Next time you're thinking your dialup is a little slow check out the Bongo project at Algoma university where a group of students implemented TCP transmission via bongo-drums.
...via BoingBoing
Louis Rosenfeld outlines a roadmap for implementing an enterprise information architecture.
Some things, he says, are worth doing right away, some you can get around to later, and some may never happen for various organizational reasons. Beginning with something that's highly-politicized or which a number of people or departments have strong attachments to in its current incarnation can stymie a project at its inception. On the other hand, getting some quick 'wins' up front can help later with the more difficult components.
...via elearningpost
Sometimes you know something is important, but can't articulate why. In architecture pattern languages are used as one way to address this issue. Pattern languages have also crossed over into application development and are discussed frequently in other kinds of knowledge acquisition and understanding.
Denham Gray talks about experience and patterns in the context of knowledge:
Each pattern defines a context of use, a recurrent problem that needs to solved, a group of "forces" pushing and pulling in different directions, and how those forces might be resolved to best solve the problem - a working solution based on validated experience. Both good and bad (anti-patterns) examples are also provided.....
Remember that a pattern language does not only serve as a guideline for building or designing something, but as a system for talking about, deconstructing and classifying things.
Posted by dcoates at 12:58 PM
According to Wired, Jason Calacanis is starting Weblogsinc, which looks to make money with business-to-business blogs:
Essentially, Calacanis' goal is to turn Weblogsinc into an umbrella for blogs, a for-profit center that dishes daily on as many as 300 topics and scores revenue from sources like advertising, events and classified listings. He expects the topics to fall under four main categories: media, finance, technology and life sciences.
Denham Grey has a blog post on effective ways to map knowledge.
Listamatic shows what happens when you take a simple list and apply different cascading style sheets.
Also check out Listutorial
Timothy Butler and David Coleman have a guest editorial at Collaborative Strategies called Models of Collaboration:
Interactive Visual Explainers--A Simple Classification is the title of a feature article at elearningpost:
Interactives are one of the first experiments in interactive journalism. They are brief Web-based interactive visual explainers. They are designed to explain complex concepts or ideas. Of late, they are usually created in Macromedia Flash or Macromedia Director. Since the practice is new, different names are used to describe it -- "Flash Infographics", "Motion Graphics", and "Interaction Graphics" are some we've come across. We like "Interactives" because it embodies interaction--the building block of the Web--and thus does not bring across any preconceived notions from the print world.
The authors propose a classification for interactive visual explainers:
I'm doing research on RSS for a grant project and I'm going to be posting references here so I can find them later and have a central location to refer people rather than sending them annoying email all the time.
I've also added an 'RSS' category to the left-hand column and reclassified some of my older posts on RSS, so if anyone wants to see other references they're all just one-click away.
Today's RSS references:
Voidstar provides an RSS FAQ which answers such questions as:
Syndicated content: it's more than just some file formats by Paul Miller at UKOLN, discusses basics of RSS and some hints for good practice when implementing RSS:
All About RSS at Fagan Finder covers what RSS is, what you can do with it, and how to find RSS feeds.
I have this blogged elsewhere, but will also mention the State of Utah's comprehensive RSS Workshop.
RSS Tutorial for Content Publishers and Webmasters by Mark Nottingham also provides good information:
Why should I make an RSS feed available?Your viewers will thank you, and there will be more of them, because RSS allows them to see your site without going out of their way to visit it.
While this seems bad at first glance, it actually improves your site's visibility; by making it easier for your users to keep up with your site - allowing them to see it the way they want to - it's more likely that they'll know when something that interests them is available on your site.
For example, imagine that your company announces a new product or feature every month or two. Without a feed, your viewers have to remember to come to your site and see if they find anything new - if they have time. If you provide a feed for them, they can point their aggregator or other software at it, and it will give them a link and a description of developments at your site almost as soon as they happen.
Stephen Downes has an interesting article on Meaning, Use, and Metadata:
In my view, the massive efforts underway to tag, to carefully sort, classify and describe, learning object metadata is misplaced. It is misplaced not because t is wrong or misleading (though that possibility is certainly built in by assumption). It is misplaced because such metadata descriptions can, at best, represent only one point of view of the description and the application of a learning object.We will not be able to approach the usefulness contained in the promise of learning objects - and of the semantic web more generally - until we get past this idea that we can define it (and in passing, all of human knowledge), a priori. We can't. The very best we can do is establish (through, say, RDF) relations between intended meaning of terms. But at some point, we need to step back and observe how these entities are being used, and to capture that as our definitive metadata.
Someone quotes a passage from Alice in Wonderland in the followup comments:
''There's glory for you!''I don't know what you mean by 'glory',' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!''
'But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument',' Alice objected.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master -- that's all.' '
Stephen's Web provides Edu_RSS , a source for educational technology blog RSS feeds.
Learning Lab Denmark has an Open-ended manifesto on research and learning:
1. We must think, act and learn informally. I believe that the following is important for our understanding of learning:
- If more and more are going to learn more and more then we will have to focus both on formal and informal learning and learning situations,
- We will have to understand informal learning much better and develop adequate forms of pedagogy and didactics for informal learning,
- We will have to recognise that informal learning is typically social learning.
...
4. What we know, we know together.
We will focus not only on the abilities to learn and to learn to learn, but also on the ability to create knowledge through conceptualisation and on the social organisation of experience gained. This is all the more central when we recognise that more and more of our social and economic activity is concerned with the creation of knowledge....
15. Knowledge sharing is not a zerosum game.
I think that an important challenge is the creation of forms of work where not only the doing of the job/the solution of the task is what counts, but where the creation of new experience is central. Making these new experiences available in the organisation is what constitutes the creation of wealth....
23. To be meaningful, research today has to take place in networks.
Nothing interesting happens in isolation. We need to break down the laboratory walls. We interpret others, and they interpret us. Research is a constant exchange of information in a social relation where judgments are made, and new interpretations created. Interpretations are tested and research is taking the form of a social learning process through interaction.
...via elearningpost
Michael Angeles has a really good presentation available at studioid on blogging in corporate America. Here's the original abstract:
Lucent Technologies' Information Specialist, Michael Angeles, believes blogging has evolved beyond "cool" and is moving quickly into the corporate world. In this presentation, Angeles will discuss who blogs, how and why.He will also discuss how Lucent is supporting bloggers and at the same time keeping close watch over the resulting growth of information on the Intranet. Lucent's objective is to determine how the increased content that will result from blogging can evolve into a plan for making that information useful and usable for the enterprise."
And his main points:
- Weblogs are really not different as a technology, although they put control of publishing closer to users
- Classifying weblog data can be difficult and requires human resources, but some search applications can help
- Value diversity and above all, support users’ needs
- Allow users to produce organizational knowledge using whatever tools they choose
...via elearningpost
Posted by dcoates at 11:54 AM
Via BoingBoing comes a pointer to 1,2,3... Sports au Plessis ;-), a collective moblog created by 7 to 11 year olds reporting on their outdoor sports center.
The 404 Research Lab shows nifty 404 Not Found pages, including the horizon 404 (odd but interesting) and the Egads! 404 (Egads! The amazing patented web browsing machine was unable to locate the file you requested).
...via BoingBoing
Blogcount reports that Blogger has 1.5 million registered users
Blogcount looks at data from Alex Halavais considering how often people update their blogs?
Fortunately, How Much is Inside hasanswered this important question so we don't have to:
Localfeeds.com provides headlines from local news sources organized by city.
Lockergnome reports that the Chronicle of Higher Education now has RSS for their job listings.
...via The Shifted Librarian
)( JIWIRE provides a directory of Wi-Fi hotspots around the world complete with maps and driving directions.
Boxes and Arrows has a new article on sitemaps and site indexes:
How do you know if your site needs a sitemap or a site index, or both? On very small sites, it is unlikely that either would be needed. Most likely the global navigation can provide direct access to all areas of the site. Most medium- and larger-sized sites should probably include at least a sitemap. Text-based sitemaps require few resources to create and maintain and can provide big benefits for your users. Unless your site is a directory like Yahoo!, a sitemap is the only place where a user can see all the categories and top subcategories in a single place. This is especially important if your site navigation uses expanding and collapsing menus that hide options until a mouseover. Ecommerce as well as informational sites can be improved with a sitemap.Most medium- and larger-sized sites can also benefit from an index of some type. For extremely large sites, it would be unrealistic to include absolutely everything in the site index. It would simply be too large to use efficiently. Only the most important and most used information should be included. Informational sites benefit more from a site index than the average ecommerce site because the content is generally richer on an informational site. However, ecommerce sites with%2
...via elearningpost
iKnow Online, the Gateshead Libraries website, offers forums, news, livehelp, previews of upcoming books, and weblogs among other things.
...via The Shifted Librarian
Interactive Narratives provides a place to find web pages which include different media, extensive use of graphics and Flash to education and inform. Some of the sites gathered there include:
...via elearningpost
A presentation on Flash Accessibility from Bob Regan at Macromedia.
...via elearningpost
Here's an online flash simulation on balancing a state budget.
...via elearningpost
Guardian Unlimited has an article on Hard lessons from the big e-learning experiment:
Many businesses invested in e-learning simply because they saw everyone else doing so, or they felt it could save them money from their train ing budget. Others were taken in by the excitement of the new technology, admits Steve Dineen, chief executive of e-learning provider, Wide Learning. Organisations frequently made the mistake of blowing most of their budget, sometimes millions of pounds, on the technology, forgetting that the quality of the courses they put up there was just as important.
...via elearningpost
Clark MacLeod offers Information Design: An Introduction:
Information design is concerned with transforming data into information, making the complex easier to understand and to use. It is a rapidly growing discipline that draws on typography, graphic design, applied linguistics, applied psychology, applied ergonomics, computing, and other fields. It emerged as a response to people's need to understand and use such things as forms, legal documents, computer interfaces and technical information.