As hinted, I have just posted an updated version of the RSS to JavaScript service/code we created in April 2003. The new one is now called Feed2JS and features a number of enhancements- primarily an adoption of the open-source Magpie RSS parser, to replace the unsupported OnysRSS parser previously used. Magpie allows us to provide […]
This dog will not blog… for the next 4 days. I’m off for some backpack time around the edge of the Mogollon Rim, in the Coconino National Forest. Given drought conditions of the last several years, a rather dry winter, it will only be maybe a week or two before fire restrictions and closures shut […]
Mena at SixApart is fishing for trackbacks to share how MovableType is being used. Here’s another one for the education realm. My initial foray with this CogDogBlog has been to document our instructional technology projects that support the 10 colleges of the Maricopa Community College systems, as well as commentary on technology. This server supports […]
Are you tired of your current weblog software? Does MovableType’s new pricing make your blood boil? Sick of stomping spam? Hate your side bar? How much would you pay for a new weblog system? If you call before midnight tonight…. Well, there are not really midnight ads hawking blog software, but just in case you […]
My friend and colleague Donna Rebadow, teacher extrordinaire at Paradise Valley Community College, is spearheading an effort at “Bridging the Digital Divide”. As the Pam Te Project, she is hoping in June to travel to Chiapas Mexico, with a load of donated used laptops to support the education of Mayan students: There are 60 young, […]
Reports from the trenches on the fight against comment spam…. CDB has been relatively quiet since masquerading the URLs for comment scripts. However, two other blogs on our server, one for a college Center for Teaching and Learning and the other of an Art faculty member, were pummeled this week with the worst of the porn spam, and in multiple doses.
Some of the problem were a few things I had accidently hosed with the MT-Blacklist plugin, but these URLs were really attacking the blacklist model by various permutations on animals, fetishes, body parts, etc. I guess the folks making out are the domain registrars.
It is sure feeling like another nail for perhaps an MT coffin this summer
But a few positive puny, miniscule victories….
Today is my big catered affair. The 2004 Ocotillo Retreatis the 17th one for the Maricopa Community College’s “Ocotillo” program— something started to provide a faculty-led focus on issues of instructional technology. Ocotillo is a desert plant that is also the creative metaphor for what has been a dynamic and evolving organization over the years […]
Again, I should be working on something important, but for idle curiosity I was fishing in the Ocean Google to try and find where other folks have been using our RSS To Javascript code/service: http://www.google.com/search?q=rss2js.php%3Fsrc%3D It is an interesting mmix of people running off of our server as well as running it on their own […]
I’ve been in a number of collaboration initiatives that aim to use online collaboration tools or “virtual community building” and sometimes it feels like the frustration of combing through one of those 90 function multi-tools when all you really need is a basic knife.
While not convinced the tools make or break the projects (it has more to do with the people, the motivation, a shared purpose, the gravitational pull of Saturn ;-), it sure seems like the tools often get in the way rather than enabling. The creaky 1990s vintage “Worktools” used, or attempted in use last year by the Learning Objects Virtual Community of Practice (LOVCOP) as well as the ePortfolios VCOP (E-PAC) had brief pulses of activity last year, but are now online ghost-towns. Was it the tools fault? I would not know, but I can vouch that the sheer tediousness of using them compelled me not to extend an effort (email notifications of discussions posted- you had to log in, navigate and open threads to even find them) and not many others spent time inside these multi-tool. sites. Worktools was likely a fine effort in the early days of web-based forums, but to me it was the equivalent of a Model T on the autobahn.
So what has happened?
A perception is that weblogs are primarily for teen angst diaries, obsessions on favorite pets, or rantings of the extreme lunatic fringe (hey, I think pretty much describes my blog!). I’ve been tinkering here and there with a demonstration case that the tools and features blog can be harnessed to simplify the creation of beautiful and/or useful web sites by every day folks, not just techies, programmers, and designers.
The current site for Low Threshold Applications (LTA), is designed to provide mainly for an audience of non technical teachers, a collection of detailed tips on non threatening ways to use information technology in a beneficial manner. All very good stuff, goal-wise. But the web site falls short on design and functionality, so we have set up a blog published demo to put side by side….
