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Friday, February 28, 2003 |
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BLKBRD-L: 2003 Blackboard Users Conference Notes. Most particularly, see the Word Document posted at the end. I forget if this archive is password protected. Is it? 2:56:04 PM 
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SCORM Skin viewer (2002 Albert Ip). Quote: "The technique demonstrated here is part of a larger vision to enable practical re-use. It has been a problem in real re-use of SCO because a course assembled using SCOs from different courses may have vastly different look and feel. This technique demonstrates how the look and feel can be requested from a template." Comment:via edtechpost. Nice execution. I posited something like this in a discussion on CETIS about the SCORM Dynamic Appearance Model. Nice to see it happening. 2:56:04 PM
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Stephen's Web: MLX, RSS and learning object syndication. Quote: "But the day has arrived. In today's newsletter are links to two institutional RSS learning object feeds, one launched by Maricopa a couple of days ago and another set up at the University of Calgary today. These two, as I commented in an email to George Siemens (who, as usual, is right on top of this) are the tip of the iceberg." Comment: I posted the Maricopa link on 2/19, which is what I guess Stephen is referring to, although I think the resource has been around for much longer. Regardless, he brings together some issues related to RSS and learning objects. 2:56:03 PM
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Improved site search with Google and Manila. For quite a while, I've used Google as a search tool for this site - see the navigation bar on the right. I'm not using the SOAP service, but rather just customizing the parameters by restricting it to this site. Today, I've improved it somewhat. Because Manila has a number of different urls that represent the same message, e.g. mode=day, and mode=topic, I changed the code to eliminate the word mode in the url, using -inurl:mode The resultant search box code is (more or less): <FORM name=googleForm onsubmit="document.googleForm.q.value+=' site:instructionalTechnology.editThisPage.com -inurl:mode'" action=http://www.google.com/search method=get> Just as a quick comparison, compare these two searches for the word: "blackboard": BEFORE: blackboard site:instructionalTechnology.editThisPage.com AFTER: blackboard site:instructionalTechnology.editThisPage.com -inurl:mode This does remove a lot of duplication, I think. There are other url components, that I should also consider removing, e.g. viewDepartment or perhaps requiring, e.g. inurl:msgreader which would eliminate archive pages of the form /2001/02/02 and department pages which are compilations of existing posts. That will essentially enable each page to come back as an individualized result. Hmm... let's try it and see. I've also added inurl:msgreader and the results are pretty good I think. MORE AFTER: blackboard site:instructionalTechnology.editThisPage.com -inurl:mode inurl:msgreader 2:56:02 PM
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2003 Blackboard Users Conference - Day 1 and 2. Just a quick note (because none of the cybercafe computers have chairs and my feet are killing me), but the conference is going quite well. Many sessions have been overcrowded and people weren't able to get in. That was quite upsetting, but they've reconfigured some rooms today and it's improved (although not perfect). Free food (and drink!) is good, although trying to feed 1500 people in 30 minutes with a buffet is optimistic. I've had a pretty good look at version 6 now and they really have fixed major architectural issues and usability issues for faculty. The building blocks architecture really has traction and their standards support is promising. For example, "Big Ben" which is the next major release (I'd guess 6.2) will have WebDAV built-in, a spell-checker, better data reporting and they've put SOAP interfaces on the gradebook and some other areas (although only on Windows servers, I think right now). There are even apparently Shibboleth APIs in version 6 right now. Until I came to the conference I really didn't have a good idea what the Blackboard Transaction System was. It really has very little to do with the Learning System and Portal products and is basically a student ID/debit card system. Absolutely no use for us, but now I know, I can safely ignore it ;-) Eventually (not clear when), it looks like they're going to add CSS support and customizable layouts, but right now the version 6 features by themselves are attractive. The content management has roles, role-based security and content management delegation. There is also RSS support in the portal. The content can now be much more easily mixed and matched, e.g. embedding a test in a content page is much more intuitive. Also, content can be marked as a number of content types (including building block types), and automatically created as a gradable item. If I didn't know any better, I'd guess that the infusions of cash (Microsoft is an equity investor) have really allowed