EdVentures in Technology
teaching, learning and change
Archive for August, 2006
August 31, 2006 at 8:56 pm · Filed under Random Thoughts
Anecdote: Things we can learn from dogs
Came across this in my feed this morning. Although it has nothing to do with edtech, it has everything to do with organizational behavior. Our own organization has gone through a tremendous amount of change over the past year with more to come. Add to that the start of the academic year and move-in this weekend and as you can well imagine, patience is starting to wear a bit thin.
Well, being a dog person myself, I could relate personally to this list. But beyond myself, this list has potential as a guideline for organizational behavior, if folks could relax long enough to play with it. All too often we take are jobs more seriously than we ought. Yes, there are important projects, deadlines to meet and customers to satisfy but in the end, when the books are balanced, are any of these things more important than the people who make it happen?
So take a moment and consider the following list of things we can learn from dogs. Unabashedly pulled from the Anecdote blog post of the same title:
1. Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joy ride.
2. Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
3. When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
4. When it’s in your best interest, practice obedience.
5. Let others know when they’ve invaded your territory.
6. Take naps and stretch before rising.
7. Run, romp, and play daily.
8. Eat with gusto and enthusiasm.
9. Be loyal.
10. If what you want lies burried, dig until you find it.
11. When someone is having a bad day, be silent. Sit close by and nuzzle them gently.
12. Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
13. Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
14. When you’re happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
15. No matter how often you’re scolded, don’t buy into the guilt thing and pout…. run right back and make friends
16. Delight in the simple joys of a long walk.
technorati tags:dogs, organization, behavior, relationships, play
Blogged with Flock
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite 
August 31, 2006 at 7:59 pm · Filed under Higher Education, TechTalk
My colleague, Dan Bramer at watersedge, beat me to the punch on this one. In our email today came this announcement from Blackboard which provided a link to the official renaming schema of WebCT to Blackboard Learning System. In our case, running WebCT Campus Edition 6, our new product name is Blackboard Learning System CE Enterprise Ltd License. Try saying that five times fast!
Our campus products will not see any naming change until we apply both Application Pack 1 and Service Pack 1 to the former WebCT application. But it is good to start getting used to the new name now as it is bound to cause some initial confusion among our faculty, staff and student body.
technorati tags:webct, blackboard, lms, cms, higher_ed, education, college, university, learning, system
Blogged with Flock
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite
August 28, 2006 at 3:33 pm · Filed under Higher Education
My colleague, Ken Kochien, has been blogging about the impact of web services on the slow to change behemoth of higher education. While he was talking specifically about the integrated suite of apps we presently utilize such as our Student Information System (SIS), Learning Management System, portal solution, email solutions, he wondered about the potential impact of new web services such as Microsoft’s Live.
In an interesting bit of timing, the buzz in my blogosphere today has been about Google’s new suite of apps. As I was perusing their site, I came across a link which targeted higher ed institutions specifically: Google Apps for Education. Google apps is the convergence of Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar and Google Page Creator with the intent to construct a collaborative environment that does not require place-based apps. The higher ed model is slightly different than the business model in that it eliminates the Google Page Creator and adds an Administration Console which enables the institution to brand its environment and manage student accounts.
And yet I wonder whether any of these types of suites will ever fully be accepted in this day and age where a good majority of our future students are already fully jacked in to the ‘Net and have already created their own collaborative environments. Will Microsoft Live and Google Apps ever truly be adopted by this generation that has its own way of staying in touch through social networking arenas such as Facebook and mySpace?
What could higher ed gain if it were found that it was unnecessary for institutions to replicate the services already being used by these digital natives? What might be lost?
Should higher ed be taking the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach? Instead of competing with and recreating artificial environments that mimic Facebook, should we instead be looking to see how we might be able to partner with and extend the capabilities of these already near-ubiquitous services?
These are the questions that higher education will be required to answer over the next few years.
technorati tags:higher_ed, education, college, university, myspace, facebook, web, services, google, microsoft, digital, native
Blogged with Flock
August 19, 2006 at 8:44 pm · Filed under Random Thoughts
Now that I have transferred my hosting service, it seems that I can now post from third-party apps such as the built-in service in my browser of choice, Flock. I’ve been using Flock since I heard about it in beta last October. They have come a long way indeed!
technorati tags:flock, blog, editor, post
Blogged with Flock
August 19, 2006 at 8:12 pm · Filed under Random Thoughts, TechTalk
I apologize to the small contingent that follow this blog for any flaky feed behavior over the past few days.
I’m in the process of changing my web host from HasWeb to Dreamhost on the advice of a number of colleagues who have recently adopted Dreamhost as their provider of choice. The biggest advantage is that you can host any number of domains you desire from one account rather than having to purchase additional accounts to support new domains. Additionally, I am gaining greater bandwidth and storage capacity than I previously enjoyed with HasWeb. This is important as last month I somehow managed to exceed my bandwidth allocation which I found interesting given the low traffic this blog sees.
