EDUCAUSE | Moodle

E07 Podcast: An Interview with Alex Wirth-Cauchon, from the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education

gbayne — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:47:50 -0600

In this 20 minute podcast, we feature an interview with Alex Wirth-Cauchon, Participant Relations Manager for the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE). This interview was recorded at the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Conference in Seattle, Washington.

Alex Wirth-Cauchon is Participant Relations Manager for NITLE. In that role he attends NITLE's relationships with participating colleges and partner organizations and builds new relationships with interested organizations and campuses. He serves as a first point of contact for inquiries and expressions of interest from participating colleges. In addition, he advises senior staff regarding the needs and interests of participating colleges and the usefulness of NITLE services and programs to them.

E07 Podcast: An Interview with Martin Ringle, Chief Technology Office for Reed College

gbayne — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:26:34 -0600

In this 26 minute podcast, we feature an interview with Martin Ringle, Chief Technology Office at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. For more than 20 years, Marty Ringle has contributed to the higher education IT profession as a change agent, a collaborator, and an organizer. A deep believer in the role and mission of small liberal arts colleges, his career has been marked by his ability to meld diverse entities into a coherent whole. This interview was recorded at the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Conference in Seattle, Washington.

Wikis and DRM @ Tools of Change

mpasiewicz — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:08:28 -0500

The morning keynotes hinted at the [d]evolving state of DRM. Hopefully Bill McCoy will touch on his interest in Social DRM at his session tomorrow. Michael Jensen, Peter Brantley, and Ale de Vries hosted an interesting session on DRM too. In my estimation, they mostly talked around the idea of DRM and the problems one can encounter when approaching the topic. I got a late question in regarding the music publishing model and the potential for using performance rights organizations to introduce an new form of renumeration for the book trade. I approached the same topic with Brewster Kahle in our interview from 2005. I can understand why he'd be apprehensive, but I can't fathom why publishers and authors aren't all over this concept. Peter Brantley entertained the question and seemed to suggest that we might one day see a system like this ... where the Google's, Amazon's and Microsoft's of the world might have to pay a royalty to "perform" page views of the content ... similar to how radio works. 'Definitely makes me want to give Gerry's interview with Peter a second listen.

Next up was a delightful presentation by Asheesh Birla of Thomson Learning. He talked extensively about Thomson's use and interest in wikis. They started using wikis a few years ago for internal project planning. He suggested that 80% of the contributors we from junior employees ... an interesting dynamic that may have introduced wider participation, but might also be a generational issue. He also shared some thoughts on his use of ActiveCollab (an open source tool similar to BaseCamp) for both project management and editorial collaboration. They're on their third pilot using the system and appear to be writing custom code to adapt the software for their needs.

He also talked about the value of moving metadata creation farther upstream in the process and how ActiveCollab/wikis helped facilitate that process. Birla suggested that in some ways, print is more economic than electronic counterparts because rights clearance has proven a very expensive process.

He shared a few thoughts on Thomson's use of wikis in the learning context as well. He cited an example where wikis were use to facilitate international pen pals aimed at supporting learning for foreign language classes. Has anyone else heard about this or similar techniques?

Apparently they're investigating Lucene as well. Finally, he hinted at some work on some semantic web applications and expressed an interest in ELGG, but there weren't many details of about that activity.

Towards the end, I was able to get in a question about the impact of the Pearson/ECollege deal. He suggested that activity may actually accelerate work tying tools like wikis and content together to support learning (and assessment). Both Sakai and Moodle were explicity referenced as potential avenues of interest for Thomson.

I'll try to elaborate more later as the next session is getting started now.

An Interview with Joel Greenberg

mpasiewicz — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 09:46:32 -0600

In the attached 16 minute recording, we'll hear from Open University's Director of Strategic Development, Joel Greenberg. Listen in as he discusses a range of topics including, among other things, Open University's interest in Moodle.

This interview is provided courtesy of CNI and was recorded at their 2006 Fall Task Force Meeting. The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) is an organization dedicated to supporting the transformative promise of networked information technology for the advancement of scholarly communication and the enrichment of intellectual productivity. You can learn more about CNI at their web site, http://www.cni.org

An Interview with Catheryn Cheal

mpasiewicz — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 13:35:00 -0600

In this 14 minute recording, Tip Ramsay sits down with Oakland University's Catheryn Cheal for a discussion about the evolving learning management landscape.

Early day motion on Open Source in the UK Parliment

StuartYeates — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 05:35:25 -0600

Liberal Democrat John Pugh MP has put forward an early day motion congratulating the Open University on it's use of open source:

That this House congratulates the Open University and other schools, colleges and universities for utilising free and open source software to deliver cost-effective educational benefit not just for their own institutions but also the wider community; and expresses concern that Becta and the Department for Education and Skills, through the use of outdated purchasing frameworks, are effectively denying schools the option of benefiting from both free and open source and the value and experience small and medium ICT companies could bring to the schools market.

Presumably this is Moodle he's talking about.

cheers, stuart

An Interview with Al Essa

mpasiewicz — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 14:23:32 -0500

In this 18 minute recording, we'll hear from Al Essa, Associate Vice Chancellor & Deputy CIO at the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. Listen in as he shares some thoughts on the Spellings report, patents, and Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns.

An Interview with James Dalziel

mpasiewicz — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 14:10:28 -0500

In this 16 minute recording, we'll hear from James Dalziel, Director of the Macquarie ELearning Centre of Excellence. Listen in as he shares some thoughts on patents, open source and LAMS.

For more information about LAMS, visit
http://www.lamsfoundation.org

An Interview with Rob Abel

mpasiewicz — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 14:55:58 -0500

In this 26 minute recording, we'll hear from Rob Abel, CEO of the IMS Global Learning Consortium. Listen in as Marliu Goodyear hosts a discussion about standards, course packs and more.

The ongoing development of "History of virtual learning environments" on Wikipedia

StuartYeates — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 03:05:38 -0500

The Wikipedia article "History of virtual learning environments" is still accumulating research and references for a possible defence against attempted enforcement of patent claims against Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). Started on 29th July, the page has had over five hundred edits by dozens of contributors.

Much of the effort to develop the page has been led by parties with the open source movement, but the information being recorded is also likely to be useful to proprietary vendors who may be attacked.

I must confess that my own efforts have been modest and mainly editorial, improving some references and pointing out unreferenced claims.

cheers, stuart