More on Education and Blogs...

Phillip Long is senior strategist for the Academic Computing Enterprise at MIT.  He writes a Trends colomn for Syllabus.  This month, he focus on blogs and provides a good overview of the trend.  But, his conclusion is most compelling as he affirms that when technology (such as blog tools) becomes "simple enough, and leverages a basic human need, like communication, it becomes ubiquitous."

But, even more compelling, Long wonders out loud whether we should call this technology "blogs" or "content management"?

The more I dig, the more excited I get over the idea of cheap, useable content management systems...

4:14:08 PM    

USG may benefit from Homeland Security Projects

Windley is blogging the NASCIO conference.  He notes Steve Cooper's talk on the Office of Homeland Security.  In particular, Cooper says the Office will focus on the following projects:

1. Wireless data
2. Public health
3. Geospatial data
4. Pilot projects
   1. 3-6 months duration
   2. less than $1M
   3. cross agency (different functional areas and different levels of government)

USG should watch this office carefully, as our GIS, health, and communications programs may benefit from these foci.

3:08:16 PM    

University of Phoenix and "Good Enuf" Learning

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education takes a look at choices the University of Phoenix made in construction of their infrastructure to support on-line learning.  The University has taken a conservative approach with regards to learning management and knowledge management systems which "seems" to be paying the for-profit entity dividends.

With respect to public education's efforts in the same regard, the article raises some questions:

1. Do we place any value in evaluating systems that are "good enuf" versus those with pedigrees and bells and whistles -- amenities that often are used by a very few power users?
2. How do we evaluate our selection for learning platforms?  Do we/are we re-evaluating selections given more current information?
3. Does our selection of platform and approach stand up under analysis when compared to choices made by for-profit institutions?
4. How does Phoenix gain cooperation from entitites like text book publishers to make available text on-line?  Does the "cookie cutter" approach used by U. of Phoenix fit into the higher edu tradition, or is the U. of Phoenix approach just electronic correspondence courses which do not compete with the substance and quality of education at more traditional institutions?

2:43:56 PM    

Random Thoughts

Phil Windley has a post written while attending NASCIO entitled Deja Vu.  The sentiments are universal.  So, when do we break the cycle?

I am beginning to "really get it" regarding the power of blogs.  My ritual stroll through my blogroll took me to visit Lessig's site and I was immediately drawn to the piece about Adam Smith and efforts on behalf of the New Democrat Network (whose advisory panel contains old aquaintences!) urging Cyber Czar Clark to avoid GPL licensed software.  I firmly believe that if the public pays for it, the public owns it (Twenty years ago a company I was with introduced the first PC based Project Mgt application using algorithms NASA developed for the Apollo program).  GPL is just a formalization of the public domain principle.

10:33:36 AM    

  News

 Cool Stuff

 Ooh!  Ooh!  I want one!  This company from Sausalito gets a write up in the NY Times about their effort to present users with a way to visually categorize all the stuff (text, etc).  Here’s the gist:

 But at a time when the valley's digerati are bemoaning a technology industry recession and the death of innovation, Mr. Hawken's Grokker software, which is intended to allow personal-computer users to visually make sense of collections of thousands or hundreds of thousands of text documents, is creating a buzz. The software is attracting significant interest from large corporations and universities

Dan Gillmor does an even better job describing the future of such software…

Searching across Web sites and hard disks, Grokker creates what it calls ``knowledge maps.'' Your searches become landscapes through which you can navigate. That's a wildly abstract image, I know, and it's challenging to describe without an actual demonstration.

But here's one example:I asked it to find Web pages that talked about Hollywood, copyright, piracy and fair use. It created a map showing circles in broad categories and circles within circles of subcategories. It was easy to drill in on areas that looked especially promising, merge them if I felt like it and save the results on my disk for future reference

BBC reports on adoption of computer aided music instruction -- an application that provides accompaniment to the instrument you are learning, at your pace.  It will be applications like these that drive consumption of bandwidth.  Practical, interactive, and easy to use.

Philosophy

 Steve Talbott has an interesting piece on technology and society.

 Technology

 Piece in NY Times on IBM’s focus on the “utility model” of computing.  This is a topic that is picking up steam and will certainly need to be understood as large enterprises attempt to better manage computing expenses.

 Also, a NY Times story on Mitch Kapor’s new open source project.  I think he is absolutely right with this comment:

 "I actually think the PIM is the central productivity application, not the word processor or the spreadsheet," Mr. Kapor said last week. "Where people spend their time is their e-mail and calendar," he said. "I've felt frustrated that what is out there falls short of something satisfying."

And, the PIM should be fully integrated (email, calendar with access to your desktop productivity tools – wp, spreadsheet, etc)..  Marc Canter chimes in with support for "Power to the People". 

10:15:47 AM