Since the links can be embedded in other pages on the weblog site it is an easy matter to create a page describing the gem that includes a link. (Or, as hard-core Manila users know, a News Item may serve even better.) Now you have a searchable page containing a description of the resource with a built-in link to the original gem.

It gets even better. Frontier/Manila server operators can add plug-in tools that provide extra features to those who create and maintain sites. One such tool is the Metadata plugin, which puts full metadata fields on the page where one creates new Manila stories - making it a relatively easy matter to add metadata to the page wrapping the resource... if you are into such things.

[Update] I failed to mention the RSS piece of this when I first posted this message. The RSS feature can automatically publicize the fact that the new object has been created an made available. Those subscribing to a site's RSS feed will get the descriptive text for the resources with a link back to the original.

Weblog tools can provide the following:

Learning objects (by the way, I don't like that term!) can easily be uploaded.

They can easily be incorporated into web pages on the weblog site, either by embedding or by linking to the original object.

The page containing the link or embedded object can contain descriptive material concerning the object.

Plugins allow additional features such as easy inclusion of metadata.

The page and the metadata are searchable.

RSS can provide notification when a new object is posted.

1:24:59 PM    

Infovis: Conceptual Maps

"Conceptual Maps are simple and practical knowledge representation tools that allow you to convey complex conceptual messages in a clear, understandable way. They facilitate both teaching and learning. Moreover they are represented naturally as graphs."

1:23:49 PM    

Reality Check by I.D.: IT Titans

Reality Check is a monthly look at the humorous side of e-learning. Contributed by I.D, an anonymous instructional designer. This month's column looks at the "messianic complex" of IT managers: They feel they are gifted geniuses and (more ominously for e-learning designers and developers) they come to feel that they have expert-level knowledge in every field, not just IT.
[thanks Stephen's Web]

1:20:48 PM    

Column Two: An introduction to personas and how to create them

"This article explains what personas are, benefits of using personas, answers to common objections about personas, and practical steps towards creating them. It is meant as an introduction to personas, and provides enough information to start creating your own."

1:19:44 PM    

I'm working on my weekly InfoWorld column (this one will run in print and online on March 8) and I'm referencing an essay from Frederick Brooks (of "Mythical Man-Month" fame) entitled "No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering."

You just have to read this. I've read it many times before and referenced it in a column on web services two years ago, but the essay continues to amaze me. Although it was written eighteen years ago, the content still rings true. Just a sample:

The essence of a software entity is a construct of interlocking concepts: data sets, relationships among data items, algorithms, and invocations of functions. This essence is abstract in that such a conceptual construct is the same under many different representations. It is nonetheless highly precise and richly detailed.

I believe the hard part of building software to be the specification, design, and testing of this conceptual construct, not the labor of representing it and testing the fidelity of the representation. We still make syntax errors, to be sure; but they are fuzz compared with the conceptual errors in most systems.

If this is true, building software will always be hard. There is inherently no silver bullet.

Amen. Be sure to read the rest.

1:18:38 PM    

Stephen Downes is his usual sensible self in an article on Learning in Communities written for the Australian Flexible Learning Community. He lists eight things that make a learning community successful, of which the last is the most telling:

A successful community will have a sense of history. Such a community does not begin and end with the classroom. It is something that members have a reasonable expectation will endure beyond a particular course or class, and that the contributions and connections made will have a lasting impact. A community should have an archive, created by earlier students, that later students can build on.

And:

Probably the greatest misapplication of online community lies in the idea that it is an adjunct to, or following from, the creation and design of an online course. This is perhaps most clearly exemplified by the existence in itself of course discussions. In more institutions that I can count, when a course is offered online, the discussion community is created with the first class and disbanded with the last. The community owes its existence to the course, and ends when the course does.

My only quibble with this is that Stephen perhaps doesn't sound quite radical enough about this. Learning communities are not just larger and longer-lasting than courses, they are part of more than just learning (yes, OK, I think he actually does say that, sort of). For me learning occurs in the context of larger, overlapping communities of practice in the "real world". Some such communities, the "learning friendly" ones, are structured to make things easy for newcomers and are open to letting in people with new ideas. Others are closed talking shops in which newcomers can't start learning and old-timers never learn anything new any more.

1:09:09 PM