David Wiley just posted a link to his āEducational Content Viewerā prototype. Some scary synchronicity here - Iāve been thinking about building a learning object playback utility that could be embedded in CAREO. Wonder how this prototype gets its data? If itās already reading from CGI somewhere, it should be pretty straightforward to get that working.
Read MoreHitSOFTWARE claims their jAllora product to be a relational-to-xml mapper (and vice versa). Geert Clememsen from Frontbase just sent a message saying it works with the FrontBase database server.
Sounds interesting. Didnāt see any claims of XQuery support though (the closest they come to mentioning support is in this white paper, which doesnāt come right out and say they support it, only that they should). Will have to dig deeper. Itās also a little pricey. Itās good that itās java, and has lots of tools, but itās bad that it requires a separate webservice provider to manage/interact with it (ala Tamino) - an integrated solution like XStreamDB would be nicer for our needs.
Read MoreIt appears as though the SciQ live broadcast event went off successfully. That’s cool. This is the first live, streaming event hosted through CAREO.
Just running stats on it now, but it looks like we had 190 simultaneous users, with about 1800 page views. Hopefully we’ll get some stats from Apple or Akamai about the number of video streams served.
I’m crunching the apache log from www.sciq.ca now to see who/what/where people were going. I’ll post more info later…
Read MoreFinally taking the time to go through this paper (described here) by David Wiley. Hereās a couple stream-of-consciousness thoughts while reading it:
2.1: Decontextualized Learning: David discusses the paradox of context vs. reusability. This is a huge issue, but he doesnāt mention that a learning object can have multiple, simultaneous contexts, of different granularities and sources. An object can simultaneously be contextualized as a biochemical reaction, as a nutritional process, a socioeconomic driver, etcā¦ These contexts donāt even have to be embedded in the LOās metadata - they can be externally derived, as well.
Read MoreI decided I should to a test installation of the ALOHA Server application, which CAREO uses as its metadata repository (CAREO is technically a client application of this server).
Grabbed the documentation, PHP files etcā¦ and had it running in less than an hour on my TiBook. If you have more experience with MySQL, you could probably get it done in less than 30 minutes.
Pointed ALOHA at it, and added the first learning object within about 5 minutes of turning the lights on. Cool.
Read MoreJust got an email invite to a conference call on Friday, with āMr. Learning Objectsā - David Wiley. Should be an interesting session. How on earth would anyone live with a reputation like that?
From the invitation:
Featuring David Wiley, āMr. Learning Objectsā himself. To get ready for the discussion, take a look at the reading entitled āLearning objects: Difficulties and Opportunitiesā that is posted on Davidās blog at http://www.reusability.org/blogs/david/.
Mike just got back from Vancouver, and was talking about an XML database he saw there: Bluestream XStreamDB
They claim to support XQuery via JDBC somehow. Itās a java-based solution (i.e., portable - thatās a Good Thing). Iām downloading it now to see what it does. Looks VERY promising.
Details available here.
UPDATE: Wow! It worked right off the bat! First XML DB to do THAT for meā¦ And it comes with a whiz-bang management app, too! So far, much more impressed with XStreamDB than anything else Iāve triedā¦ Oh, and itās not just portable, itās EMBEDDABLE. We could conceivably embed the jars for XStreamDB INSIDE CAREO for the repository in a box. It doesnāt come easier than that!
Read MoreJust came across this handy MovableType plugin: MT-RSSFEED.
It can take any RSS feed (static file, or URL), and parse it for display within a MovableType weblog. Iāve changed over the RSS subscriptions to CAREO on the right sidebar to use this plugin, and it works pretty well.
There are lots more great MT plugins at the MT-Plugins Directory.
UPDATE: Iāve also put the āotherā way of subscribing to RSS feeds in a page here, since itās valuable in contexts outside of MovableType (like, say, Blackboard, or WebCT, or whateverā¦)
Read MoreWhen CAREO is launched, it does some stuff to modify its connection to a database, in order to allow me to point it to different databases at runtime without touching code or recompiling. In UCApplication.java, I modify the connection dictionary for the EOModel’s EOAdaptor, feeding it URLs for databases, usernames, passwords, etc…
This has worked like a charm on MacOSX and MacOSX Server (of course), but now, on Solaris, when I set the connection dictionary, and do a test connection to make sure it worked, I get this weird, cryptic SQLException error via WebObjects’ JDBCAdaptor class:
Read MoreThis is actually pretty cool. Another great link from Dale Pike!
Technorati.com checks a boatload of weblogs, and maps the links between them. Feed it a URL, and it tells you who else links to it.
What a cool way to find people who are linking to (and, one would therefore assume interested in) the contents of a weblog.
Something like this would be a slick addition to CAREO - map which people are subscribed to a learning object, and perhaps which other objects they’ve subscribed to, generating some form of dynamic relationship between objects. Something like the Amazon.com “You might like…” feature…
Read MoreJust came across this presentation by Dale Pike. It’s a great summary of the reasons why weblogs may be valuable, and how they might be used in a community setting.
Read MoreI’ve been asked to put together a “non marketing” feature list for CAREO. What can it do? What sort of functions does it have?
Anyway, my first, 10-minute stab at it is located here. I’ll also leave a link to it in the left sidebar of this site, so it’s handy. I’ll tweak it when I get a chance, but most of the important (or at least visible) features are in there. There will be some more additions in a few days, but mostly for behind-the-scenes kinda stuff.
Read More