Feb
18
(2006)
Drupal to Elgg Migration?
Filed under: general. Tags: drupal, elgg, weblogs, weblogs.ucalgary.ca. | 10 Comments
Another thinking-out-loud topic here… I’m re-evaluating weblogs.ucalgary.ca - what’s worked, what hasn’t, what could be done differently. It’s best to take a long, hard look at it before it really takes off. There are a bunch of users in it now, but a critical evaluation of it is pretty important before we get into the hundreds of users level… I’m also colouring evaluation in light of the PLE/EduGlu concepts being rolled around. Perhaps the need to have a communal blog hosting service on campus is less important, or unnecessary, if that function is pushed into an aggregator service where it should be, rather than in the hosting side of things.
Elgg has improved a heck of a lot in the year since I quietly rolled out weblogs.ucalgary.ca (powered by Drupal at the moment). I really like the simplicity of the Elgg interface - helped by the fact that it’s not trying to be a Swiss Army Knife, as Drupal is.
In the back of my mind, I had been hoping to keep WordPress MultiUser as the backup plan in case Drupal didn’t work out. Elgg might be a more appropriate alternative.
Also, it’s not that Drupal isn’t working out, it’s just that weblogs.ucalgary.ca doesn’t have the right feel - it’s not a personal environment, it’s a commune. That makes it harder for an individual to find their own voice in the mishmash of common spaces within it. Elgg and WPMU are better as individual spaces, with varying degrees of built-in aggregativeness (Elgg has some cool Friends features, WPMU would rely on external aggregation).
So, in assessing plans B and C, has anyone successfully migrated from Drupal to Elgg or WPMU?
Feb
15
(2006)
I hadn’t heard of this one before, but I stumbled across Deepest Sender while poking through the Firefox extensons database. It’s a XUL app, so should run nice and fast. At first blush, it looks like a pretty handy way to quickly post stuff. It took maybe 10 seconds to configure to point at my WordPress blog here.
The editing interface only appears to let you select one category, though, but nicely handles keyboard input to select a category quickly.
If you can read this, it worked. And you can even edit posts via the Post History interface. Cool!
I was initially looking for the Tab Mix Plus extension (which rocks, btw. get it.) Thanks to Chris for the tips!
Feb
11
(2006)
Qumana Beta 3
Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: qumana, software, weblogs. | 4 Comments
In my neverending quest for The One True Blog Management App, I downloaded the latest beta of Qumana. It’s pretty cool. Cross platform now (well, MacOSX and Windows). It’s got its own ad manager system, which I won’t be using, but that’s how they’ll be trying to pay the bills.
The WYSYWYG editor is pretty decent. Haven’t tried to break it yet, though. Let’s see how it handles preformatted code:
public void Main() {
System.out.println("Trying out Qumana");
}Hmm… didn’t handle that well… They all seem to bork on that.
Oh, and the app is free (but not Open Source). By default, it adds a “Powered by Qumana” link at the bottom of every post, but that’s apparently removable.
Categories are nicely sorted in the editor interface, so that’s a benefit (still prefer the freeform text entry field in the WP interface via Cat2Tag…)
I’ll give it a shot for awhile and see how it fits. If you can read this, it’s off to a decent start.
Update: It didn’t like Categories, either. And gave XML-RPC errors on posting (although it posted OK). Maybe I’ll hold off on using it for awhile…
Update 2: The pre/code block was created by Qumana as invalid XHTML - it was inserting paragraphs in funky places there. I’ve re-editid this post (in Deepest Sender) to remove the funkiness.
Feb
11
(2006)
The Vancouver Education Blogging Sessions
Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: education, northernvoice, northernvoice2006, Noteworthy, socialsoftware, weblogs. | 15 Comments
Over the last few days, I’ve been privileged to be a part of some extremely interesting and engaging discussions about the nature of “blogging” in education. The Social Software Salon and Edublogger Hootenany sessions were incredible, unstructured, free-flowing, and unbelievably interesting. Essentially, there were no “presenters” and no “moderators” - both were completely open and lively discussions that I was lucky to be present for.
There were several recurring themes that emerged from these sessions, stated from multiple perspectives by several people with different backgrounds. Here’s my Coles™ Notes™ version of these sessions. It’s not unabridged, and if I’m missing (or misrepresenting) anything, I’m going to Trust In Blog that I’ll be corrected. I’m sure I’m forgetting large tracts of the conversations - they were recorded, and will be available as podcasts as soon as Jason and Brian have had time to edit and publish the audio. In the meantime, the wiki pages (linked above) for both sessions provide some background (thanks to Brian for setting those up).
Blogging is not a classroom/class activity
We talked about the current implementation of blogging in the context of a class. Someone mentioned that a student may have 5 different blogs - one for each class - and must post content to each blog in order to get “credit” for their work. And, at the end of the semester, the blogs are nuked from orbit. So, not only is a student’s work divided across several quasi-related locations, it is so closely tied to the Class that in ceases to exist after the Class is over.
But, what we’re hoping to approach is the mythical “lifelong learning” - if content is tied to a Class, that implies that Learning occurs only in that Class. And that learning starts from scratch in the next Class. And for the following cohort.
