CogBlogged from ‘October, 2003’

Somewhere in the hustle and bustle of this month I missed a significant milestone. A tenth anniversary worthy of a gift of aluminium (this would be nice but this will do) as tradition goes. It was sometime in October 1993 at our Ocotillo Technology Showcase (“Expose Yourself to Technology”). Demonstrations likely included laser discs, HyperCard, Toolbook, our text based Electronic Forum, and I think I was pushing Gopher. It was during that day, my colleague Jim Walters of Phoenix College handed me a floppy disk with the word “Mosaic” scribbled on it. He just said, “Alan, you are into the internet, check out this program.” It rocked my world and changed everything I was doing with technology (Thanks, Jim!)

Darn! I was that close to being able to complete use Safari for my Mac browsing (love the tabs, the rendering, the bookmark menus on the toolbar..) but alas, another hitch appears. This morning trying to post my latest entry, I kept getting timeout errors on MovableType Rebuild. I tried copying/pasting to a new entry. No. Tried rebuilding the archives one section at a time (individual, monthly…) No, it crapped out on the category archives. I checked the MT support forums and read a number of similar problems elsewhere, mostly fixed by de-activating Norton on the server (not something we have here). Tried optimizing the database tables. Tried rebooting the server (true mark of desparation). Finally, in a fit of utter despair, I went back to Internet Explorer– and it worked fine. Damn! Safari was the culprit (reported a bug to Apple’s black sock drawer, who knows where that goes).

Turns out to be my last session attended at the League for Innovation CIT conference was from the Wisc Online – the Wisconsin Online Resource Center (note: link fails for Safari web browsers despite current flash plug-in). The presentation pretty much as shown is available directory from their site (the “tour” button bottom center) as well as from the nifty biz-card sized CD-ROMs they provide. Presenters Kay Chitwood and David Bunnow provided an overview and a good set of examples from the mroe than 1000 learning objects developed under this project. This 5 year old project supports the Wisconsin Technical College System.

One of the best diversions in Milwaukee from the League for Innovation conference we found was a dinner at the Safe House. Following the address to a door in an alley marked “International Exports”, we had to use all of our sites to get ourselves inside. Beyond that, I am sworn to secrecy, but see their web site for more vague details and innuendo (and a fun theme for a web site). If you do get to Milwaukee, it is worth checking out– but make reservations! We heard on Saturday night there was a 3 hour wait…

Just a quick recap of this League Conference session, “Minnesota: Land of 10,000 E-Folios” by Paul Wasko of eFolio Minnesota the project providing electronic portfolios to all citizens of the state. This was a hands on session that allowed us as participants to create use the tools available in this software. It actually is very easy to use, and offers quite a number of control and flexibility. It has a decent set of templates (using style sheets) and easy, consistent enditing tools. From the editing interface, you can always toggle to a preview mode to see the work. I was impressed as far as it meets some of the flexibilty and ease of use issues our faculty have voiced for electronic portfolios. It offers level of access the owner can set for different users and group (restricting access to very specific sections of a portfolio). It doe snot seem to [...]

Now this was a League conference highlight. Diana Oblinger knows how to deliver a compelling presentation (she speaks, she does not read) on a relevant topic. She researches and presents data, references, processes, and important ideas. And she uses PowerPoint with a bit more power and point than most. Someone give video copies of her keynote this morning to some of the other clowns that they have put on stage here. The title was “The Agile College” and started with a compelling true or false quiz- “The US is still the world leader in higher education”, and then presented an impressive string of facts and data that shows the many places we have lost of long held edge. From drops in completion rates, to dramatic differences in success from poorer students, the message as not about doom and gloom, but a wake up call to do something radically different in [...]

Wow, now this was probably the best presentation at this conference…. wait a minute…. Can I blog my own presentation at the League for Innovation Conference? (well not while I am doing it). This morning we gave our show on Building an Innovation Collection (with a bit of Competition and Bribery). We of course got the request to open source it (I am in favor of but lacking time and resources to generalizing the code- heck it is just a database and a pretty front end) and some interest in doing a session elsewhere. They love the metaphor. It plays well in Milwaukee. I had fun. So did Charlene, my co-presenter, she was a good sport with me putting her on the spot. If you missed it, you missed out.

Monday morning here at the League for Innovation conference and I was asked by my Macromedia friends to make some remarks at their breakfast session- a packed room of about 50 or so. And then I was following an awesome series of examples and ideas from Bill and Eric two faculty from Sinclair College that do some wacky (in a good way) and creative things teaching math and psychology. Below are the notes I made up ahead of time- I did not use the notes (too many bad examples here of speakers reading canned speeches), so I cannot vouch that this was all I said…

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Blogging at the League for Innovation conference got a wee more difficult as the Wi-Fi went AWOL, 404. The word is even the wired network here in the Midways Airport Convention center due to a blaster type worm banging out of a machine in the exhibit area. Last I saw, the techies were yanking machines off the net one by one to find the offender. It could not be my computer ;-) So here, post sessions is a quick recap….