Monthly Archive for October, 2003

http://www.netfuture.org/2003/Oct3003_151.html

There’s no one I am currently reading on a regular basis that engages issues fundamental to the role of technology in our society and thinking as deeply as Steve Talbott, and today he sent out the latest issue of his NetFuture newsletter. Though not an educational technology article, I would highlight his longish essay “The Vanishing World-Machine” as worth reading. I’m not sure if I could summarize it briefly. If I were to try, it would be something along the lines that we have failed to recognize that mathematics and other scientific ‘languages’ are abstractions that are not the same as the mediums they describe. By not recognizing that the machines we build to ‘analyze’ nature are themselves reifying these abstractions, the scientific endeavor becomes progressively more blind to the actual world it claims to portend. If the argument sounds facile, it’s not, it’s that my synopsis does it no real justice. - SWL

http://www.academiccolab.org/projects/
repositories/community/wiki/index.php?
page=LearningRepositoryCommunity

“This site supports continuing discussion of the many issues raised during our successful Learning Repository Summit over October 7th and 8th, 2003.” Looks fairly new but maybe worth keeping an eye on. - SWL

http://www5.oclc.org/downloads/community/elearning.pdf

As the authors state early on, this wide-ranging report from the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) on the relationship between academic libraries and elearning in higher education is not just for librarians. It focuses topics such as the role of libraries towards learning objects and object repositories, how libraries need to interact and interroperate with course management systems, and what the libraries role should be in relation to the institutions content and knowledge management needs. Well worth the read. - SWL

- via [ResourceShelf]

http://www.cancore.org/swcomponents.html

Cancore and Athabasca University have announced the release of three new components to assit in the development of learning object metadata and repositories. They are, variously,

• A LOM Interface or API simplifying the manipulation and transmission of LOM data within and between software systems.
• LOR Interface or API for communicating with a Learning Object and Metadata Repository.
• A custom LDAP schema which allows LOM records to be stored and accessed via an LDAP server.

This is great news Both the LOM and LOR APIs are Java bindings, which makes me wonder if this foretells of plans for future interoperation with potential OKI-compliant systems.

UPDATE: I’m in Calgary today for some meetings on educational metadata and got a little more background on this project - it sounds like it is no more or less than it seems, a proof of concept that one can use an LDAP server as a lightweight object repository. - SWL

- via [e-Learning Eclectic]

http://www.imsglobal.org/altilab.html

The notes and presentation slides from the alt-i-lab 2003 (Advancing Learning Technology Interoperability) held at MIT last summer are now available at the IMS site. - SWL

http://www.mcgill.ca/dp-cio/portal-selection/

This is a great example of what a website to facilitate an institution-wide IT selection process should look like if you want to create as much transparency as possible. Nice looking site too. - SWL

- via [Shoulder to the Wheel]

http://demo.weboutliner.com/weboutliner/

This was just too cool not to post on - a web-based outliner that produces OPML files.

I have been a long-time fan of outlining software ever since I was first introduced to MORE on the Mac, way back in the day. It was actually one of the things that made me adopt Radio as a blogging tool at first (Dave Winer was also involved heavily with MORE, and Radio has a built-in outliner). As regular readers will know I finally ditched Radio as a blogging tool, but now miss having the outlining capabilities. Well here you go. Hooray! - SWL

Here’s what Google says.

http://virtualschool.edu/ile/

Again new to me but maybe not new (why does no one put dates on their pages!), an early version of a new open source ‘cms’, this time in part notable because it is written in Ruby.

Also, you may or may not have noticed that I am slowly moving over some of the more trafficed resources from the old site. So far I’ve reposted the list of open source course management systems, which I am now trying to keep more up to date. More to come. - SWL

http://www.psych.utah.edu/learn/olms/

New to me is this java-based open source ‘LMS’ from the Department of Psychology at the University of Utah. This system is designed to support “vigorous shared knowledge communities” and as such focuses very much on communication and collaboration tools and seems to recognize the role of shareable learning content though it is unclear to me what kind of actual functionality it offers there. One thing that seems slightly unfortunate is to base an open source project on Oracle and Solaris, but this may well have been what was literally at hand. - SWL