tech-ed collisions

read-write web

One of the terms that seems to be used quite a lot lately is the read-write web. While I understand the intention of the term I believe it still embeds us in the world of text and in my view, we have really moved on from that. I read and write text, I talk and listen to audio, record and play video etc so read/write lacks a number of dimensions. In a technical sense, I suppose I may be reading from or writing to a disk drive somewhere no matter whether I am using text, video, audio etc. In realtime video/audio conferencing, I may not even be doing that (forget for a minute caching, logging etc). Still, I haven't found a better term that can convey the idea of contribution and consumption of content/services that is easily understood and remembered.

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Filed under  //   Web 2.0  

On the credibility of information sources

Wikipedia has been the topic of much discussion in the office recently and it was interesting for me to see it as the centre of discussion on another mailing list that I am a member of. Essentially, someone had asked for comments/information about Wikipedia's editorial policy and this led to some quite active discussion. Ultimately, a head of a faculty in a University stated that he automatically failed students if they quoted Wikipedia in an assignment. This person believed that Wikipedia is not a credible source and to back that claim, referred to a blog and an 'anti' Wikipedia site. I am not sure what makes either of those two sources more credible (in that person's view) than Wikipedia but what makes an information source credible? Even the most 'revered' information sources from traditional media have made the occasional mistake, or written something which was eventually disproven. As one of the responders to this particular email pointed out, "all sources are to this or that extent credible or otherwise. The trick is knowing how to evaluate sources as to their credibility. Learning how to do that is part of being a student. Helping students learn how to do that is part of being a teacher. Simplistic rules like "don't use Wikipedia" sell everyone short."

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Filed under  //   Wikipedia  

Metadata still matters

Metadata is used in many applications and has potential in many more emerging areas but I am going to concentrate simply on 'search' here. Those of us in the repository space will be familiar with the metadata vs text indexing argument and comparisons with Google. This blog has been active for a few months now and it is interesting to examine how people are discovering it. There is no real surprise for me that the top referring source is our company website so at least some of that website's navigation could be seen to be effective. The second largest referring source is (again, no surprise) Google. However this is where things start to get interesting. The most popular search term from Google to this blog is 'Youtube'. Given that I loosely comment on technology and its application in educational environments this is probably ok. However, the second most popular search term that people are finding their way to this blog is 'how to braid hair'. Now one thing that this blog is not about is hairdressing however in one post I mentioned a site called viewdo which features community contributed videos on how to do things. In that article the words 'french braid hair' appears as an example of what you can see on viewdo. So what does all this mean for me? Firstly, Google is indexing my blog which is a good thing. However, there appears to be no real context applied to the text that is being indexed. Using metadata, I can apply that context and would be very unlikely to have any metadata or tags mentioning braiding hair when describing the content in this blog. Given that the blog is being indexed by generic search engines I need to be careful in my choice of words. The amount of times I have now mentioned braiding hair, the distance between occurrences of those words etc is probably going to result in this post being accessed by any number of aspiring hairdressers (that word is going to cause problems now too) and parents who may not have much interest at all in technology and education. For those unfortunate enough to have been misdirected here, I hope they/you manage to read enough of the article to find out about viewdo and can ultimately find what you are looking for there. It's a pity I don't have any downstream analysis as I will never know whether they did or not. By the way, Wii was the third most popular search term. At least I have an idea of what people are looking for.

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Filed under  //   search  
Posted March 1, 2007

What sort of ePortfolio suits you?

