From 1998-2001, I worked at DiscoverWare, Inc - a Calgary-based eLearning company with customers around North America, Europe and Australia. The “Nova” product line was a rich-media software simulation learning management system, based on 3-tier client/server communication. I built the client-side data and user activity tracking layers, which then communicated with a client user interface layer, and a server for long-term storage of user progress data.
Screen recording video demo
Screenshots of menus and content
Main menu - with status indicator to show content you’ve already viewed.
Course Community - a non-LMS platform to use in courses, providing a suite of tools to foster community and collaboration within the course. Works as a standalone application and can integrate with an LMS such as Brightspace through LTI.
CSS Colour Themer - a tool to create palettes of CSS variables given an image (or multiple images).
DICE Mapper - an application to support a workshop session in our programming retreat, to guide team members to map their work on the 4M framework using DICE.
Added custom CSS to enable select notes to be displayed full-width
A python script to automatically create Obsidian notes for items starred in NetNewsWire
Obsidian Related Notes plugin - uses an LLM running locally in Ollama to index all notes and display a sidebar of related notes based on vector similarity.
Obsidian Topics plugin - a streamlined interface for finding my Topics notes and anything they’re related to
Obsidian CRM plugin - a streamlined interface for finding my Person notes and anything they’re related to
3D Grapher - an Obsidian plugin to display interactive and useful 3D rendered visualizations of an Obsidian vault.
Applications
PhotoBlogger - A macOS application for photoblogging with Hugo
Claude Code Log Viewer - for parsing, displaying, and exporting markdown of Claude Code project conversation histories.
Hugo Manager - a macOS application for managing and publishing Hugo websites
Brightspace Course Coach - a macOS application that uses the Brightspace API and Ollama local LLM to provide a socratic coach chatbot interface for students to engage with their course materials.
logger - a Python script to process apache log files, generating visualizations about traffic, with a focus on “how much of this is just botslop?”
chrome-intelligence - a Chrome extension to make it easier to use Apple Intelligence’s Writing Tools when editing text.
HugoThing - a better macOS menubar app to publish my Hugo site.
Pulling together information about several campus platforms to help onboard a new team member
Converting my markdown CV into a LaTeX-formatted resume
Providing a super-high-level summary of a book that I had no interest in actually reading
Writing and revising HR-related documents - this has been a huge time-saver, given the typical week-or-two delay for feedback on these kinds of documents
An Excel lookup formula to match course codes (like “HIST”) with faculty names (like “Arts”) that are mapped out in another sheet to build a chart for TI Unit Review on Registrar’s Office data on courses scheduled in the TI from 2018-2025.
A “classroom analytics dashboard” - using Claude Code to build an interactive visualization of the TI 2018-2025 classroom scheduling data.
Misc other stuff
Designing an optimal AI communication language (haven’t tested this, but it looks potentially useful)
Transcribing handwritten notes and whiteboards into Markdown for use in Obsidian (using the iPhone app)
Pulling together some arguments for/against the ITIL “business vs. service” separation to help think that through
Acting as an “executive coach” to help me think through various topics without just “solving” them for me
Developing a plan/agenda for a campus community session on generative AI use and needs/infrastructure
Refining/editing my resume and cover letter
Summarizing and identifying key items to review a tenure-and-promotion package
Got 100% on a quiz in a Brightspace course (using Perplexity’s Comet browser)
Generating a “report” with examples of successful Digital Transformation initiatives (it produced a decent overview with 14 case studies of companies, governments, and universities that have engaged in Dx)
Mavericks is an exhibit curated by the Glenbow Museum, on the history of Alberta. The online version of the exhibit was created using Pachyderm, and I was the developer for the project. The online exhibit is used as part of the K12 curriculum in Calgary, and every grade 5 student in the city uses the website as part of their projects.
I was involved in the project as a Pachyderm developer, and worked with curators at the Glenbow to implement the web version of the exhibit (I did the authoring and publishing within Pachyderm, using content provided by the Glenbow). The web exhibit uses Flash - 2006 was a much different time.
Norman, D. (2013). A Case Study Using the Community of Inquiry Framework to Analyze Online Discussions in WordPress and Blackboard in a Graduate Course. (Master’s thesis, University of Calgary). Retrieved from https://darcynorman.net/thesis
TL;DR: students basically did what teacher asked them to do, without really caring what platform they were using.
Abstract:
Online discussions in a graduate level education course were compared using the Community of Inquiry framework and a Classroom Community survey within a mixed methods case study with concurrent triangulation of data sources. Discussion posts were published in two separate software applications: WordPress and Blackboard. Data collected included online discussion metadata, Community of Inquiry coding of online discussion content, survey responses from students, and an interview with the instructor to identify pedagogical decisions made in the design of the course. Content analysis of the discussion archives described differences in posts published to the two platforms, as well as differences in simultaneous indications of Community of Inquiry presences over time. Five new online discussion timeline visualization methods are presented. Key findings include an emphasis on pedagogical design over software selection in facilitating rich online discussions in the context of a graduate level course, although selection of software may provide signals to participants regarding the instructor’s expectations. Recommendations for reproducing similar research, identification of areas for future research, and recommendations for practice are provided.
Pachyderm was a collaborative project, led by the New Media Consortium. It involved the development of a rich media authoring platform, which would be used to create online interactive presentations from museum collections and teaching materials.
Designed for people with little multimedia experience, Pachyderm is accessed through a web browser and is as easy to use as filling out a web form. Authors upload their own media (images, audio clips, and short video segments) and place them into pre-designed templates, which can play video and audio, link to other templates, zoom in on images, and more. Once the templates have been completed and linked together, the presentation is published and can then be downloaded and placed on the author’s website or on a CD or DVD ROM. Authors may also leave their presentations on the Pachyderm server and link directly to them there. The result is an attractive, interactive Flash-based multimedia presentation.
After the Open Education conference in 2014, an after-conference hackathon even was hosted at the University of Mary Washington. During that event, I was able to interview several edtech leaders (with the help of David Kernohan and Andy Rush) to capture some of their insights into their work in edtech.
Built as a theme for CAREO, SciQ was launched as a way to provide access to digital resources within the context of the Alberta K12 provincial curriculum.
Main menu - with status indicator to show content you’ve already viewed.
