Latest developments on the Maricopa Learning eXchange
I mentioned recently how one of our faculty members had created an electronic portfolio for his faculty evaluation process. Well something funny happened in a very short time span. John was contacted by the link in his eportfolio by two students on the east coast who had searched Google for “online anatomy physiology course” and […]
The web elves have been doing some refining of our Maricopa Learning eXchange “packing slips”- mainly in the lower portions. For reference as we blog, see the MLX slip for the Correlation Meter.
We wanted to make the commenting function for apparent by embedding the comment form directly in the packing slip, and using what should be familiar as the kind of form one finds on weblogs where name and em-mail can be cookie saved. We also extract the most recent comment in display form on the slip, with a link to see the rest,
In parallel, you will find a revamp presentation (and under the hood implementation) or Trackback (described more than a year ago). Thanks also to Derek at Auricle for generating some ideas on Trackback.
Given that the word “TrackBack” does not really describe the effect, we took liberty to call it “Shareback” meaning if you use, re-use, describe, mentione, blog one of our packages on some other web site, we have the tools to easily “shareback” that information with the MLX package.
Like our comments, the Shareback area of the MLX packing slip now will display the most recent shareback, and link to more (if there is more than one). The Shareback display includes all pings registered, as well as more of an explanation of what we mean by shareback, and a web form where you can register the information if you lack the tools to do it for you.
May will be “MLX” month. Or “Mad Mad Mad” month. We will be madly tinkering to try and ready an open source version of the Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX).
It has not been of lack of interest that has kept this from happening, but shortage of time, staff (we are a team of 1.5 developers and plenty of other projects lined up in addition), and mostly, nightmares of having to actively support software development, something I have no experience or great desire to take on.
So this will be a first, semi-informal outline of ideas for “openMLX”, a request/offer/plea for those interested to get involved (maybe a sanity check). We will be working on a first prototype from one of our test servers, and run a test MLX for another department in our area, and (paws crossed), some sort of announcement at the June 2004 New Media Consortium Summer Conference
So here goes a few items on the table…
Yesterday the inventory at the Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX) climbed higher. As blogged earlier, the Civic Responsibility: From Awareness to Commitment Dialogue Day held yesterday (Apr 30, 2004) included activities where faculty from across our system submitted to the MLX their lesson ideas the involved some aspect of Civic Engagement- from a range of disciplines […]
Here is an example of how we are tying events, projects into the Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX), and using syndication technology to provide a service.
Today is yet another of our Dialogue Days, one day topical faculty development activities– Civic Responsibility: From Awareness to Commitment:
We are doing some tinkering soon on our Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX) “packing slips” to increase the visibility and usage of the commenting tools, which are relatively unused situated near the very bottom of each packing slip. Ideally, this is the place MLX users would describe their potential, or real, re-use of MLX content. As […]
Last week, we gave our online students an activity on Copyright and Fair Use: Do the Right Thing, which I have also recently posted in the Maricopa Learning eXchange:
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/mlx/slip.php?item=1264
The subject merits almost an entire course in itself, but we boiled it down to sending them to to excellent web tutorials:
(1) Intellectual Property Law: Why Should I Care?- Carlos And Eddie in ‘Rock Machine’ is a nicely designed site geared for students based on the story of the antics of two cartoon drawn college students.
(2) University of Texas Copyright Tutorial has a great wealth of information found inside the UT Crash Course on Copyright
They were to review each site, take the simple online quiz from each, and post a discussion board message about their “scoires” and what they learned. Unfortunately, it seems we needed to spell out very specific questions for them to respond to besides “I liked the site”.
However, our follow-up activity this week is soaring like an eagle! We have invited a guest expert, an associate dean of instruction from one of our colleges that has probably the most experience in this area. Dr. Mary Lou Mosley participated a few years back (as the only rep from a community college) in a national task force of educators and copyright holders to develop fair use guidelines for educators. She has a great presentation online called “©opyright Doesn’t Mean “Copy it Outright!”.
The activity was for them to pose two specific questions (related to the course or content they teach) on copyright, fair use, intellectual property– Mary Lou offered to visit the discussion area once on three days this week. This is also turning out to be a great example of the power of using the internet to bring in remote experts– typically people think of doing this as live chat sessions, but with our smaller class size and schedules, synchronous meeting is not feasible.
Some questions already posed:
Months of pleading, cajoling, nagging our folks to contribute to the Maricopa Learning eXchange produced a fair stream of new items, but the 2 days prior to the close of our “Great Package Race” is when most of the action takes place. This is where we tabulate for a 6 month period how many MLX […]
Another task that has had its wheels fallen off was my plan to highlight different Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX) packages of merit. We should be ramping up the loading dock, as we are nearing in the last week of our “Great MLX Package Race” incentive program (offering software prizes for college and individual contributions).
But here we try to re-attach the wheel with MLX Package #1158, “Are You AFRAID of Databases?”, along with a story, and a dash or sarcastic irony…
Since I barked about needing an Idiot’s Guide to Meta-Data, I have had some productive on and off blog posts with some folks that are a step above me in meta-awareness. Thanks to Sarah, who sent a link to the CETIS Draft Guide to Meta Data which shines some light on what some of the […]
