Virgil Varvel, distance education guru, presents ongoing commentary and notes on educational research, issues, and publications.February 28, 2007
Migrating to WordPress
Well, now that I'm at about 100 entries in my blog, it's time to look towards upgrading to more functionality. One of the best free options still out there for serving your own blog seems to be WordPress, so we'll be moving to that software soon. I plan to go through and archive anything of lasting relevance such as my book notes. These will be made available again when we switch to the new system.
Posted by ionadmin at 03:48 PM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2007
Entire BlackBoard Patent Under Review
Following a lot of debate, Websites created for this topic only, and a formal filing by the Software Freedom Law Center, the USPTO has ordered a full review of the BlackBoard patent.
Posted by vvarvel at 01:15 PM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2007
The best $6 billion Microsoft ever spent?
Although I usually stick to items dealing with online education in my blog, today, I was reading a ZDNet article that caught my interest and thought the others that take the minimal time to read my blog might find interesting. At a reception, Bill Gates supposedly said that $6 billion investment in Windows Vista was the best money he had ever spent. I don't even know for sure how to respond to that. Not that it cost $6 billion so far in development, but that they will still make a profit off of it eventually. That is how big the operating system market is. Even when it was hitting a low in market share, no wonder Apple continued to make money.
Read the outtakes with links to Gates' recent keynote at ZDNet.
Posted by vvarvel at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)
January 03, 2007
Latest from the XO laptop
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (AP) -- Forget windows, folders and boxes that pop up with text. When students in Thailand, Libya and other developing countries get their $150 computers from the One Laptop Per Child project in 2007, their experience will be unlike anything on standard PCs.
Read full story
What many might find interesting is that just like the floppy drive before it, the hard disk might finally be starting to lose its preferential status. These computers will instead use flash drives with USB ports for additional memory as needed. Remind me of my first Commodore 64 computer, although 512 MB of RAM is a lot better than 64 KB. They will also run on a slim version of Linux.
Also, I have to admit that I like MS Office. For all of the flaws of Microsoft Corp., they have served to greatly further the usability of the computer. However, this quote from Negroponte still rings true, "In fact, one of the saddest but most common conditions in elementary school computer labs (when they exist in the developing world), is the children are being trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint," Negroponte wrote in an e-mail interview. "I consider that criminal, because children should be making things, communicating, exploring, sharing, not running office automation tools."
Posted by vvarvel at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2006
Remove BlackBoards Patents
"A patent dispute pitting open source advocates for online learning technologies against Blackboard, the industry giant, became more bitter Thursday with the announcement that a formal request had been filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to revoke 44 of Blackboard’s patent claims."
Read Full Story in Inside Higher Ed
Posted by vvarvel at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2006
Educause Urges BlackBoard to drop patent. BlackBoard do not take kindly to request
The leaders of higher education's main technology association have written a powerfully worded letter urging Blackboard to relinquish the rights it gained under a controversial patent of online learning technologies in the public domain and to drop a patent infringement lawsuit it filed in August against a Canadian competitor, Desire2Learn. BlackBoard officials do not take kindly to the request.
Posted by vvarvel at 09:20 AM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2006
Desire2Learn fires back at BlackBoard
Desire2Learn has filed a response to Blackboard’s infringement suit. They claim that the patent is invalid because Blackboard knowingly refrained from disclosing relevant prior art (including software they had purchased such as Prometheus and previous standards work done through the IMS).
The company basically calls for that immediate dismissal, payment of their legal fees by Blackboard, and also opens the door for possible punitive damages...
This blog entry quoted from Smart Classroom
For the filing see inmagic.com
Posted by vvarvel at 03:53 PM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2006
Free iPod, sign me up
At South Kent College in Dover, England, College students are to be given free iPods so they can catch up on missed lectures in their own time.
Posted by vvarvel at 08:40 AM | Comments (0)
July 31, 2006
Finally, I can podcast with my 5G iPod
Although the fifth generation video iPods have been out for some time, and although they feature the internal hardware for stereo quality microphone recordings, there has until yesterday been no commercially available recorder to take advantage of these features. In other words, no microphone that worked in the fifth generation iPod.
Belkin released their solution yesterday, and having purchased one, I can tell you that it is awesome. It records through two microphones in CD quality stereo. You can also use a lesser setting if you want. The audio is recorded as raw data, so you can import it as raw data into an audio editor for quality editing. You can use the microphones as speakers if you want to hear back the recorded audio. There is an automatic or manual gain setting. There is a quick button for turning the recorder on and off. And, there is pass through USB so that it can be charged while recording. I purchased mine for $59 at Circuit City. They only received two in stock, and Best Buy had none, so they are hard to find at the moment. In fact, you can’t even purchase one from the Belkin Website yet.
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=277661
Why bring this up.
1 – I have no stock in Belkin
2 – I think that this is a great solution for those interested in on-the-go podcasting.
