Just saw this at the NMC 2004 5 minutes of Fame- a nifty app for creation of interactive timelines- presentation is via Flash (of course), but data driven by XML. Created by the Center for Educational Resources at Johns Hopkins, the Timeline Creator is a freebie for downloading and provides what looks like a simple interface for buildling timelines.

Might the timelines be consider Learning Objects? What the heck not?

10:30:44 PM    

http://www.atutor.ca/acollab/index.php

If you weren't already impressed enough with Atutor, the accessible, open source LMS from U of Toronto's Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, along comes the second piece in their ever-growing suite of accessible learning technologies. With shared document authoring, calendering, chat, threaded discussion and extensive group support, ACollab is WCAG 1.0, Section 508 US-compliant software that can be easily integrated with Atutor to provide a powerful open source learning environment. Caution: use of this product may actually enable learning amongst an entire class of people who are otherwise discriminated against by badly designed, inaccessible technologies. - SWL

10:29:38 PM    

Many thanks.

6:27:42 PM    

Drupal, at its base installation, is a blank slate, a content management system that can be used to create a large variety of different websites. Thus, DrupalEd is preconfigured for creating a community site suitable for the online writing classroom, a highly configurable platform that better facilitates community interaction and collaboration than is possible with proprietary course management systems. Educators will find that this distribution, once installed, eliminates 95% of the work involved in setting up a Drupal site for a writing class, as well as containing some documentation materials which will reduce the learning curve for site administration.

The killer app for edublogging isn't anywhere out there right now, and the general consensus among those of us who actually spend time thinking about these things is that the tools are changing so fast anyway that in a couple of years whatever works now will probably be obsolete. That being said, we need to put together a comparison of current software from an educator's perspective, i.e. how much, how hosted, security, preview posting, ease of setup, etc. I think Anne may have started on this, but is there any reason why we the community shouldn't start wiki-ing this stuff into an edublogpedia? [Weblogg-ed News]

6:26:21 PM    

A reflective look at the forces affecting design -- style vs. usability. Many designers have been exploring the balance of these forces -- some vouch for usability and others vouch for style, but there's magic when a balance of both fits the real purpose of design. And to really know the balance, designers have to be holistic. This holistic approach is now widely referred to as experience design. Jesse James Garrett's map (PDF file) is a good reference point to experience design and makes me wonder if there could be a similar map for the elements for learning experience design or LXD.

6:25:20 PM    

Peter Morville takes on the task of defining user experience design using his honeycomb diagram, which presents the various facets of experience design: Useful, Usable, Desirable, Findable, Accessible, Credible and Valuable.

6:24:25 PM    

This virtual conference starts on the 28th of June. Among several other interesting presentations I'm particularly looking forward to one by Derrick Cogburn on "Going Global, Locally: Geographically Distributed Collaborative Learning Environments for Studies of Globalisation and the Information Society". The full announcement (recieved by e-mail from Tony Carr) below:

e/merge 2004 - Blended Collaborative Learning in Southern Africa (http://emerge2004.net) is the first virtual conference on educational technology in the SADC region. e/merge 2004 will take place online from 28 June to 10 July 2004 and will include associated face to face events in some Southern African cities. Our 2004 conference focuses on collaborative learning involving a blend of online and face to face interaction in our regional context of unequal access to technology. e/merge 2004 is hosted by the Multimedia Education Group (MEG) of the University of Cape Town in partnership with the Tertiary Education Network (TENET).

Our virtual keynotes are from Professor Derrick Cogburn of Michigan University on "Going Global, Locally: Geographically Distributed Collaborative Learning Environments for Studies of Globalisation and the Information Society" and from Dr Gilly Salmon of the Open University on "Scenarios for the Future of e-learning". Come and learn about blended, collaborative learning with experts presenting from Australia, Botswana,
Mozambique, Norway, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States and participants from around the world.

Other highlights include presentations by Maria Beebe from the Centre for Bridging the Digital Divide, Dick N'gambi from University of Cape Town, Bronwyn Stuckey from University of Wollongong in Australia, Xavier Muianga from Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique, Hentie Wilson from UNISA and Dr Andrew Morrison from Intermedia at University of Oslo.
There will also be workshops on online facilitation (Nancy White of Full Circle Associates) and Learning Objects (Brenda Mallinson and Greig Krull of Rhodes University) as well as a tour of synchronous environments (Robin Good of kolabora.com)

There is something for everyone with an interest in educational technologies. The conference is scheduled in four phases starting with the Big Picture (digital divide, theoretically oriented and institutional papers) and Case Studies from Across the Region during the first week. During the second week we have the Learning Communities (Educator and Student communities) and Learning Environments phases. You can focus on specific phases of discussion or choose just the presentations that most interest you.

You can register online at http://emerge2004.net/register/ There is a nominal registration fee that ranges from R100 for SADC based students and school teachers to R200 for other SADC participants and R320 (approx 50 USA Dollars ) for participants from outside the SADC.

e/merge 2004 is funded by TENET and MEG and sponsored by All Things in Moderation, Light Edge Technologies and Macromedia. e/merge 2004 is also supported by the Southern African Network for Educational Technology and eLearning (SANTEC) and the Western Cape Schools Network, Schoolnet SA and Schoolnet Africa.

6:23:05 PM