Having recently spent some time investigating e-portfolios, I find myself with more more questions than I originally started out with. One area that interests me though is how the emergence of social networking tools seems to have impacted on the expectations of those likely to use e-portfolios. Web 2.0 seems to be having an impact on the functionality demanded of e-portfolios and on the orientation of e-portfolio applications and services towards a user-centred view rather than an organisational view. Social networking services such as those provided by Elgg, MySpace etc are probably challenges to the systemic view of e-portfolios. Since e-portfolios can be used in a broad range of settings with quite disparate goals and objectives, both ends of this ‘e-portfolio spectrum’ are valid in differing circumstances. Acceptance of organisational/systemic e-portfolios may be challenged in some instances by the attractiveness of alternative Web 2.0 services. This is more likely to be the case with certain audience demographics and should be seen as an opportunity as well as perhaps a threat to more ‘traditional’ e-portfolio applications. From our consultation process there was anecdotal support for the notion that older students tend to value organisational e-portfolios more than younger students. A reason given was that since they are closer to seeking employment, they may see the value for them in terms of assistance gaining employment. Younger audiences were believed to perceive this type of e-portfolio as ‘teacher controlled’ than learner focussed. What sort of e-portfolio would suit you and the organisation / demographic you represent?

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Filed under  //   eportfolio  

IPv6 for e-Business Roadshow

The IPv6 for e-Business Project is presenting seven FREE half-day SEMINAR WORKSHOPS on the IPv6 for e-Business Project, at cities around Australia in March 2007: * Sydney 6 March * Brisbane 7 March * Adelaide 15 March * Perth 16 March * Hobart 21 March * Melbourne 22 March * Ballarat 23 March The IPv6 protocol offers almost unlimited IP addresses, built-in security options, simpler address administration, widespread mobility support, and quality of service capabilities. IPv6 for e-Business is a project for raising awareness and assessing readiness for IPv6 to build Australian capacity for future innovation. It has developed Enabling Tools for businesses to plan and deploy IPv6, and will also demonstrate the new IPv6 Easy Access Device. See http://www.ipv6.org.au for more information: you MUST RSVP to ed@isoc-au.org.au to attend!

Filed under  //   Internet  

My Firefox

Firefox has for a long time now been the browser of choice for me. For quite a while I had the impression that I was keeping it pretty lean and not adding in too many extensions but it they just seem to keep creeping in. Here is my current list:

  • Colorful tabs: The description for this goes "Colorul Tabs colors every tab in a different color and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appearance of the interface". While I agree with the first part, you can make your own mind up about the last claim in this sentence. Still, it is a useful add-in.
  • ColoUnReadTabs: Marks unread tabs in red-bold-italic allowing to easily identify them. Well.. having a tab with a red-bold-italic title almost forces you to click on it to get rid of the red-bold-italic.
  • DOM Inspector. Probably useful to developers but I never use it.
  • Download statusbar: "View and manage downloads from a tidy status bar". This one is pretty useful but takes up too much space at the bottom of the window for me. Will probably disappear off my list soon.
  • Forecastfox: My weather station. For some reason I just really like it.
  • IE Tab: "Enables you to use the embedded IE engine within Mozilla/Firefox". Definitely in my top 3. There are a couple of sites I have to access in IE and this goes some way to making that a more pleasant experience.
  • lori: "For tracking the life of a request". Gives me useful information on how long a page takes to download etc. Very useful but the only problem is there seems to be a bug in it. The seconds/milliseconds timer seems accurate enough but the minute timer seems stuck on 30 minutes so every page seems to load in 30m (x)s (y)ms. Now I realise that broadband in Australia is pretty poor but really...
  • Mozcc: "Provides an interface for viewing embedded Creative Commons Licenses". This is disabled at the moment as it won't work on current versions of Firefox but it was a truly useful extension. I hope some work gets done on it.
  • Sage: A useful RSS/Atom aggregator.
  • Tab Effect: For those of us that wish we had a Mac this provides a lift to an otherwise dull Windows interface.
  • Tab History: "links opened in a new tab retain their history". Very useful.
  • Undo Closed Tabs Button: " Add a toolbar button to undo closed tabs". Again, very useful.
I'd love to know what others are using. Cheers.

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Filed under  //   Internet  

Interoperability 101

Ever wondered what the folks in the e-framework are up to?  Here's an interesting video introducing the Service Oriented Approach (SOA).   According to the website, " A Service Oriented Approach to creating and evolving information communication technology solutions is a phenomenon that is transforming the way many organisations in the private and public sectors operate." The video goes on to explain how.

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Filed under  //   standards  

Here Wii go..

The big hit at home this summer has been the Nintendo Wii. In fact, it has kept us all (not just kids) occupied for far too long. For me Nintendo has (for quite a while) delivered consoles with really interesting user interfaces which I think should have loads of potential in education and training scenarios. The Wii is no exception and using the Wii Remote is a completely different experience to traditional gaming controllers.

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The Wii Remote has motion sensors inside and this is what makes the Wii very different from other gaming platforms that I at least, have seen. Using this technology, games are available that let you swing a golf club, baseball bat, tennis racquet, pitch a baseball or bowl a tenpin bowling ball for example. This adds an extra dimension to the game experience. In other games you will wield your remote as a sword or other implements. Additionally, the remote can be used as a pointing device as well to point at objects etc on the screen. These functions enable really interesting scenarios to be built into games and must have some potential in learning. Watching how quickly children can familiarise themselves with the interface is amazing and it is my guess that the Wii would lend itself very well to educational scenarios for younger audiences. I found that the remote was very good for big movements such as emulating swinging a tennis racquet but less responsive for smaller movements such as putting a golf ball. It could be quite frustrating at times with smaller movements although that may just be a reflection of my ability. However, such inconsistencies would require careful consideration if the technology was used to simulate something in a training environment which required a reasonable degree of accuracy. The Wii can also access the Internet to get to services such as the weather and news. These are accessed through 'Wii Channels'. At last check, the weather channel was operational but the news channel hadn't started yet. If you take the time (and it did take some time) to download a browser you can also access the Web. The browser is currently in beta and is the Opera browser. I understand it will be available for free for a whille but eventually there will be a cost. Connecting to the Internet was very easy (even with my wireless network which surprised me a little). Using the Wii to browse the Web is probably something that I will do very little of however. Using a virtual keyboard is tedious and the screen resolution is not that good and this becomes quite exaggerated on larger screens. The store where I purchased the Wii from believed that at some point in the future, there is likely to be integration with the Wii and other Nintendo devices such as the DS. If so, this would just add to the possibilities that designers can work with. Unfortunately, I don't know whether these technologies will ever be exploited for adaptation to training/education environments though which seems a bit of a shame.

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Filed under  //   gadgets  

iPhone at last - well maybe at some point in the future

I think we all knew it was coming at some point but now that it's announced my first impression was that I can't wait until its available.  I have no idea how long that may be in this country at least but here is a link to the new iPhone.  It must be attracting huge interest as I had trouble accessing the Apple site.  Pity the poor parents who are going to have to fork out for one or more of these or put up with incessant pleas for it.

Filed under  //   Apple  

Linux (part 2) - not for the faint-hearted

Previously I have contended that Linux could be challenging for the novice home user, mainly due to the difficulties that can be encountered on installation and setup. However, here I am posting from my 'new' Linux environment and really enjoying it. There is no doubt that everything seems to run much faster in this environment as I guess it is a lot more lightweight and this makes it a more pleasant experience. However, the wireless network is still not functioning so I am unfortunately wired to a desk and not free to roam around the house. In fact, many hours have been spent getting to this point. I have learned more about wireless networks, encryption, MAC addresses, port forwarding on routers (for remote assistance), Linux command line commands etc than I ever thought I wanted to know. Installing Linux can actually be a great learning experience if you come across any problems and have a streak of stubbornness in you! It can also be a great introduction to the Linux community. I have been amazed at the amount of support people from this community are prepared to give. As long as you do have access to the Internet, some sort of help is not too far away. Being located in Australia can pose some timing problems but this is an extremely active global community. As I write this, there is an expert in Canada willing to give up his time and remotely connect into my pc to do some diagnostics with me. I think this says a lot for the power of social networks, the Web in general and the generosity of people around the world. Cheers, Jerry.

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Filed under  //   Linux