CogBlogged from ‘March, 2005’

My colleagues and I had another full on day of absorbing and observing at MIT. the night before, our host and contact Phil Long took us to an outstanding Afghan restaurant in Cambridge, called Helmand. Friday started with a bit of blue sky, but the snow did not wait long to start its thing. In the morning we met with Ben Brophy who is working on the user interface and design guides for the Sakai project, the open source course management system being developed by Indiana, Michigan, Stanford, and a bunch of other heavyweight universities. You cannot tell a whole lot about a system in a quick demo, but I can vouch it exists, that many great minds and hands are working on it. The gradebook is just being worked on, but we saw a bit of course content, the discussion boards, the “MyWorkspace” portal like view. There is much [...]

Interested in wikis, but turned off by the geeky interface, the technical set up hurdle, or the fear of spam? You’ve got company. But I just quickly scanned Jotspot, billed as “the application wiki”. From what I can scan, it is a second generation wiki offering a WYSIWIG editing interface (“Nothing new to learn. If you can use Microsoft Word, you can use JotSpot”), an ability to post by emailing a wiki page (“Every page is an Inbox. Simply “CC:” a wiki page and the email is automatically attached to that page”), and the integration of web forms and other sorts of interactions that suggest it can be used for not just managing content, but creating some web applications (“Jot Spot enables you to build applications, not just pages)”. This is just a quick surf, but I’m headed back later to dive deeper. Don’t be put off by the business [...]

This is a nice feature on the MIT web site– Propose a Graphic: We encourage the MIT community and the public to submit images or designs for the MIT home page. Like open source software, the MIT home page improves with each individual’s contribution. The designer of each day’s image is credited on the home page itself.We encourage the MIT community and the public to submit images or designs for the MIT home page. Like open source software, the MIT home page improves with each individual’s contribution. The designer of each day’s image is credited on the home page itself. Today’s design featured a ‘corny’ theme: The tag line reads: MIT “open source” cafe: because students can’t live on Linux kernels alone Nicely done! Check out the rest…

I’ve been in the sub-arctic zone known as “Boston” since Wednesday (hey, it is 85 degrees back home!) for some visits at MIT. Yes, that MIT. This was set up partly to learn more about the iCampus initiative thanks to a gracious invitation from Phil Long at last fall’s EDUCAUSE conference. I am here with two other Maricopa colleagues, and we are soaking in the various learning space designs on campus, as well as what we can learn from various education, technology, media projects that seem to ooze out of every place on campus. But the really scary part was when Phil asked me to provide a presentation for the “CrossTalk Seminar on Educational Change” today…. me, some hick from Arizona. As mentioned in the Ed Tech Times (hey, MIT is using blogs for publishing, cool) I attempted to roll a bunch of projects into one show: Jackalopes, Ocotillos, Learning [...]

My editor is breathing down my back (considering it is like 15 degrees this morning in New York City, that may not be a bad thing). No, I am behind on writing my technology column for the Spring 2005 issue of our publication, the mcli Forum . I need some help ;-) The article will be on the wave in the past few months on internet digital audio, meaning the new tools like Skype (and other audio chat), audio discussion boards, the rise of the iPodPeaple, and podcasting. As an adjunct for the web version where I like to pack more stuff that fits or can even be included in print, I am hoping to have a collection of brief “SKyperviews” or Skype interviews. If anyone is interested in being on the recorded end for this, there are just 4 questions: (1) Introduction, who you are, what you do, and [...]

This is curious and interesting- Everbody Posting is a blog set up to use the e-mail to post functionality of Blogger so that anyone can send a post via e-mail. Is it sort of a Wikified blog? A public wall open to graffiti? A Spam target (the email address is presented as an image to discourage auto scavenging, wonder if that will hold). How many “U Suk” messages will appear? Will it contain real conversation or just people playing? Who knows? That’s what makes it interesting. See the details on what Everybody Posting is all about…

We’re getting some great responses and interest in a second student panel we assembled in the last two weeks. Back in February 25, 2005, we had a 5 member panel for our ePortfolio Dialogue Day. For that one we even managed to capture and post the audio from the 55 minnute session. The following Friday (March 4, 2005), our Ocotillo Online Learning Group (OLG) convened a panel discussion with 12 Maricopa students, from 4 different colleges, to share their Student Voices about learning in online or hybrid courses. Unfortunately we did not get our request for recording in on time (no podcasts, sorry), but thanks to the detailed notes of Randi in our office, we have a nice set of student quotes and suggestions in our meeting notes. Online courses [produce better learning environments]. You have to teach yourself to learn what you need to know. You pay more attention [...]

Today was our presentation on our “Ocotillo” project titled Maricopa’s Ocotillo Evolves Again: 18 Years of Faculty Led Instructional Technology Initiatives: Since 1987, Ocotillo has been a faculty led initiative to promote the effective use of instructional technology. Like its desert plant metaphor, Ocotillo has evolved again into four new action groups, leading a range of face to face and online activities in the areas of Learning Objects, ePortfolios, Hybrid Courses, qnd Emerging Technologies. Learn what the groups have done and see how they have used a “small technologies loosely joined” approach of weblog, wiki, discussion board, RSS, and streaming video technology to support their projects We had the coveted slot of 4:15 – 5:15 PM, last of the day, on a day when the temperatures climbed 20 degrees, the sun was glorious, and broadway shows apparently beckoned. Still, we had a good 20-25 person turnout, and in our tiny [...]

Whew! I found a stellar presentation session today…. all hope is not lost . Margaret Hvatum and Gayla Stewart from St Louis Community College presented “Computer Hacking as an Educational Tool” (no web links ;-): For education to happen, students must be interested and engaged in the subject material. Computer hacking interests students and motvates them to read, do research, talk in class, and present their findings on hackers. Since both white-hat and blach-hat hackers exist, students also learn to develop their own value systems as the class explores the topics of hackers, what they do, illegal versus immoral behaviors, and appropriate versus inappropriate use of technology. More or less, this is an excellent approach for a freshman new student experience course, where they learn some literacy, research, and writing skills. What was also good about this session was that it was only half lecture format, as the second half, [...]

flickr foto The Home for the Conference Bagavailable on my flickr It’s time to do away with the silly conference bags and the wasted trees contained within. The whole concept is so, 1980-ish I may get some organizational dings for this, but I am compelled to complain once more about the staleness of the educational conference format. Somebody please sticka fork in it. This League For Innovation “Innovations 2005″ conference drew 2400+ folks to New York City. The “League” (it always feels like there should be automatic trumpet calls when i say “The League”, like it is the “League of Extraordinary Colleges”) seems not to have changed its conference format since their first one I attended in the mid 1990s. To me the feeling of innovation is still lingering back a decade or more, like a high school jock at the 30th reunion still re-enacting the winning tocuhdown. The conference [...]