Latest developments on the Maricopa Learning eXchange
Here is a sneaky dog’s first peek at Learning Objects: Believe It or Not!, the gist of what I am presenting 1:00 PM Friday as part of the “Learning Objects Lounge” at the EDUCAUSE/NLII Focus Session on Learning Objects. Please do not alert the lawyers for the Ripley’s enterprise. It was an irresistable metaphor. Actually […]
Our learning object bloggers Lora and Boris are making a second appearance at the October 14-17 NMC Online Conference on Learning Objects. Taking to a new level their story presented at MERLOT 2003, a garden varierty PowerPoint, for the NMC conference they have speaking parts as well, as the presentation appears via Macromedia Breeze, the […]
There is almost nothing more cliche than a Field of Dreams metaphor “If you build it, they will come”, but it is all so fitting for those that get glaze-eyed at the potential of building a Learning Object Repository (ugh, I despise the connotations of the “R-word”).
But I can guarantee you, that if you build it, they likely will not come, and if they do the pace will be one that gives you heartburn into the night.
However, do not despair. What follows is a tale of our efforts of growing our own collection, the Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX) story. And what we have tried, including saying “please”, bringing out the dogs and ponies, bribery, competition, and good old fashioned nagging.
Our iincentive program for getting people in our system to contribute items to the Maricopa Learning eXchange ends tonight at midnight (and starts up again for the next round one minute later). See more about The Great Package Race. What we are doing is tracking all items contributed over a 6 month period and awarding […]
This is the first glance at a new part of the Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX), what we are calling MLX Special Collections:
As prototypes, we have created a few collections for projects such as Systemic Reform In Science (SyRIS) modules and an internal Learning Grants program.
This is all part of our tireless campaign to build in services and value to different programs and groups within our organization.
Bascially, all items added to the MLX now have a field in the creation form. If the item is to be associated with a special collection, the person entering it inserts a 4 character code (just like the discount codes you enter when submitting a rental car reservation online) that “tags” the package for association with the collection.
Once in place, we can do all kinds of things…
We just added a new feature to the Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX)– every person that creates an account in the MLX receives their own unique URL that produces a publicly viewable web page that lists all packages entered by that person. For example, my packages are one link away: http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/mlx/mine.php?id=160 If you notice, the results […]
For those not lucky enough to attend the MERLOT 2003 conference (any conf in Vancouver is worthy), I just posted the content from our MLX poster session: Building the Maricopa Learning eXchange (Using a Bit of Competition and Bribery). How do you cultivate the use and contribution to a learning object repository? We will share […]
We are flattered. David is aiming for a clone of our Maricopa Learning eXchange, and is added to the list of people requesting a copy of it.
We are not being stingy and would love to put the code out there. For the 10 years I have been web publishing, our MCLI site has and still does share all of its content, e.g Writing HTML.
To be honest, as it stands right now, the MLX is rather specialized (our use of colleges for organizing content, some of the file storage methods, LDAP hooks for creating accounts). The real problem is time and staff- the technical staff in my office is 1.5 and one is writing this right now- the bulk of the database and PHP integration development has been done by a brilliant part-time student programmer. This is Maricopa, not Michigan 😉 We just are not able to devote resources into supporting a sharable MLX as it would drain what we have available for its development.
It still sounds stingy.
What I would like to aim to do is provide a documented framework for the MLX, a downloadable version of the mySQL database structure. But someone else is going to have to sort it out for making a clone.
We will give it a try, but do not hold your breath.
That is pretty fair for the creation process. You do not see the submission forms, the user options, the inventory tools. The RSS creation is handled by a timed (cron) script, and uses a simple RSSWriter script for output. Trackback is automatically enabled simply in the template PHP that is output for each MLX item, but there are some background things like the MovableType Standalone Trackback code. We are working on a new content rating feature as well.
It is here. It is not on a board or two dimensional or a tri-fold, and features real packages. The Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX) poster session has appeared at the MERLOT conference (no thanks to UPS and customs goofups). It is all representational- a model train representing the “warehouse” metaphor, trucks representing the delivery of […]
Okay folks. We have polished off most of the rough edges of the wiki part of our presentation on What’s the Fuss abour RSS? and are here tossing it out for your viewing.
Update (Sept 3, 2003) The wiki has been spiffed up and moved to http://careo.elearning.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?TheFuss