BB to pay attention to the content management marketplace and ideas there. They indicated that they are now profitable on an ongoing basis. Their support really seems to be improving, although our personal running joke is that the variously colored name badges indicate how many months you have to wait for a support request to be answered. While building blocks can be now written in .NET for Windows servers, I'd guess that most will continue to be written in Java for cross-platform compatibility. Matt Pittinsky and others have been contrite about the 6.0 migration process, which was meant to be a major improvement on 5.0, but didn't turn out that way. The major problems really only surfaced this spring when colleges finally got around to trying to upgrade. They're now basically saying that if you haven't migrated, wait for 6.1. They expect full resolution in time for Summer 2003 migrations. More 6.x improvements include losing those awful buttons and having the ability to rename them as text links. This basically makes the content areas much, much more flexible and Blackboard much more like a regular content management system. It will take a while for faculty to appreciate this, I think, but once they do, that left hand menu is going to start really changing across courses. Who knows when the frames will go away though...sigh. On the portal front, not all content is now hidden behind the login screen. You can have content in front of it. That's a big one I think, although not foregrounded here particularly. They're also adding an eCommerce component, so I think there may actually be some competition here for existing portal products (even if only in the minds of decision makers who like the marketing speak). They say they're 508-compatible now, although I have some trouble squaring that with their use of frames. There's an equation editor and a building block for a WYSIWYG editor (still not the best solution in my opinion, but okay - there aren't building block hooks [callbacks] for modifying existing elements as I understand it, so it's a content element by itself rather than integrated as a substitute for smart text). It looks like the underlying HTML is still the spaghetti from hell, but that's the purist in me talking. I'd guess that they don't get too many complaints about it, although in aggregate, the bandwidth consumption it causes is probably enormous. As I've stated before, I'm interested in Building Blocks although I'm not sure that I'm ever going to be able to build any - it's just the geek in me. There've been some good sessions and it's obvious that there's lots of interest. It seems that http://www.bb-opensource.org/ is still a little thin, but when you consider the price of entry for a test server ($1500 or something last time I looked), it's not surprising. Paul Foster (University of Cincinnati) and Sue Polyson-Evans (Virginia Commonwealth University) did a nice introductory presentation on building blocks, as did a group on a library linkmaker building block for connecting to proprietary databases (Claire Dygert from American University and Don Gourley from Washington Research Library Consortium). Although I mentioned Shibboleth above, one building block feature everyone seemed interested in is encrypted (Blowfish?) context passing from Blackboard to other systems. Getting some kind of single sign-on to college services seems to be the driving force. Building Block installation and development seems quite straightforward once you've been stepped through some simple examples. As I think about it, exposing the SOAP interfaces is almost more productive because you won't need permission and licenses to do interesting things and experiment with what you can do (although, I do recall that you need a digital certificate). They're already demo-ing MS Excel connecting directly to the Blackboard gradebook using SOAP - almost an archetypical application. They say that all the presentations from the user's conference are going to be online, so I'll point to that when I can, but I don't see them yet, nor really any obvious place to do it. Dennis Dormady did a great one on Linux performance tuning (mmm... website design isn't perhaps his strength :-). --- Personal/Social notes On the less practical and social side of things, Baltimore Inner Harbor is alright (what little I've seen of it). I've had two seafood meals, but haven't had much of an appetite. I (and my wife) were quite sickly at the weekend and I'm still getting back up to speed - all this good food going to waste - what a shame. My roommate snores at a decibel level beyond belief, so I'm not getting as much sleep as I'd like, but he's my boss, I like him and he's good company so I don't mind. Tonight is the Microsoft-sponsored bash at the Aquarium, which should be fun. That's it for now. More to follow...assuming we don't get snowed in and can't get home, which is looking a possibility right now. Meantime, I'm missing my 6-year-old daughter's birthday, but I called her this morning, so that was good. Okay, so that was a little longer than planned. Hope someone reads it! 2:56:01 PM
