.1% of those who did not receive free meals. Only 12.7% of white British males who were eligible for FSMs went to university by the age of 19. The progression rate has fallen slightly for the first time since 2011/12, according to the DfE analysis.

    Please follow and like us:


    Quality Training

    From Raconteur. A recent report by global learning consultancy Kineo examined the learning intentions of 8,000 employees across 13 different industries. It found a huge gap between the quality of training offered and the needs of employees. Of those surveyed, 85 per cent said they , with only 16 per cent of employees finding the learning programmes offered by their employers effective.

    Please follow and like us:


    Other Pontydysgu Spaces

    • Pontydysgu on the Web

      pbwiki
      Our Wikispace for teaching and learning
      Sounds of the Bazaar Radio LIVE
      Join our Sounds of the Bazaar Facebook goup. Just click on the logo above.

      We will be at Online Educa Berlin 2015. See the info above. The stream URL to play in your application is Stream URL or go to our new stream webpage here SoB Stream Page.

      Please follow and like us:
  • Twitter

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Meta

  • Categories