This is a test

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This is where you type... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes...

This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes... This is where more stuff goes...

Hammersley on TypePad...

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Guardian Unlimited | Online | Battle of the blog builders The standout feature is the template maker. Users can design their blog without knowing, or seeing, any HTML code whatsoever and with a very great range of control.

Other features include real-time statistics, posting by email, and automatic creation of Friend of a Friend data - instantly taking an experimental standard and taking it to the mainstream.

This looks very interesting. I have teachers who want to use MovableType, and would gladly pay to have it hosted...

Responses to Winer on CSS...

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Dave Winer is taking a lot of heat for his comments on CSS: see here, here, here and here (for Dave's response, be sure to read the comments in that last link). In the title attribute of Anil's link, he makes the case that it is in Dave's business interest to use CSS: "if you comply with standards, *every* web page becomes an XML-based outline."

[MovableBLOG]

Recently Dave Winer has been wondering about the use of CSS. As noted above, MovableBlog points to several thoughtful responses. Bryan Bell explains the issue concerning IE 6 and Manila. Read his comments section for Dave Winer’s response.

I found Jeffrey Zeldman's response to be very thoughtful and educational.

Learning Objects, RSS and Trackback...

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MLX Item #278 There has been a lot of discussion of the use of RSS and Trackback in relation to the sharing of "learning objects." A very interesting concept... The sharing of resources becomes a lot easier with the use of this kind of technology.

Speaking of Trackback, The O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference is also doing something interesting with Trackback. Each of the session descriptions has a Trackback url. Those at the conference blogging the session can point to the url and those looking for further information can easily see all the posts associated with that session.

.LRN: Open Source ELearning Platform

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What is .LRN?

A fully open source eLearning platform.
A portal framework and integrated application suite to support course management and online communities.
A scalable, secure, and enterprise-ready eLearning platform that can be deployed readily by small and large organizations.
A modular architecture to permit flexibility and to drive innovation.
A set of best practices in online learning shared in the form of source code.
[by way of...elearnspace blog]

Weblog Presentation

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Tonight I am making a presentation to a group about weblogs...

Background and Perspective

Weblogs: A History and Perspective... by Rebecca Blood

Understanding Weblogs, O'Reilly Net Article

Blogging Goes Corporate, Wired Article

Trent Lott Gets Bloggered, Online Journalism Review:

Weblog Software:

The Microcontent News Blogging Software Roundup

 

RSS:
Rich Site Summary, Resource Description Framework ( RDF ) Site Summary, Real Simple Syndicaton....

What is RSS?

Making an RSS Feed

 

News Aggregators

NetNewsWire

Newscrawler

Newsisfree

Syndic8

 

Sample Weblog Sites

Megnut

Zeldman

Vagabonding

Scripting News

Douglas Rushkoff

Dan Gillmor

NY Times News Headlines

Ms. Leake's Classroom

Will Richardson

Joe Luft

 

6 Articles From The Feature highlighting Mobile Computing and Education

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TheFeature :: It's Education Week
The feature has six articles dealing with mobile technology and education. Two are highlighted below...

Learning with the Simputer details the development and use of a small handheld computer that is being developed in India. The Simputer is XML based and running Linux. Will sell for about $190.

The Simputer project was founded four years ago with the purpose of providing low-cost, portable computing and connectivity to poor and illiterate people who are currently untouched by personal computing, cell phones and other existing mechanisms.

 

Teaching in the Wireless Cloud, discusses the changes/disruptions that are taking place in higher education with the advent of wireless technology.

The most controversial instance of m-learning occurs in the traditional classroom, when students gain access to wireless connectivity. Some professors report frustration at students' wandering attention, as Minesweeper or instant messages become more attractive than a lecture.

[by way of...[alterego]]

Jon Udell: High-tech PR in the age of blogs

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RSS holds the promise of becoming a key part of a company's media relations strategy and execution. [PR Tactics: Using RSS for corporate communications]

In short, I don't want you to pitch things to me. And I don't want your clients to pitch things to me either, at least not directly. I do, very much, want them to speak in their own authentic voices, about the technologies and products and services that inspire their passion, to everyone who might have a reason to care. I want your clients to explain what they do, how they think, and why their efforts matter. And so, of course -- and more importantly -- do current and prospective customers. [Jon's Radio]

Part of a series of pieces of how weblogs can be used to share information with customers. A good example of this is how Macromedia allowed several of their community mangager create weblogs associated with their product line.

The firm needed a way to quickly respond to questions developers might have as they use the new products... [Wired]

As Jon Udell mentions I don't want brochures and press releases, I want to hear the people who develop products and services talk about them and share their passion and knowledge. Same goes for the classroom too...

 

Another Day, Another MT Plug-In: OtherBlog...

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MT Plugin Directory: OtherBlog
Author: David Raynes
Description: Plug-in based way of including posts/info from other blogs on the same installation.

