So, we’re moving to Desire2Learn. Lots of things happening to get us there. Everything is being driven by a timeline leading to the decommissioning of our old LMS on May 31, 2014. Which means, when dealing with academic calendar years, and semester cycles, that we have 3 semesters to get from 0-100% adoption of D2L before we turn off the Blackboard servers.
I know. The timeline is kind of crazy. But, it’s totally doable. We’re going to have to be OK with noise and mess, and with not having all of the answers ahead of time. We’re going to be needing a lot of support from Desire2Learn (thankfully, they’re up to it), and from the UofC community as a whole.
Jen suggested many (many) months ago that I post the requirements we used in the LMS RFP on github so people could use them, fork them, etc…. A starting point, so every institution doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel each time. Considering the amount of time and effort she put into helping craft them, how can I possibly refuse? I can’t, that’s how.
I’ve been working with people on campus for a long time to try to figure out what we need to do about our campus LMS. My oldest file for the endeavour was created on July 19, 2011. Seriously. Almost 2 years ago. We did a couple rounds of campus engagement1, ran an RFP, and wrote several reports. Provincial politics, budget crises and legal processes intervened, and here we are. The decision was formalized in the RFP system this afternoon, and it’s official: the University of Calgary has selected Desire2Learn as its next learning management system.
An idea I first saw Tim Bray do - when he finds a bunch of interesting tabs open in his browser, he writes a “tab sweep” post to share the links, and why they’re interesting. I think it’s a good idea. So, here are a few tabs that got opened up during my lunch-hour RSS feed reading…
I’ve really been loving running my own dropbox clone, by using owncloud running on my Hippie Hosting Co-op account. It’s (mostly) seamless and automatic, and (usually) Just Works™. It’s not as polished as Dropbox’s UI, but that’s not critical (although the status badges on files and folder badges would be nice…)
But, over the last week or 2, I’ve been noticing that owncloud on my work computer gets wedged. Digging into the status, the URL changes from my owncloud instance to something intercepted by browser-based wifi authentication. Just changing the URL in configuration doesn’t seem to solve it. I have to nuke my owncloud settings, add a new config, delete it because it insists on syncing to /clientsync rather than /, and then re-adding it manually. Then, deleting the /clientsync folder on the server. Annoying. I just need this to work.
Tim Bray on blogging (yes, blogging) - it’s not dead yet. The long-form nature is obviously more appropriate than 140-char bursts for important things:
We increase and improve our body of knowledge through conversation. When this involves serious issues, those that matter, the appropriate unit is, more or less, the essay; neither very-long nor very-short form.
and that blogging has an important role in countering the BS that filters through more traditional everything-to-everyone press outlets. He refers to the “Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect”, where we see faults in press coverage of topics we’re familiar, but trust it in areas we’re not expert in. When, more likely, the quality of analysis is probably equally crappy and misleading across the board.
I was talking with a prof yesterday, about how our CIO has an IMDB page1 . We both thought that was pretty cool. Afterward, I was thinking about IMDB and how non-film people don’t have a similar common CV/project/collaboration/history listing. I mentioned this on twitter, and Boris nudged me that, yes, we actually do have that. It’s LinkedIn.
@dlnorman you’re going to hate me for saying this, but @linkedin does fit the bill. Also check out @gklist & @zerply
David Wiley nicely wraps up MOOCs, and why they’re important even if much of the hype is just marketing drivel spouted by elite institutions:
For a complex tangle of political reasons, “the people in power” are currently paying a tremendous amount of attention to issues relating to access to education, and the role of the cost of education in regulating that access. MOOCs have popularized and significantly advanced the conversation regarding both universal and free. The general public is beginning to believe that technology may have the near-term potential to provide a genuine solution to the problem of making education both universal and free. We can take advantage of the space MOOCs have created in the public conversation to introduce and advance the idea of truly open educational resources to people who are unfamiliar with it.
The comparison I made above between MOOCs and learning objects was a carefully chosen one. I believe that MOOCs will run – are already running – up against the reusability paradox. I believe people will eventually come to realize the pedagogical restrictions that are inseparably connected with the copyright and Terms of Use restrictions of MOOCs. As with the learning object mania of yesteryear, diehards will stick around but the rest of the world will move on as the experiment fails. If we message correctly before that happens, we can create a general understanding that much of what is frustrating about MOOCs to faculty, students, and others would be solved by the simple application of an open license (the same way an open license can resolve the reusability paradox).
MOOCs have carried the ball a significant way down the field toward universal access to free, high quality education. We should be grateful for the work they’ve done on behalf of that goal. The primary risk we have to guard against now is someone hanging out the “Mission Accomplished” banner. MOOCs are not openly licensed, and consequently will struggle with issues of quality and will never become part of the educational infrastructure that enables truly breakthrough advances. MOOCs get us one step closer to the goal, but we need to continue advocating for true openness in order to create the space in which those advances can happen.
Within the vision for the Institute for Teaching and Learning, the EDU Director will play a key leadership role in guiding the transition of the former Teaching and Learning Centre to an integral component of a more comprehensive institute. The Director will manage and promote a collaborative spirit among all staff within the EDU and between the EDU and the University community. The Director will liaise with deans, chairs, faculty, librarians, teaching assistants, student services professionals, and students to encourage the development of research-informed learning and teaching methods, including the integration of appropriate technologies to improve learning. He/she will also lead inquiry into selected University of Calgary educational development practices for the purpose of understanding and improving the impact of initiatives. The Director will also pursue relationships with institutions in Alberta and other external organizations to advance the work of the EDU.
Yahoo! is buying Tumblr for $1.1B US. Cash, not stock paper-shuffling. Why? Marissa Mayer says:
In terms of working together, Tumblr can deploy Yahoo!’s personalization technology and search infrastructure to help its users discover creators, bloggers, and content they’ll love. In turn, Tumblr brings 50 billion blog posts (and 75 million more arriving each day) to Yahoo!’s media network and search experiences. The two companies will also work together to create advertising opportunities that are seamless and enhance user experience.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how to support innovation, and to avoid feedback loops that trigger fads and unjustified hype. I figure the story usually starts with an innovation. Somebody has an idea for a process/product/tool/whatever. A few people try it out. Early adopters. People start getting excited about it. From there, I’m thinking the adoption curve takes roughly 4 different lines:
From the initial adoption curve, the line will either:
