"We must put all our Word documents online." Eight words that strike fear into the hearts of web professionals everywhere. Why MS Word generates bad HTML. A free tool that fixes Word's bad HTML. Other things you can do to improve the health of web pages that started as Word docs (including talking to your colleagues who write the documents). [Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report]

I did tip... not because of the free software but because I want to see an independent developer succeed and I want to see textpattern live!

Reflections on WebCT.

Interesting reflections by Emily at Filament on using WebCT:

"My big complaint about WebCT is that it cuts students off from the real internet. I especially hate that the messaging system is not real email and doesn't allow you to email outside of the program. It creates these little communities and then abruptly disbands them at the end of the semester instead of allowing the continued networking of real internet communities." [Filament]

Absolutely! Knock down the walls says I!

[James Farmer's Radio Weblog]

Imagine an educator who has her or his students having a great debate or discussion online during a course and then..... where does this great conversation of ideas, thoughts, and notions go after the course is over... does it get "thrown out" like so many things these days? After you get into weblogging, you see where something like webct may be coming short and has the potential to be better than it is. or not?

I have been thinking about that myself when some of our staff have classes at the local university. I say.. why not blog your cousework as an option.. some are willing.. but the professor is another story. I do not get emails back from professors on this. If work for a class is to be authentic as it can be, the journey to one's answers and conclusions should be posted. Teachers can take the knowledge they have gained and extend and refine their thinking and practice as they work though the year. This is heavy.... Why am I, a elementary school techie thinking over a challenge that people who make a lot more money than I do at the university level, should be seriously looking at.

"Ever since the Web entered the popular consciousness, observers have noted that it puts information at your fingertips but tends to keep wisdom out of reach. In a space organized around connected minds, however, the search for wisdom becomes more promising." [elearningpost]

Another good quote: "What happens when you start seeing the Web as a matrix of minds, not documents?"

Good question!

[James Farmer's Radio Weblog]

Had to post this for the quotes!

David Carraher presents some valuable ideas; his Quicktime map attempts to integrate a number of players into an educational feedback matrix. JH _______

Weblogs In Education - Part II. There are barriers separating teacher education, curriculum development, and research about learning and teaching.

When I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago, some folks asked me to clarify my views about how these separate activities might be united.

Here are some "thoughts about an online course" (.mov 600 kB)--sketches about how a course in math or science education might be structured to address these concerns. The part about the weblogs comes near the end.

Sorry for being abstract. In the coming weeks, I'll try to think about specific implementation ideas for classrooms. [David Carraher] [EduResources Weblog--Higher Education Resources Online]

Cool

Good list of presentations from the Cetis Pedagogy Forum launch meeting in April.

[elearnspace blog]

Organizational learning.

Organizational Learning is No Accident makes an important point: effective learning requires time to reflect...and our "right now" form of communication (email, IM, etc.) doesn't allow reflection time...making it difficult for people and organizations to change (time being an important component to acclimate to changes).

[elearnspace blog]

My hypothesis is that blogging or any other disruptive technology tool may be appropriate for educators to put their thoughts and ideas onto digitial paper. We need more voices from the field of teachers who successful despite tbeing oppressed by politicians who have no notion on how to constructivetly help educators in the field nor about how children learn.

Right now, I am focusing on working on the Whittier School Manila Hub and slowing figuring out our Plone server. What seems cool about Plone is that one can show off as much as one wants to and yet maintain a private area on one account. Most of my time is spent working on Manila and catching up on the new additions. I am working with a community organization on developing a space we have provided them . I am also trying to document my march with Manila and Plone on our Praxis with Manila and Plone weblog.

Online Communities for Professional Development...extensive links and commentary on the definition, role, and process of developing online communities

[elearnspace blog]

Good Resource on a challenge for educators to develope communities online. Like it has been said, a community of practice is a way to start.

Analysts and pols are hemming and hawing about the propriety of Halliburton being given the oil industry of Iraq. Come on, this is too easy. Even if it had been put up for bid, Halliburton shouldn't have been considered because the vice-president was the CEO of the company before running for office. And it wasn't put up for bid, they just gave the contract to Halliburton. Here's strike three -- they still haven't found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. This is a scandal. [Scripting News]

Follow the MONEY!

Media conglomeration. On 2 June 2003 the FCC proposes to remove laws that prevent any single company from owning every TV channel or newspaper in your city. Learn more and fight back. [Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report]

Say no to the digital robber barons

Thanks to Jim Roepcke of Tyrell.Com for helping me install Plone to run on port 80. Right now I am just getting used to the way Plone works. Next is installation of a Wiki and RSS feed maker.

Frontier 9.1 feature list and release date. UserLand has announced a May 19, 2003 release date for Frontier 9.1.

See this page on the Frontier site for a list of changes since the last major release. [Jake's Radio 'Blog]

Jake Writes,

Hi Al,

I spoke with John Robb earlier today about this, and we've slated it for the 9.1 release. Keep an eye on the manila-dev mail list for a beta of the required changes within the next couple of days.

Thanks, -Jake

Yes! Yes! Yes! And it can't come at a better time! Big time Thanks to Sam Devore for telling us edbloggers that Jake was getting busy in Cambridge. Thanks to all edbloggers who sent email and posted info on the Manila dev group board. Pat Delaney was moving behind the scenes as well. Thanks to Userland for listening!

I'm re-posting this valuable article about learning Internet search skills from the Web Tools Newsletter maintained by the Education Development Office of the City University of Hong Kong (I first saw the article mentioned in the Ed Tech Dev weblog). Consult the home page maintained by the Center, on Web Tools for Learning, for additional articles. (Click on the enclosure.) ____

Internet Search Skills: Tutorials and Courses. The latest Web Tools newsletter concerns learning to better search for information on the web. There's now a substantial range of help organised as tutorials and courses for every level: in this week's Web Tools Newsletter, we look at some of the best available. [Ed Tech Dev] [EduResources Weblog--Higher Education Resources Online]

Book it!

Started a Praxis weblog on using Manila. A space to plan, take note and get a better handle on Manila use in my school community

Eric Soroos has released a beta of an FTP filewriter for Manila's static rendering. Instructions for installing and testing are in this message on the manila-dev mail list.

Keep an eye on ProductNews.UserLand.Com for announcements of new features. [Jake's Radio 'Blog]

Got this bookmarked!!!

Responses to the Question 7. Which personal characteristics support blogging?

Somehow I[base ']ve got into a funny style with this one :) So, the collective portrait of bloggers.

Bloggers

• have passionate curiosity and eager to discover new things
• like, feel easy, have a habit or want to improve writing
• care about passing ideas or [base "]paying back[per thou] to their community
• are not afraid to expose ideas at the early stage
• have a desire to collect, organise and connect ideas
• like explaining
• believe that articulation helps understanding
• look for a feedback and critical discussion
• like conversations
• believe that sharing and open discussion are important to craft understanding, to progress and to create a better world
• like networking
• don[base ']t mind or even want exposure

Some bloggers

• are introverts
• actively looking for new contacts
• [base "]have a bad memory[per thou]
• believe that [base "]if you don[base ']t express and talk you won[base ']t reach out[per thou]
• are educators with [base "]a desire to connect with the learners in as many authentic ways as possible[per thou]
• [base "]hate secrets and lack of openness[per thou]

My conclusions in brief:

Coming to the previous entry (posted on purpose ;): it seems that most bloggers belong to the [base "]knowledge seekers[per thou] and [base "]knowledge sharers[per thou] tribes.

[Mathemagenic]

Rob Reynolds over at Xplana has posted this useful piece that helps frame some of the issues an institution should factor in when considering looking at an open source solution to course management systems, proposes a rating scheme based on these factors and rates many of the currently available options. While I might differ on a few small points (OCW is not a CMS!!) I think I would also end up suggesting the same four products that show up in his 2 top 3 lists (CHEF, LON-CAPA, Moodle, FLE3) are the most likely contenders.

There are a few things I think we at edutools can learn for the factors he highlights as important (we allow reviews by features, but don't tie features to these kinds of factors in any strong manner). That said, one lesson I think we've learned is that you end up getting way to much clumping in the middle on a 5 point scale (mean on this was 21 with highest score 24 and lowest 17). But I'm probably getting nitpicky as it is getting to the end of the day - SWL

[EdTechPost]

Very good overview of what is available out there in Open Source.

MetaMap - Graphical Map of Metadata and other Standards Initiatives.

"The MetaMap is a pedagogical graphic which takes the form of a subway map. Its aim is to help the information science community to understand metadata standards, sets, and initiatives of interest in this area."

Now this is extremely cool and helpful - this map shows both what issues particular standards and initiatives try to address (the 'lines' they reside on), the media types they apply to (the colours of the subway 'lines')  and also the interrelation of various standards and initiatives (where the lines have shared 'stops'). Cooler still is that it seems to run off of (or at least have a connection to) a structured directory that catalogues these standards and initiatives. Does require the SVG plugin, and they explain why they have chosen this format. - SWL 

- via David Mattison's [TenThousandYearBlog] which I subscribe to, yet only found this by chance as his main RSS feed seems to be broken. Still, dig further into his categories as he is still blogging and finding great stuff.

[EdTechPost]

Ride this train. The end product of a university course. Nice to see where we have been.

Off to Santa Barbara til Sunday. National Writing Project Urban sites meetings.

Smarter, Simpler, Social Quote: "In some respects, this first wave of online communication technology adoption is coming to an end... [elearnspace blog]

Good Article! For some reason,centralized bloatware is something that will haunt us for a while.

MEANWHILE ON THE HOME FRONT.

Now that Bush is back pushing his reckless "class warfare" tax cut for the rich, Kevin Moore of In Contempt comics reminds us what's at stake.

[How to Save the World]

Even the General Accounting Office doesn't believe Bush Voodoo Economics. The GAO boss is a Republican and they can't figure out how Bush comes up with his conclusions

Last month I asked the question "Who's Next After Iraq?" among the 81 countries (shown in purple on the map above) whose people live under undemocratic, mostly oppressive regimes, many with WMD or the potential to produce them, and most with long litanies of human rights abuses. The retort to the "Who's next?" question is often another question "If war isn't the answer, what is?" It's a fair question, even thought it is obviously ironic when it comes from formerly isolationist neocons. Assuming the objective is to turn the purple in this map to yellow, or at least orange, here are the options, along with my personal assessment of the appropriateness of each: Military intervention - This is always the last resort, only to be used when there is 'clear and present danger'. It always leaves a vacuum, always raises the spectre that what replaces it will be worse than what was vanquished, is always the most expensive solution in every sense of the word, and always leaves wounds that invite retaliation and prolonged violence. It also runs the risk of military failure and huge civilian casualties, either of which can escalate violence and destabilize whole regions, or the whole planet. Military support for internal opposition - Same pros, cons and risks as military intervention, but sometimes more covert and cheaper, and often less effective. When it is effective, it's more durable than military intervention. Political assassination - Same pros, cons and risks as military intervention, but much cheaper. Also illegal under international law. Sanctions and embargoes - These almost never work, since they punish the people not the administration. There is abundant evidence that sanctions aganst Iraq have led to untold suffering by the Iraqi people and the premature death of half a million people, and had no effect whatsoever on the Iraq government. International political pressure - Always necessary but rarely sufficient, as anyone from Amnesty International can tell you. International inspections - The ultimate compromise. May not work. Never really given a fair try. International trials - Time consuming and risky. May not work. Won't have a chance to work as long as Bush refuses the support, and continues to undermine, the International Court of Justice. A mechanism is needed for in absentia trials and for bringing those convicted and at large to justice. International policing - Time consuming and risky. The counterpart and companion to international trials, this is more than just 'peacekeeping'.  Political support for internal opposition - Can be helpful, but rarely sufficient. Do nothing What do I think the answer is? It depends on what country we're talking about, how much suffering the regime is inflicting, and what could work under the circumstances. In a country with a benevolent dictatorship like Singapore, I'd do nothing. In a country like Rwanda a combination of options 6 and 7, and a massive expansion of the already-in-use options 5 and 8, would probably have been necessary in 1994 to avert the genocide by machete of almost a million people in three days. Instead, we actually reduced the UN police presence in the area, and some feel we were therefore complicit in the massacre. In Iraq, I believe the neoliberal-supported sanctions, which have caused massive suffering and premature death, have been as destructive as the neocons' war. A combination of options 5, 6, 7 and 8 could have worked, and would have sent a much more effective and UN-endorsed message to the rest of the world's despots, and the people suffering under them, than the cynical military adventure of the Bush regime. And this four-option combination might have actually led to freedom, instead of the Bush legacy the Iraq people must now face: anarchy, a crippled economy, military occupation, economic opportunism, deprivation and new tyranny. Liberals and Democrats must stop condoning what Bush is doing at home and abroad, out of political cowardice, and instead start offering positive solutions and strategies to combat the incessantly negative, fear-mongering agenda of the Bush regime. Failing this, we risk losing our own freedoms.

[How to Save the World]

This is a inquiry life and civics problem, if there ever was one! The idea is to use higher order thinking skills to come up with possible solution or solutions.

No Sunset for Patriot Act. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, wants to remove the sunset provisions from the USA Patriot Act, according to this article at Montana forum.com. (Thanks to Ed Cone for the pointer.)

The Patriot Act already has fairly weak sunset provisions, as significant portions of the law are not open to review -- in particular, provisions regarding new electronic surveillance measures. You can read more about what does, and does not, sunset in this Electronic Frontier Foundation review. Note the numerous sections of the bill labeled DOES NOT SUNSET.

But Hatch seemingly wants to remove any review of the bill, no doubt recognizing Americans' past intolerance of such abusive laws once the immediate need for them has passed. It is a shame we have anyone in our Government who would consider such a review unnecessary, given the sweeping new powers created by Patriot, and Hatch should be roundly rebuked by his constituents at the next election.

[...] Once in a while, you have to thank goodness for the extremists [^] or at least those people with steady, definable values.

Last year, when the [base "]moderates[per thou] of both political parties were falling all over themselves to hand sweeping new police powers to the federal government, a coalition of leftwingers and rightwingers in the House objected. These representatives were unable to stop the so-called [base "]Patriot Act,[per thou] but they did succeed in attaching a [base "]sunset[per thou] provision to the law. That means that unless the full Congress reviews the act and decides it must be continued, it will expire in 2005.

Now, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wants to get rid of the sunset provision and make the Patriot Act permanent. [...] [Montana forum]

[b.cognosco]

Shame, Shame Orrin. What makes a democracy strong yet frustrating is the idea that making law is a public event and the law can be open to revision. What is not open to revision are our basic rights as an American. What are these men scared of really? What good does it do to sell one's soul... Orin

I know from my parents who are both doctors, that things have been getting pretty sketchy in the medical profession here in the US for the last few years, but at least they're not this bad:

"...Four doctors and two patients, one of whom was paralysed and on an intravenous drip, were bound and handcuffed as American soldiers rampaged through the wards, searching for departed members of the Saddam regime.

"An ambulance driver who tried to carry Private Lynch to the American forces close to the city was shot at by US troops the day before their mission. Far from winning hearts and minds, the US operation has angered and hurt doctors who risked their lives treating both Private Lynch and Iraqi victims of the war. 'What the Americans say is like the story of Sinbad the Sailor -- it's a myth,' said Harith al-Houssona, who saved Private Lynch's life after she was brought to the hospital by Iraqi military intelligence."

[Jake's Radio 'Blog]

no comment

22 new or changed parts on Manila! Man Jake is smokin!

0 new parts added to Frontier.root. 5 new parts added to mainResponder.root. 17 new parts added to manila.root. 0 new parts added to prefs.root.

[lawrence's notebook]

The next Frontier

In fact, Winer is a software developer; as founder and CEO of UserLand Software, he created software that facilitates Weblogs. Not coincidentally, it's the wonder of Weblogs - simple personal Web sites that authors frequently update - that Winer is preaching as a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School (HLS).

Not only are Weblogs ("blogs" to those in the know) getting a buzz as the Internet's next big thing, but Winer and the Berkman Center think blogging might change pedagogical practices at the University and create community on Harvard's famously decentralized campus... [Beth Potier]

Dave Winer says in this article: "The idea of having a laboratory like Harvard University for learning about this technology is incredible."

I would rather say: "the idea of having a laboratory like the World Wide Web for learning about this technology is incredible."

To my knowledge none of the educational and pedagogical pioneers in "Blogland" can be found at Harvard... and if there are some, they are really trying hard not to connect with the folks that George Siemens recently indentified as Current Edu-bloggers. [Sebastian Fiedler]

[Seblogging News]

Right on Seb! Dave should know bettern than anyone regarding bootstrapping. Bootstrapping in regards to blogging crosses most boundaries. Getting and giving help does not stop at ones institutional doors. Quite the contrary.

I asked the following question on the Manila-Dev Group Website. Can one expand the profile member options in multi-author manila sites? That would be cool if we had an answer to that question placed in an update. If you have questions related to Manila join the Manila Dev group

I have a little theory about how this works:  You can't really buy passion-driven people.  You have to pay for them, of course, but they have to choose you.  Passion-driven people are attracted by many things, but one of the biggest attractions is the desire to work with other passion-driven people who can challenge and appreciate them.  As an organization grows, the challenge is to keep the bar high enough that critical mass can be maintained and new people will still continue to be attracted.  It's like running a nuclear reactor -- if your fuel rods aren't pure enough, you won't be able to get/keep the reaction going; but if you enrich and purify the material, the reaction is self-perpetuating.

.

[Better Living Through Software]

This sounded good in terms of hiring new faculty and placing in motion a framework of professional developemnt and accountability that lets that synergy happen between faculty. The problem is that the school day is too short and faculty are not paid to stay longer to reflect on their praxis. It is all find and dandy that the Federal and local government mandate so many minutes for Reading, Math and Sience, but what about paying extra for education professionals to meet and talk about the praxis so that improvement does happen

With Jake at Harvard working with Dave Winer on tweaking Manila, we should see more improvements quickly. Sam Devore and David Carter-Tod have already chimed in. Edbloggers, chime in at the Manila-Dev Group site. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/manila-dev/

I've created a page for people interested in beta testing liveTopics 1.1.3, please go add yourself if you want to get involved. [Curiouser and curiouser!]

Anybody want to Beta test Matt's Live Topics.. sign up at his wiki. On checking out the new Live Topics... I want to go back and check for accuracy my entries ande the categories I gave them.. Spring cleaning...

Already forgot how I found this - 31 Flavors of Blog - it was open at my desktop for the whole day.

Notes on the Background of Back-Links with a bit of history of Internet and differences between referer and Trackback.

[Mathemagenic]

Good collection of different kind of blogs that are out there.. Cool!

Exploiting RSS auto-discovery in Radio Userland.

I finally got to understand what RSS auto-discovery was good for by perusing this example page  [found thanks to David], which points to Mark Pilgrim's Radio auto-subscribe bookmarklet. Once you have this bookmarklet in your link toolbar,

Whenever you visit a site that you want to add to your Radio news aggregator, click your "Subscribe" button on your link toolbar, and it will try to find the site's RSS feed and auto-subscribe you.

If you're using Radio, you can try it out here, on this very site (note the sneaky tactic to get more subscribers). It worked for me, at least on the home page. Of course a problem is that not all weblogs support auto-discovery. In the worst case the button seems to just do nothing.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you could start on my page on personal news aggregators.

