What is it with me and search stories lately? Last week I was impressed by Yahoo and its attempt to make the secure available — at least on the surface. Today, I came across this in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Publishers’ Group Asks Google to Stop Scanning Copyrighted Works for 6 Months. During those six months, the Association of American Publishers wants to know from google a few answers — namely, are you in violation of copyright law? This type of thing will show up more on our radar screen as the search continues to be the next big thing — have you noticed search is the interface for everything now? At any rate, its a good read and poses some interesting perspectives … don’t you think?
Emerging Technologies
iTunes Music Store … More Opportunities
I think I’d seen this before, but the interface shown below has a very interesting feature to it for an iTMS entry. Notice the little “folder tabs” that allow you to move from “playlist to playlist” all under the same “album†heading? This is interesting to me because if we do get this iTMS customization thing going that I have been speculating about since the podcasting in iTunes announcement a few weeks ago, we’re in for a very interesting set of opportunities. Looks to me like this could be a powerful way to structure your podcasts on a lesson-by-lesson or week-by-week basis for your courses. I am just wondering if we’ll have these capabilities when the next version of iTunes rolls out. Take a look at the screen capture here:
If we can use tabs to build custom “pages” in the store, imagine how this could essentially become a syllabus for you and your students. The overall page is the course page and each tab is a lesson, week, or whatever organizational method you use. With the iTMS’s ability to handle PDF, video, and audio we can distribute some serious stuff from in here! Mix it up with audio books via audible.com (say goodbye to textbooks!), your own reflections, lectures, and feedback as podcasts, uploaded cases and assignments as PDFs, and video files of Keynote slides and lectures and you have one hell of an interesting LMS alternative!
With the access to the pre-built stuff in iTMS and your own creations the doors are opening to a rich class experience. I am very anxious to see how the iTMS really works … here’s to hoping this isn’t just wishful thinking!
Me2Me … Very Interesting
I just read a great post over at Copyfight by Jason Schultz, INDUCE’s biggest threat: Me2Me apps. Jason describes the me2me application as the devices that allow you to share with yourself — I don’t think doing that causes blindness or anything else your grandmother may have told you. But, it does worry the hell out of the RIAA and the MPAA. Jason contends that this new breed of software or hardware (think Apple’s Airport Express and Tivo’s Home Media) could be the next scary thing:
This is, of course, the RIAA and MPAA’s worst nightmare. Both industries have based their business models on controlling each and every permutation of playback for their content. The RIAA wants to make you pay when you buy the CD, when you download the iTune, when you listen to an Internet webcast, etc. The MPAA wants to charge you at the theater, for every copy of a DVD you buy, and (via advertising) for every show you watch on TV. Yet the more and more we as users and consumers are allowed to control and choose our own form of playback, the less Hollywood can justify charging us for each one. The more utility we get out of Me2Me apps, the less we’re willing to pay someone for an extra copy or delivery mechanism. In the end, Me2Me technology may pose a larger threat to Big Content’s bottom line than P2P ever did.
It just sort of jumped out at me that this seems like it should be the era of personal media — what with all these digital lifestyle devices showing up on the scene. I usually don’t like to take huge quotes out of context, but I thought it was a good one. At any rate it makes me wonder how it will come down given the potential for growth in the academic podcasting space and the ease of remixing media — I am seeing this stuff explode and if this scares the hell out of the powers that be, then it could spell the end to personal media management as we’ve come to expect it. Now, back to reality … even Jason says that, “Me2Me technology, however, would be much much harder to outlaw. Many Me2Me uses would arguably be fair or non-infringing uses.” He says that in comparison of how the RIAA and MPAA in the Grokster case were able to show that over 90% of P2P use is for infringement … still it leaves me wondering.
This would be an interesting discussion for some students … any thoughts?
The Read/Write Web: Next Gen Textbooks
I am still trying to figure out what it really means to have three blogs going at the same time … so much of what I want to post, I want to have in each spot. Until I figure it out, you’ll have to understand. Sorry … this is cross posted at blogs@si as well.
I just read a good post over at Weblogg-ed … The Case Against Textbooks and thought I’d share it into this space. The Read/Write Web is a powerful thing and even more powerful when put to work for good instead of evil (that sounded a little over the top don’t you think?). I am thinking of the project we are getting set to do with Dr. Mike McNeese — he calls an eBook … I think its a perfect opportunity to try either the book feature of this system or with a straight up wiki. He wants a way to create a student centered book/textbook related to HCI written by his students — both undergraduate and graduate. I think he originally just wanted an interactive text — interactive in that it was online and had animations. It seems to me that it would be mush more powerful if students could use and grow the thing over time; without a bunch of developers and instructional designers getting in the way.