Posted by vvarvel at 11:08 AM | Comments (0)
Wireless Nano Chip
Hewlett-Packard announced last week that it's working on a miniscule wireless chip, called Memory Spot. Experts to speculate that the device could revolutionize how digital information is stored and shared. The chip -- which is half the size of a grain of rice -- can hold up to four megabits of information, enough for minutes of audio, short video clips, or hundreds of pages of text. By the way, did I mention that it is smaller than half a grain of rice.
Posted by vvarvel at 08:32 AM | Comments (0)
July 17, 2006
When will my identity be stolen?
Is it me, or does the United States government have little to no ability to safeguard their data. A recent story in Federal Computer Week for 8 July 2006, noted that for the second time, personal information was lost by the Navy. I, personally, was among many who received letters stating that my personal data may have been stolen when someone was allowed to take home 'secure' military personell files. Granted, I have little monetary worth, but I fear it is only a matter of time before I get a bill in the mail from someone buying homes in Australia using my identity.
Posted by vvarvel at 09:57 AM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2006
Free and Open Source Software Fuss
Andy Carvin presents the second part of his look at Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and what the fuss is all about.
Posted by vvarvel at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2006
Internet Pioneer Dies
Revered computer scientist Alan Kotok, known for his work on the groundbreaking DEC PDP-10 computer, for being on the team that invented the joystick, and his more recent involvement with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), died over the Memorial Day weekend.
Posted by vvarvel at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)
June 08, 2006
Are you ready for personal nano displays?
Well, you still have some time before they come to market, but this story from ZDNet reminds us that wearable technologies continue to expand. Soon, your glasses may be your TV.
See http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=230&tag=nl.e550
Posted by vvarvel at 02:21 PM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2006
World Wide Web Consortium Launches China Office
With Google moving into China and other moves, China is quickly making its mark on the WWW. We now see China taking more of a role in standardization activities.
Read whole story. http://www.w3.org/2006/04/chinaoffice-pressrelease
Posted by vvarvel at 11:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 18, 2005
WebCT and BlackBoard
If you're reading this blog, then unless you've been living under a rock you have probably already heard that WebCT and BlackBoard are merging. See http://www.blackboard.com/webct/. But let's look at some of the implications that I've been hearing around the Web and other thoughts.
1. What will the new system be like? Will there even be a new system or will you simply choose between a two program system where the back-ends will now be even more compatible? My guess is that there will be an integrated system taking the best of both systems. As with any new creation, there will be initial resistance, but in the end, I'm sure that it will probably be one of the best course management systems for a time.
2. Why do I say for a time above? The thing about these technologies is that they can only go so far before everything has been exploited. It then becomes a matter of taste, support, and maybe functionality primarily for those picking one. Right now, after about 6 years of heavy development, there are a lot of players on the market, and if you ask me, they are all getting to be pretty similar. This merger actually shouldn't have been such a shock to people. You have two major companies with similar market shares in a market that is growing slower than the expanding number of available programs. To keep share holders happy, the pricing was already starting to get a little excessive, making it easier for the smaller companies to make inroads. If they had learned from MS and their making Office ubiquitous, you have to make it cheap. The situation is sort of similar to the IE/Firefox/etc. situation. A new program can be free and have all of the same functionality in a different package. In that case, they are both free, so it's not exactly the same. O.K., there are a lot of differences so forget that example. I admit that it was a surprise that these two merged. I thought that a few smaller companies would be swallowed up first.
3. Then where is the innovation? The innovations right now seem to be in the synchronous systems. It will probably be quite a while before we see a free open-source alternative to Horizon-Wimba (already showing some merging there), Elluminate, or other that has the same power. If I had money, I'd put it in their stock right now rather than a CMS. We will also probably see more 'hosting' companies come out for a while, where they will host your system externally, such as several Moodle companies are doing. I'm not sure how these will fair, as there are FERPA issues and registration management issues.
4. One of the things I'm happy about is that I no longer will be asked (it happened about once a month at least) which one is better. UIUC is WebCT while UIS is BlackBoard, so even within the UofIllinois system, they can't decide. I know which one was better for me, but I'm partial having won the WebCT Exemplary Course Award. There are a lot of people unhappy about how WebCT Vista has been performing, but others still love it. I do not know which one is better for you. Now the questions will become open source or proprietary, which is an even harder question to answer, unfortunately.
5. Something that has a lot of managers worried is migration. Every time a new program comes out, there are migration issues. Are both BlackBoard and WebCT users going to have to migrate? Don't know.
6. Does anyone care about SCORM anymore? For a short while, SCORM seemed like a big deal. Now many don't seem to care. I know that this is off topic, but it just came to my mind. A way that brings it into topic will be how the new system deals with SCORM. Will it be a main tool or a complementary unadvertised utility?
7. An interesting Legitimate Peripheral Participation study would be to see how long this news took to travel throughout the community of online education practice. Problem with these things is that it is already too late to do it as it is happening. It would have to be a historical study already, even though it is only a few days old. I suppose I'm assuming here that it traveled fast, but I think that it is a safe assumption. If it were only possible to identity the participants at the periphery and see how long it takes them to find out. Ah, if only I had a clone of myself to do these studies.