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Tipping Point (Con't, Again). Dear Mr. Richardson: Ok, I'm stunned. And happy. (And I hate the title.) And the best part...I think there's still more to come...soon. As an aside, Dave Winer in the latest Newsweek says
Weâre in a middle of an explosion right now. In the last few weeks, things have just gone crazy. Itâs unbelievable to see whatâs going on now...Itâs in the air. Maybe it is. When we look back, itâs going to be hard to tell which one of all the different things that are going on [had the most impact]. But thereâs just a lot more interest in Weblogs right now. From all corners.Time to watch, think, and plan carefully... 11:55:31 AM
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Move over Nicenet, time for phpBB. After working with Nicenet for a few days, I gave up and installed phpBB on my site. I'll be moving some class discussions over to a phpBB board and using it for a workshop we'll be doing for a group of history teachers in a few weeks. Very easy setup (thanks to Albert for quick tech support), attractive templates, great features. 9:51:12 AM
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The New Freshly Painted eBN. Pat announces the freshly painted edBlogNet site with kudos to Bryan Bell for the design work. Interesting addition of the guest blogger column a la Boing Boing. 9:51:11 AM
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Discovering Web Logs and eBN. I've gotten a smattering of e-mails in the last few days from teachers wanting to know more about Web logs and blogging. I think more and more people are starting to catch on to the potential, and I also think this is a great opportunity for "eBN" to establish itself as the support network it's intended to be. The new look Web site, the publicity of late, and all of our good thinking seems to be gelling together at the right time. "Anne" includes some excerpts of e-mails she's been exchanging with teachers across the country, and one strikes me:
Some say weblogs would certainly lead to some revolutions in publishing given the speed it grows. I'm not that worried. However, I do want to try some blogging. I'm wondering whether those who have tried can share their experience of implementing weblogs in teaching.That is exactly what "eBN" is about...I'm wondering if "Pat" or others have some ideas for beginning to gather that content, and whether we need to solicit some article ideas, set some deadlines, and just develop the content in general. Suggestions? 9:50:48 AM
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The Direction of Things. There is a convergance happening in my brain (a scary thought to begin with) with this whole RSS piece and the other nascent multimedia Web log work we've been engaging in lately. "Pam"'s been audioblogging, and today "Tim" includes a video clip into his post. in "Jenny"'s "Aggregating Your Life Into One Page" post yesterday, one of the comments she got was from Ryan Greene who said
Jenny - You forgot getting feeds from your favorite bands as to their new releases and remixes, new episodes of video and audio blogs, including the kid's school reports. I mean, why not teach your kids how to do multimedia blogging if the tech is there, and they have an interest in learning to use it? This morning, "George" is writing about meeting the needs of different types of learners, and he says
Text, interactive activities, video clips, Flash presentations, audio, discussion threads, chat sessions, synchronous presentations, reflective journals (or blogging), self-test activities, group presentations, etc...if these (and other components) are used throughout course development (within reason...and for a reason) and instruction - learners will learn.Then, Marc Canter, in an interview on the Corante site, says
5% of the populace (probably even less) can create. The others watch, listen, read, consume. I think one of the destinies of digital technology is to enable the other 95% to express their creativity somehow. That's the gestalt view. Digital cameras, story telling, assembling stuff from existing content, annotating, reviews, conversations, linking topics together - are all forms of creativity. That's what our tools are all about. There's plenty of image, audio and video editing software out there. Now is the time to integrate and aggregate media, communications and personal publishing.I always love when things just seem to connect like that, and one of the best things about Web logs is the ability to bring that connection into formal existence and to think more deeply about it in writing. (I need to ask my students to do more of this.)
I still haven't digested the implications of all of this, and I think someday it's going to be interesting (to me at least) to look back on these posts and watch the evolution of this still fuzzy picture into reality. How cool is that going to be? |
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eBN Getting Face Lifted. Lookin' good...time to start crankin' out some content for all those edublog newbies. (I just want to say, I'm disliking this lexicon more and more...maybe we should start by renaming all this stuff!) 9:50:45 AM
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Last update: 3/4/03; 02:05:16 PM .