The way I see it, most of the eLearning stuff we’ve done should be built on the Read/Write Web concept that is starting to emerge. I know we used to call the content for Online IST a living textbook … it was really static though. Even though it is all stored and published out of a databse, there is nothing dynamic about it except for the Flash-based interactions. It just sits there on screen so you can read it. If it were all in a Read/Write mode, students could annotate it, discuss it, contextualize it, and really whatever they wanted. Has some downsides, but I think its worth a little research and experimentation. At any rate, it got me thinking. Any thoughts?
Talk From ADC Institute
Here are my slides from the ADC Institute as a PDF. It was a fun session, with some really great discussion. Good time. Download it here. Enjoy and let me know if you want to discuss any of it. Read the description Bart Pursel wrote over at blogs@si.
Here is the podcast frothe session as well. Get it via the RSS Enclosure, or go old school and click the link. It is around 11 MB … ADC Talk: Tools That Change The Classroom.
iTMS Watch Out … Smithsonian to Open Music Store
My wife sent me this article this morning from the Washigton Post, Smithsonian Folkways to Open MP3 Music Store. Reminded me that some time ago the Smithsonian was meeting with us as part of the Apple Digital Campus Project — at Duke to be exact when they showed off the Apple/Duke iTMS for the Duke iPod project. Very cool, but sort of struck me that the Smithsoniam people didn’t have anything to say — at least about getting into the downloadable music scene. It leaves me wondering how much of this was built by them and how much is from other sources (and if there are deals behind it all).
Just found it interesting and yet another example of how far we’ve come in the last three to four years. Very cool!
One Click Assessment
That is a concept I have been working on for almost two years … something I think would make a huge difference scoring online discussion activities, blog posts, and comments … the idea is a rubric tool on the instructor side that allows you to set the total number of points, criteria, etc and a little Netflix style rating system on the front end. It would allow me (or my TA) to quickly go through and rate posts on a 1-5 star scale. The tool would calculate the score based on the rubric it was associated to. We’ve prototyped it, but hust never created it.
I saw the Votio Again post and was reminded of it. I’m going to try and install this today. I’ll let you all know.
The Future of eLearning?
This isn’t in response to anything I’ve read or seen lately, this is just a stream of thought post that I need to get out there. The real strength of what we’ve done at the Solutions Institute has been built on our original project — Online IST. I’ve talked about it in the past, but lately we’ve moved so far away from those early tenants that it sort of has us (namely me) worried about where all this is going. In an effort to pull SI back on track I sat down with Keith Bailey, Associate Director of the Institute, to really talk honestly about where we as a team are headed. What we kept coming back to was that:
- We aren’t a software development house
- We are a powerful eLearning design and development group
- We have outstanding eLearning design and development tools (D3 & Edison)
- We have a proven ID&D methodology
- We have way too many projects at the moment
- We aren’t a web team
- We hate maintenance
Ok, so pull all that apart and it becomes clear that we have traded innovation in the areas of learning and instructional technology design in for software and web development. When you add up that we aren’t a real software house, that we hate maintenance, and that we strive for innovation I start to get the picture that a good way to get it all going again is to return to our roots … those happen to be around eLearning, instructional design, process, and innovation.
The challenge that Keith and I will attempt to create for the team here will be one that sees us rally around one of our projects — an NSF funded eLearning course related to Information Assurance (IST 451 is the first course in the track). We’ve been plugging along in our tried and true methodology and it has bored most of us … if we can create a new research and development agenda to combat that I believe we may be able to pull everyone here back into the mix. Imagine:
- Using our proven methodology for ID&D
- Experimenting with new tools to give faculty the flexibility to change, edit, and contextualize content as they see fit
- Integrating some level of social networking, blogging, tagging, and other new and emerging CMC approaches to change how students collaborate with each other and faculty
- Delivering all of it on time
- Crafting a research agenda around the methodology, the learning strategies, and the outcomes
If we could do that, I think people would get excited about it again and we’d feel like the work we are doing can make a difference now that we are nearly 10 years into the eLearning experiment. The only way this team can return to its roots is by creating a new challenge. I believe it’s just a matter of framing it correctly. All of that coupled with the blogs@ist and how it can all be integrated into that emerging community could be amazing. I guess all I can say is stay tuned.