Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Online Consultation Technologies Centre of Expertise - Statistics. Canadian Internet Stats [Edubloggers Links Feed] 1:43:24 PM      Google It!.

Register: "Having risen to prominence as a computing innovator, Osborne as quickly found notoriety as the industry's first victim of pre-announcing unready products." [Scripting News]  the open source arena has its share of "just wait till next version" style blocking of adopiton -- BL 1:42:03 PM      Google It!.

U of T's CMS Selection Consultation Process. http://www.utoronto.ca/cat/services/lms_rfp.html Early this year the University of Toronto issued an RFI to select an organization-wide CMS. This site is part of the public documentation of the process. The results of the faculty and student surveys are of particular interest to me - in some places there seem to be a slight disconnect (say between the facultys' and students' perception of the need for quiz and test support) while in others I feel rather vindicated by the results (in particular, the overwhelmingly lackluster demand for PDA and mobile device access to the CMS.) I have so far not been able to track down anything public on the results of their RFI process, but this news item posted today on the Sakai site which states "Our intended long-range goal is to use Sakai as the educational platform for its more than 65,000 students and 6,000 faculty members. A pilot group of units (including FIS) have committed themselves to adopting it immediately and demonstrating its long-term viability in the U of T context" as well as the nomination of Jutta Treviranus to the Sakai Board of Directors seems like a strong indication of what the results might be. Expect more of these types of competitions to be happening in the next year as people are faced with license renewals and the need for large scale change management processes to facilitate product "upgrades."- SWL [EdTechPost] 1:38:47 PM      Google It!.

Moodle, Open Source, and the "Mission Critical" Bugaboo. http://moodle.org/mod/forum/ discuss.php?d=22640&parent=107125 One of the favourite weapons in the "Fear Uncertainty and Doubt" arsenal is the claim that such-and-such open source app is maybe nice, but not quite "enterprise ready," not able to support "mission critical" computing. And certainly, in the realm of Course Management Systems, it's one you will hear levied at all of the open source contenders. more... [EdTechPost] 1:37:25 PM      Google It!.

Why collaborate with Open Source tools: Corante Get Real. Quote of the day: Selling software is dead. [Edubloggers Links Feed] 1:35:48 PM      Google It!.

Instructional Blogging: Promoting Interactivity, Student-Centered Learning, and Peer Input - Stuart Glogoff, Innovate. Stuart Glogoff expounds on the educational applications of blogs—simple Web pages that can have surprisingly complex classroom applications. Situating his commentary in the context of pedagogical theory, Glogoff outlines the ways in which blogs can enable [Online Learning Update] 8:44:21 AM      Google It!.

Fetal Cells Nix Rules, Fix Hearts. Scientists inject fetal cells into heart failure patients for the first time, leading to dramatic signs of recovery. But the Barbados clinic funding the research is raising some eyebrows. By Kristen Philipkoski. [Wired News] 8:43:15 AM      Google It!.

Learning Technology. The April, 2005, issue of Learning Technology is now available and contains a number of useful (albeit short) articles, as usual. In particular, readers will wnat to look at CASLO: Collaborative Annotation Service for Learning Objects, by Carmen L. Padrón and two others in Madrid. As the title suggests, this article describes a mechanism that allows groups to annotate learning objects. Content is in XML; "Metadata can be used to describe, certificate, annotate, retrieve, extend or keep an updated history of a learning object." By Various Authors, June, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily] 8:41:30 AM      Google It!.

Merritt Workshop. Breezy coverage of an all-day workshop on e-portfolios at the BC Campus Workshop in Merritt, British Columbia. The session, by David Tosh and Kele Fleming, and the associated discussion brings us up to date on e-portfolios in Canada and elsewhere. By Jeremy Hiebert, HeadsPaceJ, June 5, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily] 8:39:32 AM      Google It!.

Apple Releases WebKit [Slashdot:] 8:33:30 AM      Google It!.