[Seb's Open Research]

This bookmarklet makes adding RSS subscriptions to Radio a breeze!!!

Blue Oxen Associates - that is, Eugene Eric Kim and Chris Dent - had a launch party in San Francisco last week with their first official piece of output: a 20-page research report on how open source communities function.  The report features case studies of the communities that have formed around the TouchGraph and SquirrelMail software development projects. It was sponsored by the Omidyar Foundation, the very same foundation that awarded a grant to Tom Munnecke's GivingSpace initiative a few months ago.

On the occasion of the launch, Chris wrote a statement of what motivates him in this enterprise. Here it is in full.

We live in a time when the decisions of our governments are made outside any appreciation for reasoned and reasonable consensus. Information is delivered to us, packaged, shiny, and full of persuasive power but often lacking in the awareness of past, present and future required to make wise, lasting and honorable decisions.

I am tired of this. I'm tired of feeling powerless and listening to my self, my friends and my colleagues, filled with good ideas, swing in and out of a lonely and ineffectual desperation.

While it took me some time realize it, helping to start Blue Oxen is my small way of saying I've had enough, it's time to do something. I'm here to suggest that we can make the better world we believe is possible: one where people truly communicate and communicate truly, one where ideas are shared, one where the goodness that is our nature is allowed to emerge, in concert with one another, our neighbors down the street and our neighbors around the world.

I want Blue Oxen to catch and enhance the building wave of people who have acknowledged that sharing ideas, openly and frankly, is a creative force for improving the world and for motivating action. I seek not a free marketplace of ideas, but a free community of people collaborating to create and refine new thought.

Collaboration is a fully buzzword compliant term these days yet it is still an undefined discipline. Eugene and I connected over a casually tossed phrase that I made in response to the question of what is augmentation for. I said, "To make me less dumb." It's now several months later and while I still believe this is an important aspect of what collaboration is for, my close association with Eugene and the members of our first collaboratory and the looser collaboration with disparate voices discovered by the simple act of making some noise has revealed a larger focus: Less dumbness emerges from open communication.

When the internet reached the public, it was hailed as a compelling democratizing force. The power of personal publishing was going to alter the face of society. It didn't quite happen like that. I remember being disillusioned as the significance of my own web server faded in the face of the shine, the gloss and the money of centralized media.

We are, today, thanks to motivated and idealistic people, in a new phase of enthusiasm. Systems such as weblogs and wikis and the developing genre of social software are birthing dynamic social networks that produce new understandings. In and of themselves these tools are nothing, it is the people who use them and what they do with them that matters. People are exploring, communicating, generating and accepting feedback; using their freedom to generate more freedom.

I want Blue Oxen to be an experimental gardener in this realm. Our task is to participate in the discovery, engenderment, development, evolution and facilitation of the patterns of behavior and process[~]and the tools the patterns use[~]that bring the ecology of collaborative evolution we need as a society. Our challenge is to see that the communication facilitated by collaborative systems continues, stays open, and creates artifacts that are accessible and reusable by others. Openness leads to shared and knowledgeable understanding, shared understanding leads to shared goals. Goals lead to motivation and motivation leads to action. Let's do what we can.

Chris is interested in the politics of collaboration, which seems like a hugely interesting topic. A later post of his is titled Anarchic Emergent Collaboration, and reflects on the ways in which we structure collaboration. Chris speculates that "emergent and loose collaboration is the most natural style." (which seems to resonate fairly well with Chris Corrigan's musings on Open Space Technology). Chris Dent writes,

"So I wonder if there are threads of connection that we can draw between extremist political theory (and history), systems theory and discussions of collaboration. Even if the threads prove ephemeral the exploration will probably be productive."

[Seb's Open Research]

Sounds good to me. A good read and a place to keep an eye on. Thier mission has my interest! It seem little by little folks are focusing on the getting great "stuff" done.