CogBlogged from ‘February, 2006’

flickr foto Pass the Sulfur, Pleaseavailable on my flickr

Last Friday was the February meeting of our Ocotillo Online Learning Group — the theme for this meeting (selected back in May 2005) was digital audio and podcasting. While the meeting notes are not yet updated, I’ve done a quick turn around on the audio recorded and posted them to the meeting notes page. Yes, “Podcast” is the big, electric magic word of the month. Hardly a day goes by now and someone is not mentioning it in email. I am now scheduled to do 2 college demos in the end of February. So no surprise we had a good turnout for our Friday meeting at Rio Salado College. Among the available audio from our demos/presenters you can hear about: Rio Salado College’s RioCast: Rio Salado College, the Maricopa college that specializes in distance learning, has just implemented a podcasting service for their wellness and diversity programs, as well as [...]

flickr foto Livre 2available on my flickr I repeat myself, but wow, do I love Writely, the shared web word processor. A few nights ago, I go an email invite to edit a Writely document– this came from Phil Long at MIT, and I followed the link in to edit a document we has creating to use as a demo presentation. How mind blowing it was to see his words appearing at the bottom of the page as I was adding this picture and some text to the top. Can your grandfather’s wiki have live editing by more than one person? I’ve been using Writely to draft some new project ideas for next year, and inviting sopme colleagues to help edit. One small, tiny shortcoming I see is that some of the people I invited to edit, merely typed in some comments ratehr than actually editing my copy. It would [...]

Last Friday was our February meeting of our Ocotillo Online Learning Group — the theme was digital audio and podcasting (look for audio to be posted Tuesday as the files are two big to FTP viq dial-up connection at my cabin). I observed something interesting that registered as an observation. One of our faculty was doing a demo on the computer, and needed to go to his faculty home page. Like many in an organization, his home page has a mile long URL that is buried several layers inside his college’s web site. But what he did was simply wild in its simplicty- the shortest path to his home page (and he looked well practiced) was to Google his name (he has an advantage of a unique last name). One click, and his page was first on the list. Google- it shrinks and warps space and time.

We were please to have as a guest to Maricopa on Januarry 27, Alice Bedard-Vorhees, from the Colorado Community Colleges Online. Alice is an experience online teacher, and was the recipient of the first Cross-Papers Fellowship from the League of Innovation in the Community College and K. Patricia Cross. She is an expert on engaging students in online activities, and shared her work that was part of Cross Paper 8: Increasing Engagement for Online and Face-to-Face Learners through Online Discussion Practice. So we had her do a morning workshop for our faculty as an over view of the techniques in Cross Paper 8. We don;t yet have a copy of her presentation online, but have posted a 60 minute recorded audio [13.5 Mb MP3]: http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/dd/engage06/bedard-vorhees.mp3 After this introduction, the participants went to tables according to the techniques they were most interested in discussion or sharing ideas about. They had about [...]

I’ve often asserted that blogging is a social process, that the mere publishing, caterwauling, prettying up templates, is only a piece of it– blogging is also participating in other people’s blogs. There is nothing that will energize a budding blogger more than getting feedback, and the impact is even larger when it comes from someone distant or unknown. It validates (or invalidates, or infuriates) a blogger’s writing. It says that you are not just spewing words out into the ether, that they land somewhere. And it connects us. My favorite example described by Matthew Kirschenbaum as “Comment Blogging” he describes the actions of François Lachance who lacks a published blog, but instead blogs in the comments space of other blogs: I can predict the range of theoretical positions such a “blog” (should we call it a comment blog?) might be said to occupy: this is blogging in the margins, distributed [...]

They are much tinier than their hundred URL laden predecessors, but the newst breed of WordPress spam roaches are awfully deceiving- these are all critters who had their little legs caught in SpamKarma 2 (only because I have set it to require moderation for all posts): I was searching the web and found your entry. I really like your site and found it worth while reading through the posts. I am looking to publish a comprehensive site reviewing many different articles and blog. Please feel free to take a look at my blog at XXXX XXXXX XXXXX and add anything your want. Hi my friend. I need to add a blog based on backup chart schedule tape weekly. Can you tell me where to get the blog software you have? Is is a ton of money?. Much appreciated, MYLES xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx Hi i am totally blown away with the [...]

I’m so envious of my Canadian amigos Brian Lamb and D’Arcy Norman– they’ve both made it as quoted by Jon Udell. In the same post. In adjacent paragraphs. In Opening up iTunes: Brian Lamb of the University of British Columbia sums it up nicely: “The Stanford iTunes project benefits from goodwill generated by the growth of open source and social software communities, even as it tacitly undermines them. … I wish they weren’t wrapped in an impenetrable cloak of virtue.” D’Arcy Norman, a software developer at the University of Calgary, asks whether these objections would vanish if Apple provided a Web front end and offered vendor-neutral MP3 files. For the most part, yes. And if iTunes U also provided Web services interfaces to enable creative remixing, I’d be wholly satisfied. Dudes, you rock! Green with envy here in Arizona. Congrats! The first round of drinks at NV2006 is on me. [...]

You just cannot sit back too long in confidence with blog comment spam roaches. They multiply, mutate, miniaturize, and just keep pecking at the castle door. If you have a WordPress blog that has hummed along nicely using Dr. Dave’s Spam Karma 2, you may have noticed a spate of roaches has been lining up your door and getting in. For more, see the details in The State of Spam [Karma]. It seems like the roaches have gotten smarter. They have an unfair advantage (besides being repulsive and crunchy) in that the code that SK2 protects us from is right out there in plan view. So now, they have evolved from script kiddies throwing piles of links with forged addresses, to single link incursion attempts that mangle some text from a blog post title to confuse you. And it is confusing. Side note- did anyone notice the rise in acne [...]

It’s podcast mania out there. I’m getting more requests for information, demos, etc internally. People are wondering what the implications are for the Apple iTunes U offer (I signed up, what’s to lose?). I have weak optimistic hopes we can move quickly past the “Oh, I can put my lectures online” flash of brilliance. Just the sheer mention of the “p” word has climbed in geometric proportions since the beginning of the year, and mostly attributed to the Christmas New iPod Effect. And as to more of this pre-amble, I am loathe to dicker over definitions of things… but still, almost before I left San Diego yesterday, I had an interesting exchange with Bryan Alexander, who asked me if I thought podcasting was a Social Software. My first thought was “no”. Well actually it was, “gee, Bryan is so damn smart, and I do not even have a good pat [...]