Monday, July 29, 2002

BlogChalking Google! DayPop! This is my blogchalk: English, United States, Charlotte, University City, Dale, Male, 31-35! 4:57:04 PM    comment []

Feature Requests for Radio: Multiple Delivery Modes I would like to use Radio as my communications hub. For this to happen, I must be able to send and receive "messages" in multiple formats. The ability of Radio to simultaneously distribute information in RSS and HTML format so naturally is a primary strength of the tool. Couple that with the ability to designate multiple "categories" for a single message and you really begin to realize tremendous capabilities. Having had my initial fix, I want more. Specifically, I want a configuration page for each category that allows me to designate targets for that specific feed. Currently, I can have the content rendered to HTML, and an RSS feed is automatically generated as well. My dreams would be realized if I could also indicate: an email address to receive a copy of the post (IM mirror?) an FTP server to mirror the HTML post another Radio/Manila site to "share" the post The email address option, to my knowlege, does not exist in this simple of a format. I use the News2mail tool to receive email digests of my news subscriptions, so I am sure that the functionality is possible. I am not a programmer, however, and my attempts to solve this problem have been very disappointing. The FTP option can be managed by manipulating the #upstream.xml file within any given category folder. This assumes that you only have one destination in mind for the content. It would be wonderful to be able to specify it at this level, with this kind of simplicity. With the addition of the Multi-Author Weblog Tool, Radio allows for collaborative posting, but it is still a bit more limited than I'd prefer. Allowing a category to "push" to a weblog serving as an aggregator (with security managed via Editing Priveleges or something similar) seems like it would work for me. Mostly, I'm writing here to compile the ideas I've been working on. I'd love to discuss it with anyone interested in similar functionality. 1:48:29 PM    comment []

Limitations of Course Management Systems Course Management Systems are too "closed". The default settings on our campus WebCT server do not allow anyone who is not a registered member of a given course to view the material. There is also not much provision (in my limited experience) for sharing a unit of data with multiple courses. To address some of these issues, I've been working for a while now on ways to integrate weblogs into a CMS like WebCT. The simplest approach I've thought of so far is to have a link in the WebCT template (call it "News", "Updates", or "Course Weblog") and simply load the weblog content (located on a community server somewhere) into the main frame of the course environment. Using a template that works with the WebCT template helps as well. More to come... 1:07:25 PM    comment []

Here I am... Well, I've gone and done it. I've decided to create a personal weblog and share it with the world. I've been using Frontier/Manila/Radio extensively for quite a while, but most of my efforts have been focused on the creation of internal environments for the exchange of knowledge in a higher education setting. I have been a loyal reader of Dave Winer's Scripting News for ages, and have recently become an avid reader of Jenny Levine's Shifted Librarian, David Carter-Tod's Serious Instructional Technology, and many more (I'll get a blogrolling section going soon). I find I spend so much time trying to communicate the value and potential of weblogs to an internal audience that I haven't really become a part of the community that has been so essential in forming my current opinions. I'm not sure where it will all end up, but here I am, throwing my hat into the ring... BTW, I chose my title because of a favorite Japanese proverb of mine... "Nana korobi ya oki", which means "Fall down seven times, stand up eight." 12:19:03 PM    comment []