Monday, February 10, 2003EduBlogger meta tagging?. I'm curious about how others are using weblogs in combination with systems on their campus? At UNC Charlotte, we use WebCT as our web-based courseware. We are also implementing Campus Pipeline's Luminus Portal system. I've been working at ways to integrate Moveable Type and Radio into a WebCT course so that, in the end, the combination of the systems is invisible to the student. It would be helpful to have some sort of index of weblog implementation that is organized by environment. I guess I see something like the BlogChalking tag for educational bloggers? As I understand it, BlogChalking allows you to filter or search for sites based on geographic location. They also include some optional codes to indicate demographic information and interests. What if we had a similar tag (or maybe as a part of the Edublog WebRing tag?) that indexed information such as:
I guess the conversation wouldn't be complete if we also didn't consider the privacy issues involved. Would such tags expose individuals or institutions inappropriately? I don't think so, but I'm interested in opinions that support or refute the thought. [Stand Up Eight] 10:28:52 PM | # | |
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waves vs communities. Many systems and phenomena are distributed according to a power law distribution. A power law applies to a system when large is rare and small is common. The distribution of individual wealth is a good example of this: there are a very few rich men and lots & lots of poor folks. A familiar way to think about power laws is the 80/20 rule: 80% of the wealth is controlled by 20% of the population... [kottke.org] I'm seeing quite a bit of conversation on this type of topic over the past few days, primarily revolving around the fact that a very few people seem to get a majority of the traffic. To be completely honest, I'm not sure what the problem is. I think the "waves" that David refers to are quick to rise, but all too often they are quick to subside. I'm much more interested in building a community, and such construction happens quietly, over time. I'm fairly certain that the tools we use to publish and aggregate our ideas will evolve over time, but I am also certain that whatever those tools are, I'll be using them to listen and correspond with those who are working toward goals that are similar to my own. Serious applications of any tool, including weblogs, in an academic environment will require an understanding of not only teaching and learning theories, but the perspective that comes from having seen several other "must have" technologies rise and fall in the educational technology domain. I think Dave Winer's foray into academia is quite exciting not because I believe he'll be producing the most influential research, but rather because the spotlight he brings may help influence political momentum ("See how much press Harvard is getting? We could do the same here with very little investment..."). Weblogs are exciting because they are messy--community building is unpredictable and the power to build is decentralized. Such distribution of authority is behind most every modern application of learning theory, so the technology behind weblogs may just make itself into something we can't yet imagine...we just need to figure out how to get it into the hands of our learning communities in ways that will empower such discovery and growth. [Stand Up Eight] 10:27:29 PM | # | |
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