Learning can occur outside of the classroom
If we assume that Lifelong Learning is a fact of life, we likely have lives outside of the Classroom - even outside of the School. People learn, teach, share, publish, connect, etc. in all parts of their lives. The real value comes from being able to make the connections between the activities - by valuing “non-classroom” activities as much as Classroom ones. One example was about an individual that was extremely active in their community, but that activity wasn’t valued as part of their Education.
The learner is in control
The current model places the Teacher or the School at the centre. Blogs are provided as part of The Institution, tied to a Class. But - what happens when the semester is over? When a student graduates? Moves to a new school? If they don’t own their own online presence, their incentive to making it a meaningful part of their practice of teaching and learning becomes very small. If the learner is at the centre - and they own their own stuff - they are able to use their own content in all parts of their lives, at all times. Instead of having a “class blog,” why not have a class aggregator - pulling in the relevant feeds from the learners in a cohort? Learners publish to their own space (blog, Flickr, del.icio.us, digg.com, etc…) and tag content as being relevant to a course or topic - and have a “class aggregator” do the work of bringing the content together into one place.
By placing the learner at the centre, and assuring that they are in control of their own online presence - and taking advantage of that presence in various contexts (including within and between Classes) we can reinforce (or at least model) Lifelong Learning.
The Teacher/Professor/Instructor is not the boss
By extension, the current teacher-is-boss model isn’t valid. Everyone in a Class is a learner - including the one(s) being paid to be there. Cluetrain applies as much to education as to business. By taking advantage of the connections between all learners, and using the various pieces and types of content that they all publish, the role of the Teacher can shift from being a disseminator of information to a mentor/coach/guide.
It’s about more than blogging
It’s about the read/write web, not blogging. Take advantage of the stuff that learners are publishing in whatever modality they are using. If they have a blog, use that as part of their learning program. If they post photos to Flickr, use them. If they bookmark in del.icio.us, use those. Stories flagged in Digg? Comments on Slashdot? etc…
This stuff doesn’t need IT support
This was a radical idea - but obvious in hindsight. IT provides services that are difficult or impossible for individuals to access outside of The Institution. Email is the classic example. But, the read/write web is composed of tools that enable individuals to publish their own content. IT isn’t required for this to happen. How can The Institution better enable integration of the various bits of content that is being published by the individuals who are associated with it? What if IT and The Institution shifted its focus to that of aggregation rather than publishing?
Feb
7
(2006)
coComment - it works!
Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: cocomment, weblogs. | 9 Comments
There was a coComment invitation waiting in my inbox this morning. I activated it, and tested it out on a couple of blogs. It actually works! It provides a simple way to track comments I’ve left all over the place. Very very cool.
I do have a couple questions about the service though. It’s provided by a Swiss startup company - so, will they pull a bait-and-switch and start charging? What are they going to do with the data? These conversation threads could be mined for all kinds of good/evil. Can we opt out of sharing some conversations? Can we delete (not just hide, but nuke from orbit) a monitored conversation?
There is a minor bug when dealing with comments on WordPress blogs that aren’t using the default theme, however. *cough*myblog*ahem* The tracking bookmarklet parses the element of the page to get the title of both the blog and entry. But, with a non-default theme, this parsing may bork, resulting in an item being listed as “Untitled: Untitled” - it still works, but it’s hard to tell which Untitled thread is which…
Regardless, this is one of the coolest, most useful “web 2.0″ innovations I’ve seen. Well done, coComment!
Here’s my “conversations” page: coComment - Blog comments by dnorman
Feb
6
(2006)
coComment - tracking distributed conversations
Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: software, weblogs. | 12 Comments
I just saw a link to coComment (via an OReilly blog, IIRC - can’t seem to find the link at the moment) It looks like a way to track comments that you make on various blogs, providing a way to keep on top of conversations distributed throughout the blogosphere.
I’ve been doing a low-tech version of this by tagging blog comments on del.icio.us with “blogcomment” so I can periodically check in on them. But this appears to but some intelligence, or at least some automation, behind the concept.
coComment is in a closed beta, by invitation only. If anyone has the goods and feels like hooking me up, I’d love to take it for a test drive. I’m just sayin’…
Jan
29
(2006)
Read/Write Web presentation (slides and more)
Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: Noteworthy, podcast, podcasting, presentations, weblogs, wiki. | 11 Comments
I was able to put together a version of the presentation as an “enhanced podcast” using a borrowed copy of Garage Band ‘06. It worked very well for the task, with one glaring issue - apparently GB can’t handle audio longer than 65 minutes, so the last couple of minutes of the presentation audio is truncated. No big loss, as it’s mostly just wrapup (and there is an 11-minute section of awesome Q and A around the 30 minute mark - at the “Wiki Discussion” chapter).
Here’s the Enhanced Podcast version, as well as an interactive Flash version (maybe that will work well if your mp3 player is playing the full audio at the same time), a .pdf version, and a .zip of all slide images (but that loses the build effects used in the Flash version). Also, the source Keynote file is available.