Posted by vvarvel at 08:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 26, 2005
To Blog or not to Blog (in Humility)
I have to admit, that while I have decided to run this blog, I am not a major proponent of their use. It becomes necessary for me to state some of my guidelines for good (not just well) and bad uses of blogs
I had some reservations about writing this blog. I have reservations about blogs in general. The nature of a blog is based on broadcasting of personal information or personally reconstituted information. Is what I have to say really so important? From a democratized viewpoint, I would say that everyone's view is important, mind included. Information disseminiation is a good thing. But are personal (note that I am not including RSS feeds of an asynchronous discussion as a blog in my personal blogs definition) blogs the best way about this?
It is against the principle of humility to project yourself or your group as all important in any medium. A blog is not a dialogue or polylogue, but a monologue with the possibility of comments after the fact. I personally believe that they have grown in popularity as a result of the inherent ego of humankind. Blogs also play to our need for control. In a blog, the owner has control over the content, direction, tone, flow, etc. of the information. Blogs are not a direct community development tool, but an individual tool.
Furthermore, for someone to get the blogged information, they must either search for the blog or choose to subscribe. It is good to allow this level of control by the user. Unfortunately, status then becomes a marker used to draw people to your blog. Eventually worthiness of the information comes into play, but I doubt that this is an initial factor in blog selection by a reader. Many readers may not even be properly educated on the given topic to become a judge of worthiness.
Open asynchronous forums provide a more democratic, synergistic tool for information discussion and dissemination. These too have disadvantages though such as topic control or policing if only to limit the sheer amount of material discussed and the possibility of flaming to name a few. Such forum can also include a lot of posts that really are unnecessary and lead to clutter. These disadvantages listed can be solved by a blog, especially a well informed, public, ethical, and humble blog, which is how I hope to maintain this blog.
Thus, although there are disadvantages, I now see that blogs can have a place when properly utilized. But what do I see as proper utilization, and why should anyone care what I see as proper. I recognize that I am a very value laden individual, whose values may not synch with yours. Therefore, I am going to try and list the various forms of blogs that I have recognized on the Web, and try to argue for why the modality I'm choosing and will try to adhere to for this blog may be one of the better choices in many situations.
Let me organize the rest of this monologue by laying out some of the many uses of blogs as I see it from my wanderings on the Web. Then, we can look at the implications of these uses from an ethical and educational view mixed with my own personal morality, which you can freely agree or disagree with at your leisure. I am not assuming or implying that any of these categories are mutually exclusive, and while I have tried to find an exhaustive list, you may come up with others. I have placed in bold, uses that I would see as fitting a modality consistent with ethical, communal, educational, and/or general well-being of humankind in general. Red denotes the use that I will try to adhere to with this blog.
- I'm awesome - Some people like to blog as if their opinions are more important, more informed, more literate, more fantastic than someone else's or everyone else's opinions. If this is your primary motivation behind writing a blog, hopefully no one reads it.
- It's an awesome world - Some people really do have a wide variety of worldly experiences and travel. For various motivations (which may include I'm awesome), they like to put those experiences down in writing. I placed this item as bold, because an example like an animal expert blog talking about animals around the world as part of his/her job would be a valid use for example.
- Democratization - The more opinions we get into the world about a given topic, the better the world will be, right? You may wonder then why I have not made this one bold. Of course, we ignore that fact that the opinions being displayed are those primarily of the technocrats, but that's another story. I am tentative about making this item bold, as I do not see an argument whereby a blog is a more effective measure than a discussion forum for such democratization, unless we wish to expand our definition of blog to an RSS feed of a listserv or asynchronous discussion forum. Remember, I'm talking about personal blogs here.
- Education (Public) - Someone knows a lot about a given topic and wants to share that knowledge with others who may not be in the know and in a way that provides alternative information sources for those that want to be in the know. The blog format reduces the need for that individual to debate the point at that given time, although accepting comments leaves the door open. As I am not one that believe total objectivity is possible, it becomes important to accept that readers should use more than one source for their information.
- Education (Student Use) - Some classroom teachers are beginning to use blogs to spark student writing. Syndicated (and even unsyndicated) blogs have not been shown in any way to be an improvement or even a suitable replacement for journals in this respect.
- Education (Classroom) - There may be good uses of a classroom educational blog, such as an easily accessed channel for parents to get assignment information or updates about what is going on in the class. Of course, FERPA guidelines would need to be obeyed.
- Gossip - Like information below, but with sinful character veiled in public interest.
- Information - Not all information is gossip. Popular online blogs include sports information or news feeds. The problem with monological news feeds of any kind will of course continue to be biased reporting, but some facts such as a sports score with injury reports serve to satisfy the needs of fans in a way that many would consider useful on a societal level. There may even be feeds in your neighborhood outlining upcoming events.
- More to be added as I come across them
Posted by vvarvel at 09:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 23, 2005
Is Microsoft sweating again?
A current ZDNet alert reads, "Microsoft's nightmare inches closer to reality". In effect, the giant is switching or at least adding a new emphasis in distributed computing and hosted services. Seems Google is part of the incentive behind the push. Read the full article at http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5877197.html?tag=nl.e589
Posted by vvarvel at 09:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack