I’m still tripping and processing on all that happened, and I salute you having the fortitude to take a crack at a summary.

And finally, I really can’t say enough for your contribution to the event itself and the surrounding mayhem. You’re a true Moose.

We ended up talking into the wee hours, coming back to the EduGlu concept several times over the evening (thanks to prodding from Jim). WHAT! IS! EDUGLUUUUUUU!

You’re killing me, D’Arcy. Excellent wrap-up, and I think we have to find a time and place to bring that dog and pony show on the road. I can see it now, something like a Rock ‘Em Sock ‘EM Open Source CMS Battle Royale? It was a joy, and your NV zeitgeist mashup is very cool.

@Jim: an edubloggers road show? sounds like a great idea!

It was not for lack of desire that I had to pass, but an over the top amount if travel this first year at NMC, with a double header trip in late January and other meeting trip in early March. Keeping a lid on travel was my weak promise at home in the name of domestic tranquility.

But count on me for Moose Oh Eight. With a new emphasis of my job in online community building, there is no problem justifying coming.

Have a great time away, Dr. D.

ALL OF YOUR BASES IS OWNED BY US.

Actually, I totally agree with you about shared hosting as a philosophy/general practice.

I think the need for shared hosting in the Academy is only a symptom of the current technology competency divide (between instructors, students, and IT peeps), and the relative immaturity of open source solutions like Drupal. At present, Drupal isn’t able to deliver a usable product/experience to a mixed (many verging on luddite) audience.

If Drupal were, out of the box, an easy to use tool, we would not need shared hosting. If it were also designed such that one individual could adminsiter it easily, it would be cost effective to run solo.

I think that central to this usability (for end user and admins) is the need for a re-design of the module architecture, and the spaghetti-like nature of Drupal’s guts. Once you turn something ON, it should be on and ready to go. You shouldn’t have to turn the module on, enable permissions and menu items, configure the module on a separate page, and then have to configure content types or views or what-not to behave properly with the new addition. It should be one-stop, It Just Works ™ kinda stuff. Yknow, like Apple

Speaking of, I’m sure Apple will trump Drupal and its cousins with some extended verson of iLife/iWeb that includes a personal CMS that does all the stuff Drupal does. Eventually.