Just installed this one today and now we can route the excerpt of the most recent recommend book from the media specialist's weblog to the front page of the school web site. Plan to use this one to route art work from the art teacher's weblog to the front page.

Also discovered two others that are very useful. MTGrid adds tags to make tables or containers from data inside of MT. When used with Kevin Shays' Collect plugin the allow you to create a page of thumbnail images form your posts. I still need to figure out which category tags I need to use to pull out individual categories, but you can see an example on Ms. Avidan's classroom site.

Stepan Riha is the author of MTGrid and was very gracious in helping me to get MTGrid working.

More RSS... Ideal Tool

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IdealTool: Custom RSS Creation: Ryan Eby - Education and Technology Tim also stated that he was looking into using RSS to syndicate book lists and other things on the school homepage, but perhaps he could go one step further and use it to showcase student work (presuming there were classes where students kept weblogs). By having each student's weblog create an RSS feed, it is quite easy for a teacher to showcase a certain student's web work on the teacher's homepage. Perhaps the teacher could change which student's work got showcased every so often. The ability of parents to subscribe to their child's work also lets them stay up to date on what's being done in that class.

Ryan Eby has a great piece about the use of RSS in education. Lots of good ideas to get one thinking of many possible uses. In the excerpt above he refers to the Buckman School page and the list of recommended books from the media specialist. This list is fed to the home page via RSS. He expands the example to include student work. For the most part the students I am working with are younger and do not have individual weblogs, but some of their teachers are starting to document student work and we are using Movable Type to route work to their pages.(example: Lynne Leake's classroom page)

The more I dig into the numerous plug-ins that have been developed for Movable Type the more I am impressed. Am going to be working with the art teacher next week to help him develop a virtual art gallery. By using categories, we can create numerous RSS feeds to deliver content to various sections of the web site. There is one plug-in that allows for the routing of a random entry. If the school district was interested we could even route art work to them for display on their pages. (not that they are interested.. but they could if they were... :-) ) Currently they have a very Byzantine process for submitting art work for publication. Imagine if all they had to do was put a little code in their template and then automatically art work would be routed to them via RSS...

Presstime Article on RSS Feeds...

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Presstime If it hasn't happened already, the person who runs your Internet operation will walk into your office and share a concept that sounds like a complete fantasy. Really Simple Syndication, better known as RSS, is legitimate and living up to its name for those who've launched their own news feeds. The online manager will say there's an easy-to-create, low-cost method for increasing the distribution of your editorial content through the Internet. RSS can build loyalty among current visitors to your site and help attract new ones.

Nice article that explains some business reasons for the use off RSS. Every benefit they relate to business use, can also be related to schools, their audiences and "customers."

Educational uses of trackback

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Some thoughts from Ryan Eby on educational uses of trackback. When students have assignments they have to do on their weblog, it'd probably be helpful to have a page that describes the assignment which they can ping when they post... [Brooklyn BloggEd]

Joe Luft points to a post by Ryan Eby (Ryan's site is great) regarding the possible uses of Trackback in educational settings. Joe mentions that he utilizes an RSS aggregator to read his students' work. I do this too, but one of the things about Trackback that is interesting is that with assignments, the instructor can leave it to the students to make the connection to the assignment, instead of having to subscribe to each students RSS feed in a newsreader. Also I'm thinking of some of the teachers out there who may not be familiar with a news aggregator.

I've been spending some time learning more about Movable Type and some of the plug-ins that others have written to expand its capibilities. For example MT-RSS feed is a Movable Type plug-in that allows for the import of RSS feeds into pages. On the Buckman home page are two examples of this. The school media specialist is using Movable Type to create a list of recommended books. This feed is incorporated into the school home page. In addition, Helen Nolen, the school principal, has been keeping a Movable Type page and this too is noted and fed to the school index page.

Learned of another MT plug-ing called Otherblog. Otherblog allows you to incorporate posts/info from other blogs on the same Movable Type installation. I hope to find some time today to incorporate this one to bring the latest book recommendation into the school home page.

More Movable Type...

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I've been spending some time leaning more about the cabibilities of Movable Type. I have been working with Lynne Leake of Buckman Elementary helping her design her classroom web page. Initially I showed her Movable Type and what some other teachers had done with it. Her initial reaction was positive, but she wanted more. She wanted a web page that wasn't just a list of posts, but rather a template that posts would flow into.

With a bit of digging around on the Movable Type support forum, I have been learning all about category tags and how to include and exclude posts. Our first crack at Lynne's page is now up. We plan to use the same template with a few other teachers in the next few days.

IndyJunior Travel Map...

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Indy Junior IndyJunior is a Flash application which you can download and use without knowing anything about flash. The app is provided ready to include in your web page without ever needing to own or use Flash MX. The download includes a configuration page which will help you get the look you want and then all you have to do is copy/paste the code into your html. The last step is to create an XML file of your travels. Since the data is kept in a seperate file it's easy to update.

Here is my little example...

[by way of...Ben Hammersley.com & Megnut]

Follow the link below to see my map...