This session will explore learning space design principles as a way to enhance and transform teaching and learning with technology. The principles acknowledge changes in our understanding of student cognition and faculty roles in the learning process. Well-configured Learning spaces make it possible for faculty and students to engage in active learning, thereby enhancing learning outcomes.
— Philip Long (MIT) and Christopher Johnson (University of Arizone)

(Alan’s quips in italic.)

Sakai is delivering an integrated open-source framework comprising an enterprise portal, a course management system, and a tool portability profile as a standard for writing future tools that can extend this core set of educational applications. Learn what Sakai has achieved and its direction for the future.
http://www.sakaiproject.org/

My comments: If I recall, Sakai is based on the UM Chef project, and “Sakai” is the name of a cook “named ‘Iron Chef’ form some cooking show…. (?)

I came to see what all the Sakai buzz is about. So did the 150+ 250 others sitting on the ballroom floor for this session– no one realized this would be a popular session???. Again another presentation that is 90% word slides, background info– where is the beef? the demo? that’s what we want to see, we can read bullet points online. It is like a “meta-presentation” – it is information about a project, not the project itself. I am tired of reading soup can labels delivered in PowerPoint.

Eeek. It is coming to my attention via email, comments, trackbacks, server logs, that more people than My mom are reading this blog (actually she doesn’t know about it). Beyond scaring the ____ out of me, I felt it appropriate to say that my writing here is almost exclusively for my own uses, to track […]

(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 […]

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 asked about MIT’s Open CourseWare project- isn’t there more to the course than then content? Regardless, I’ll be curious to see how these free courses are rolled out and received.

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 […]