Everything that does not have a home, just a big old stinking pile of posts.
If you were unable to attend the New Media Consortium (NMC)’s Online Conference on Learning Objects iin October, you missed out on some great sessions and exchange of ideas, as well as a brand new platform for online conferences. All presentations were created with Marcomedia Breeze (in essence streaming audio narrated content delivered as Flash), […]
I’ve took a little twist on RSS to deploy it in another fashion here at CDB. This was partly to response to a post by James Farmer as he tried to find an alternative approach to blogrolling.
Maybe not understanding Radio as much as I should, I commented that it might be feasible to create his own RSS feed his blog could subscribe to. Not being able to clearly explain it in text, I decided to code an example on my blog.
Here is what I did- on my right side “links” i have a section called “Best of Show” where L list the title and link to my recent presentations. Until now, what I did was to edit my template every time there was a new one (and there were four this month).
I thought I could just create my own RSS feed for this content, display say the 5 most recent on the front page, and display them all on an individual page.
Now I can update both by editing my RSS feed. Simplifies my life! Here is what it took to pull this off in MovableType and the MT-RSS Feed plugin:
Here is an interesting use of RSS– Pheed.com or Syndicated Photography Feeds aims to promote the use of RSS to describe collections of photos. Pheed.com is a database of information about photographs available on the web. We present the work of photographers who have made information about their images available as an RSS feed. RSS […]
Following up on my nostalgia for ten years on the web, I also reflected on what was likely the first educational software I ever created, back in 1987.
As a Geology grad student at Arizona State University with a few programming courses as an undergrad, I was handed the opportunity to run a computer lab (14 Apple Mac Plus-es, no hard drive, one 300 kps modem, and a LaserWriter printer).
Upon request of a geophysics professor, I wrote a little application, Gravity Simulation (Talwani Method) designed to help students understand how a surface measured gravity profile (measuring variations in the earth’s gravity over a linear traverse) could help identify subsurface (anomalies, e.g. ore bodies, buried volcanic lavas, etc).
Exciting, eh? There is more…
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!)
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 […]
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 higher education.
She had our attention..
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…
Another option for getting RSS feeds into your own web pages, CaRP: Freeware Caching RSS news feed Parser Keep your website fresh effortlessly with RSS newsfeeds. Numerous options ensure that the feeds fit the look and feel of your site. If you already publish an RSS feed, CaRP can create a JavaScript version of it. […]
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….