The whole shooting match is released under a Creative Commons license (attribution, non-commercial, share-alike), so have at’er if you have the Mad Skillz to produce a better version (or make the audio suck less), or want to remix it into something else.
Jan
28
(2006)
Read/Write Web presentation (audio)
Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: podcast, podcasting, presentations, weblogs, wiki. | 3 Comments
I’d planned on releasing a full presentation+audio version of the presentation, but it’s going to take me weeks to sync up the 105 slides to the 1-hour audio track.
So, in the meantime, here’s the audio-only portion of the presentation (27.2MB MP3). Not sure how well it stands on its own, but it might come in handy for someone.
The only editing I’ve done to the audio was to remove the 6 minute preamble and embarrassing intro (as Mr. Expert Guy - gack - which is why you hear me mention it at the beginning of the audio). Sorry for the audio quality - it was recorded directly to my iPod via Belkin TuneTalk at an incredible 8KHz, and tweaked in Audacity to make it suck less.
I’ve been told that some schwanky new G5 systems (quad, no less) are in transit to the Learning Commons. When I get mine, I’ll give GarageBand ‘06 a shot at making the “video” version with slides from the presentation. It’s just going to take too much time to manually do it in iMovie. I’d give Breeze a shot, but converting the Keynote to .ppt format would so totally destroy the transparencies used on many slides…
Jan
26
(2006)
Read/Write Web presentation for Friday
Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: podcasting, presentations, ucalgary, weblogs, wiki. | Comments Off
I just put the almost-finishing touches on a presentation I’ll be giving to folks in the Faculty of Education tomorrow. The topic? It’s basically a tour of things like wikis, weblogs, RSS and podcasting, with a presentation at the beginning, some live demos, and some hands-on time. Essentially “The Read/Write Web 101″
I merged a couple of my other presentations (intro to weblogs and intro to wiki) and added some refinements. It’s grown to 105 slides, which sounds scary, but there isn’t a bullet point in the bunch, and most slides are only on the Big Screen to give a background while I talk about something. I’m guessing the presentation will run between 30 minutes and an hour, depending on audience participation. We’ve got a 3-hour slot, and would like to have as much “hands-on” time as possible.
I’ll be trying to record the audio of the presentation (using my iPod and Belkin microphone), and will try to create an online version. During the session, I’ll be demonstrating wiki page editing, blog posting, and podcast recording/publishing/subscribing - so there may be some noise in my RSS feeds on Friday morning.
I’ve got whatever killer chest cold that’s going around the city, and feel like death, so I’m not sure if I’ll be in top form. But I’ll give it a shot, regardless…
Jan
26
(2006)
Blogs and wikis thoughts (for Brian)
Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: Noteworthy, thoughts, weblogs. | 2 Comments
Brian’s asking for comments to help build a presentation tonight. I’m cutting it awfully close to the wire (the presentation starts in just over an hour) but hopefully another trackback will help…
What is most significant about the emergence of blogs and/or wikis?
The biggest thing about these self-publishing tools is that they’re self-publishing, natch. You don’t need to be a geek to be able to publish to the ‘net anymore - and this stuff has the potential to “fix” the web, which was supposed to be a dynamic network of linked content published by individuals, but got co-opted into a variation of the TV broadcast model, with users sitting in front of glowing screens receiving the content that The Man wants to feed them (picture a scene from Max Headroom or something). Instead, we can effectively publish our own content, with whatever authority we can muster. Individuals are just as able as companies (large and small) - as an example, this blog currently has a Google rank of 6, which is higher ranked than some companies. That would have been impossible without easy and effective self-publishing tools.
In your mind, what is most misunderstood (or little understood) about these tools?
That they make you interesting. 
They don’t. It’s just a tool to help publish content. Just because you have a blog, doesn’t mean anyone cares. On the flipside, however, if you are even remotely interesting (or at least not completely boring), I can guarantee that no matter how narrow your area of interest, there are others online searching out blogs about it…
Are blogs and wikis evolving into something else?
Blogs and wikis (and mashups, and other stuff) are all just baby steps. To what? I have no idea. I have a hunch that Gibson may have been onto something (for good or bad) with his concepts of pervasive online communities. These types of things become possible once the tools evolve a little.
What are the implications of these publishing tools on ideas, public opinion and free speech?
Well, I can answer this from personal (recent) experience. It’s really easy to say something stupid. And thanks to the wonders of RSS, people find out about it in a hurry. And it’s not undoable (there is no Delete key on the internet). It’s not a bad thing, just something to keep in mind before posting your innermost ramblings and stuff like that…
What are a few of your essential blog reads or wiki communities?
Abject Learning, of course Actually, I’m currently subscribed to 115 “edublogs” (loosely defined), most of which I consider essential reading. (OPML for these feeds) Won’t name names on who gets the coveted 5-Star rating in Blogbridge (yet)…
Anything else?
Just that his whole read/write web thing is pretty cool. I seriously doubt I’d be as effective at making connections between emerging concepts/projects/people as I am with access to the “blogosphere” (gack). Just relax, Neo. There is no blog.