Interesting things found in the blog-o-sphere
I could not resist coming up with a cute name for a blogspace for Steve Gilbert, Stephen Ehrmann, and Steve Saltzberg, all with the TLTGroup (Teaching, Learning, Technology Group)- hence 3 Steves And a Blog. This started when I proposed to the Charles Ansorge, the current maintainer of the TLTGroup’s “Low Threshold Applications of the […]
Brian Alger has been doing some nice reflecting on the concepts of our NMC 2004 “Small Piecess Loosely Joined” idea- recently writing about “Weblogs: Which Pieces and How Should They Joined? (NMC 2004)”… I would have written, but Brian’s blog lacks a comment function (I find that a gaping large piece, but understand that people […]
It’s been more than a day since our Small Technologies Loosely Joined session and Brian, D’Arcy and I are pleasantly amazed that 35+ turned out for the last session of the day, put up with a small cramped room with not enough electrical outlets, and a zany activity of task work in 3 contrived groups. […]
Holy _____! Over at Open Artifact, Randy Brown has neatly sewn together a neat package: phpWiki inside and integrated with his new WordPress blog, so it more or less operates as a cohesive site and sharing the WP database. It addresses some of the issues of trying to tie into wikis which typically have their […]
We’re closely watching the NMC 2004 presentation on “Small Pieces Loosely Joined” wiki, checking the changes.. but beyond a few individuals, it is a pretty quiet place. Okay, so I wrote a bit harshly on Martin for his own thoughts on the Pieces, but hey, I was bored! I fessed up and then commented a […]
Diffusing through blogspace, beyond our control, goes an upcoming “presentation” at the June 2004 NMC Conference, what we have cobbled together is called “Small Technologies Loosely Joined: Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control” that I am doing with colleagues Brian Lamb and D’Arcy Norman.
Here I will talk a bit about what we have in store, and idly speculate on what may happen. But first and foremost, what we are doing is hopefully blowing the sides out of the box labeled “Dull Conference Presentation”– for those there in Vancouver, come and get a seat early because this will be hands on and likely out of control. But you do not need a bus ticket to participate, we have set up a loosely joined set of technologies (wikis+blogs+chat) that will allow anyone online to step up and actively participate, and the gates are open now.
Read on…
From some previous visits with excellent learning leaders in Australia and continued contacts with colleagues there, I was asked to be audio interviewed online June 2 (here) via the LearningTimes site “Live Session: RSS, Blogging and What it Means for Teaching and Learning” (It is free, but you need to join LearningTimes): Participate in this […]
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 […]
Somewhere in the aggregator today came a pointer to a new blog search tool, BlogPulse
BlogPulse is an “automated trend discovery system for blogs. Blogs, a term that is short for weblogs, represent the fastest-growing medium of personal publishing and the newest method of individual expression and opinion on the Internet. BlogPulse applies machine-learning and natural-language processing techniques to discover trends in the highly dynamic world of blogs… It is a one-stop portal for finding out what bloggers are saying on topics of interest to you or on your beat…. Perhaps you want to find out the latest, greatest memes and trends in the blogosphere—you’ve come to the right place. Check out our daily Analysis and Trends.
And it seems to support Google-like searches, well at least putting quotes around words for a phrase search, for example, my own BlogPulse on “learning objects”.
But wait a minute- when you search from BlogPulse, you are not provided a savable URL like Google, which allows you to create your own “Google Links” ( that links to an MLX package “how to”). The reason is on the techie side, but it boils down to how the FORM tags are set up- a method=”POST” option does not return the query appeneded to the search URL (like BlogPulse), while the GET method supplied by Google will return the results with a full URL that allows you to regenerate the results.
This is an incredible feat that Google provides, whether it was their intent to do so or not. Any search result from Google can be repeated by the URL of the search results page. Copy / Paste and you have a new Google Link
This is a small trick I have used for years, but as a Happy Friday bonus, I present my strategy for going from a POST to a GET…
Nice…. “Blogs and RSS- Tools for Creating, Collecting, and Sharing Ideas Online” , presented as a WebQuest: “Learn about tools that will forever change the way you gather information online and separate the online publishing from the technical hurdles typically associated with running a web site” This has your basic components of a webquest, a […]
