CogBlogged from ‘October, 2004’

This poster session demo was probably the coolest thing I have seen here at the EDUCAUSE 2004 conference. It is so cool I do not think I can describe it, See the Croquet Project WHAT IF… …we were to create a new operating system and user interface knowing what we know today, how far could we go? What kinds of decisions would we make that we might have been unable to even consider 20 or 30 years ago, when the current set of operating systems were first created? …we could collaborate with one another in an online dimension to create or simulate anything we wanted to? …we had the robustness of a 3D immersive technology, the diversity of the Internet, and the degree of social interaction we have in the real world? Enter Croquet. CROQUET IS… …a combination of open source computer software and network architecture that supports deep collaboration [...]

(more back blogging from yesterday’s sessions at EDUCAUSE 2004): This presentation will provide a brief overview of various Evolving Technologies Committee white paper topics: the “consumerization” of information technology; strategies and best practices for addressing the growing concerns of spam, worms, and viruses; and the convergence of libraries and digital repositories learning objects for the network. This is from the EDUCAUSE Evolving Technologies Committee. My quips in italics At least this format was focused more on answering questions from the studio audience. The areas reported on included: * Nomadicity * Trends in SPAM management * Learning Objects – Small Content * Regional Networks * Convergence of Libraries, Digital Repositories and Management of Web Content * Legal P2Ps Some snippets of interest to moi… “Nomadicity” deals with digital nomads, the use of “converged” devices. Small screen size, different bandwidths call for repurposing of web content. This calls for a new help [...]

Free content for community colleges (well and everybody else)! Free! Developing content based on model of MIT Open CourseWare success, but for community college level courses. Foothill-De Anza approached by Hewlett Foundation to lead effort for more general education level courses, community college level curriculum. Based on success with FHDA success in ETUDES (Easy To Use Distance Education Software), home grown course management system, Project name: Sharing Of Free Intellectual Assets (SOFIA) open content initiative http://sofia.fhda.edu/ Sofia – the wisdom and intellectual virtue achieved when striving after the best ends and using the best means” – Aristotle Alan’s cheap, half-baked summary: The goals of the project are lofty, admirable, well planned, et . Everything looks like it should. What is not clear is how the content will be shared, is it the course as a bundle, is it unbundled, can one use pieces?? It also begs the questions others have [...]

From the folks at the University of Denver Portfolio Community: The University of Denver Portfolio Community is a comprehensive electronic portfolio system that supports individual, course, and community portfolios and curriculum assessment. This session will discuss the DUPC’s development and lessons learned during its implementation and compare it to other electronic portfolio systems.. Began work in mid 1990s in school of communication. No commercial products then, so they did a home grown system. Note to presenters- Nearly all presentations wade through word slides of background info, etc before getting to a rushed and hurried demo. Always start with the demo, give us a visual. grab our attention…. then wade through the bullet points.

A solid session by Terry Thompson with University of Washington’s National Center on Accessible Information Technology in Education on the concept if Universal Design for web content. (excuse the post-blogging– the wireless in the session room is not there or off the map). The materials and the resources on the AccessIT site are worth a bookmark or furl. Interesting that the concept started with design of buildings and has moved into web design. This is not just about addressing the needs of people with disabilities, but now embraces the various types of devices now used for getting web content- dealing with small screens (phones, PDAs), speech/audio interfaces (voice recognition in autos/telephone systems), devices lacking mouse capability (cannot hover with a stylus) noisy environments (where audio cannot be heard), and noiseless environments (where audio should not be heard, Shhhhhh). A core is the separation of content and formatting, a core principle. [...]

Today, Brian Lamb and I pulled of another rollercoaster wild ride presentation, one that more or less emerged and arose from the primordial soup of our minds 2 weeks ago, The long scrolling title for today’s pre-conference Seminar was “Decentralization of Learning Resources: Syndicating Learning Objects Using RSS, Trackback, and Related Technologies” where we initially planned to focus on using RSS, Trackback, etc to connect learning objects (someone done before). It has been under wraps because, well it was infested with typos and half baked ideas, but now we release the presentation in its wiki-form: http://careo.elearning.ubc.ca/wiki?ObjectsEducause04 We spun it around recently to more of a take on the Rip Mix. Feed concept for collecting information from numerous sources (via RSS?), using social filtering tools or RSS to “mix” them into new forms, and then Feed the, back as new content or re-syndicated content. It began with some playful fun at the [...]

So this is Denver… It is not secret, but the Denver airport is an entire city unto itself. You get off a plane, get on a train, hop on a boat, cross a mountain… and then wait 40 minutes, praying, for your luggage. Then, you find out the airport is so far east of the city, you think you are in Kansas. But I am not complaining. Apparently the number of people coming into town for the EDUCAUSE conference swamped SuperShuttle (“our next van will be here in an hour”). But outside are plenty of other operators, and once the drive realized he could not hawk the last open seat on the van, we were on our way. But I am not complaining. Big hotel, free high speed internet. I am definitely not complaining. The electrical outlets are are installed upside down. I did that by accident in by house, [...]

In a few clicks, I’m off to the airport for Denver heading there for the EDUCAUSE 2004 Conference Extravaganza. With good wireless connectivity, I hope to blog what I can. Tomorrow Brian and I will be rounding up some objects in our pre-conference seminar, “Decentralization of Learning Resources: Syndicating Learning Objects Using RSS, TrackBack, and Related Technologies”. More on that after the fact, jack. But it will be wild and full of action, so bring your meta data down to the OK Corral… After that, it is 3 days of the typical big conference show, lots of sessions, hawkers in the vendor pens, most people reading email via the wireless. This is one big show, last time I went I think it was 6000+ attendees. If you are there, give me a yell or look me up iChat. Giddyup!

Under the powerful Google umbrella, Blogger.com is a huge player in the blog-verse offering totally free, hosted blogs, and they are now even looking less cheesy than a few years back. But for being the heavy weight, they are keeping RSS Feeds a hidden gem only known to those that care to put on their geek headlamps and peer inside the cave. What do I mean? By default, all Blogger blogs automatically generate RSS. You do not even know it is happening. But here is the kicker… the default publishing templates all lack the tiny bit of HTML that would make them visible. The templates lack a link to the RSS Feeds that are published anyhow. Thousands of Feeds lie there totally alone, shivering in the cold. For example, Stephen Downes recently noted today Scot Aldred’s new e-learning blog. Dude, where’s my feed? It is not to be linked anywhere [...]

Over at Kairosnews, blacklily8 has some strong words about the new found obsession with wikis: Wikis are one of those internet phenomena that are confusing, intruiging, powerful, and often misunderstood. Many users and even some programmers of wiki software have missed the point completely, and from what I’ve observed in scholarly discussions on the subject, most teachers “using wikis in the classroom” are so far off the mark that I am at a loss whether to laugh or cry. When I read these reports, it’s like reading about how someone completely and utterly failed to use their shiny new Ferrari to properly tow a horse trailer. What I’m saying is that people are so confused and misinformed about wikis, both practically and philosophically, that they are abusing the term to the point of doing a major disservice to the true wiki community. To address this wretched situation, I have decided [...]