Anyway, this has not been a painless procedure. I managed to transfer my web files and blog database with the assistance of my colleague Tim Haroutunian, and the Dreamhost One-Click Installer installed WordPress 2.0.4 without issue. However, my theme refuses to generate a feed so I had to select another theme until I can fix the problem - which accounts for the new look on the site. The Pirates of the Caribbean feel of Dapit Hapon 1.1 by Gail Dela Cruz is growing on me.
Additionally, I am being required to learn more of the command line interface via SSH. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as I really should be more fluent in this area, but to be honest it is sucking up a lot of cycles and I’ve few to spare right now.
I am looking forward to rebuilding my site and reinstalling Moodle, MediaWiki and ELGG - unless Blackboard decides to drop a lawsuit on the Open-Source Movement!
technorati tags:dreamhost, blog, webhost, moving, wmts
Blogged with Flock
August 18, 2006 at 1:47 pm · Filed under Higher Education, TechTalk
About two weeks ago I posted about the Blackboard patent on what amounts to the LMS in theory and practice. Many of my colleagues have been sending me links that they have come across and I thought that in the interest of developing a reading list for those interested, that I would include them here. The comments in many of these articles are perhaps the most compelling reading.
Bear in mind that I cannot attest to whatever bias these authors may introduce in their arguments.
No EDU Patents - Wiki topic
Insider Higher Education article - Blackboard: Bully or Misunderstood (8/18/06)
* Not the best example of journalism but it has garnered responses from the likes of Michael Feldstein, Stephen Downes and Dave Cormier.
SAKAI Foundation Engages Software Freedom Law Center… (08/17/06)
Portals Mag - Blackboard Sues for E-Learning (8/14/06)
O’Reilly article - Blackboard E-Learning Patent (08/13/06)
* Ironic considering the Web 2.0 brouhaha from last spring.
Chronicle of Higher Education - Blackboard Sues Rival Provider… (08/02/06)
Michael Feldstein’s Interpretation of Bb Patent in PDF format
Blackboard Patent FAQ
Blackboard Letter to Clients from CEO Michael Chasen
Other interesting sites include those collecting prior art in an effort to provide evidence that might serve to invalidate the patent.
Desire2Learn Patent Info Page
Moodle Prior Art
Wikipedia Prior Art
And one of the most passionate discussions is occuring on the Moodle Forum. You do need to register in order to view/participate but for those interested in getting involved, this appears to be the place.
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UPDATED Links:
From Boston.com - Patent fight rattles academic computing (08/27/06)
August 1, 2006 at 2:21 pm · Filed under Higher Education, Random Thoughts, TechTalk
Skimming my feeds yesterday I came across a post by Stephen Downes commenting on a post from Michael Feldstein about the announcement by Blackboard that they had secured a patent on, get this, the Learning Management System!
Dave Cormier had a great post and it sounds as if EdTechTalk will be developing a conversation around this very subject as well as the impact of DOPA this Sunday, August 6th at 8 pm EDT.
Then Will Richardson joined in with details on his Skype convo with Dave and metioned that
“the day the patent was awarded, Blackboard sued Desire2Learn for infringement…”
So what is an institution to do? One of the conversations over on the Moodle forum (requires free signin and you may need to cut and paste the URL once you log in) asked:
“If University X pops its head up as thinking about swapping to Moodle then BlackCT smirk to themselves as they say ‘you do know we hold the patents to the VLE, would you want to swap to a system we might sue out of existance?’”
I don’t have that answer but I have no doubt that it will impact the direction our institution chooses in the future.
August 1, 2006 at 12:46 pm · Filed under Random Thoughts
Sorry for the delays and inconsistent access to my blog of late. Although I have no idea how given the low traffic numbers, this site somehow managed to consume all of the bandwidth allocated by my HasWeb account. My colleagues are encouraging me to switch over to Dreamhost but I am a little frustrated with its user interface.
On top of that my feed was broken when I updated my Performancing Metrics plug-in and thanks to the Armenian Eagle’s help in locating the problem it was just easier to remove the plug-in since I use both bsuite and Google Analytics anyway.
Hopefully everything is back up and running now.
Nope, my dang feed is still broken. Back to the drawing board.
———
I may have been too hasty thinking it was performancing as that was the only mod I made prior to losing my feed. A Google search revealed that sometimes a fight between PHP and gzip could be the culprit. So I went to Options -> Reading and cleared the checkbox that asked if Wordpress should compress articles (gzip) if browsers ask for them and that fixed my feed. Very weird but that’s tech for you.
