A Random PBWiki Strategy - Sharing vs. Securing

In my work with wikis and the wonderful, wikitastic folks I work with, we have found a frequent need to have some areas of a wiki in development and some areas public. Let me first say that wikis are one of the most amazing tools you can use (for a long list of reasons I may someday blog about). Trust me, you'll love them. We love PBWiki.

In my experimentation (in several events using http://reta-otl.pbwiki.com) when I locked down a page for only administrative access, I would often have trouble making it readable to the whole user group again. Even if I would change the page settings, users would still have difficulty.

One strategy the most capable, Web 2.0 conscious persons I know, Tektrekker, taught me is to create an Administrative folder with custom security (so only the users you want will be able to access it). When pages are being drafted, they can easily be moved to the Admin folder, edited, and then moved back out for public consumption later.

So, to paraphrase...

When you PBWiki, let your folders do the security, then move your pages to open folders as you wish to make them available.

A break from social media...could that be good?

Sometimes.... when you step away

you're suddenly aware of how many people are
getting by
just fine

without all this....

When you return
(for a moment)
you are paralyzed.

Conversation is powerful.

You wonder about every word.

For me this feels



a breakthrough.

And now I'm happily
back
and have a somehow
deeper
appreciation.

My new year's resolution
out here
is to
remember
to
take a hiatus
once in a while.

From NMSU Hotline: NM online learning policies and practices ranks nationally

Great news from VSS, but forgot to report here. NMSU Hotline for today reminded me:

New Mexico’s eLearning support system, IDEAL-NM (www.ideal-nm.org), has been ranked number six in the country for online learning policies and practices by The Center for Digital Education. IDEAL-NM provides eLearning services in partnership with K-12, higher education and state agencies.

Two programs administered through NMSU, NM Learning Network Program (www.nmln.org ) and RETA (reta.nmsu.edu), have been integral to the success of IDEAL-NM.

Let the web help you graph the economy

Consider using various analytic tools to find out how people are accessing your site/blog/wiki/online course and see how it can inform your blogging journey.

Finding out through Lijit that my tiny post on the social graph was causing people to land on my blog when they googled 'graph of the economy.' This lead me to do some searching myself. Let me preface this by saying that I am by no means fluent in economics...

;-)

and I would urge you to evaluate the creditability of these resources if you are wanting to 'trust' the graphs that you see.

Here's an interactive graph about inflation as of late. Interesting! I know prices keep going up but it's cool to see some stats on it.

For a more qualitative look at perspectives on the economy, you can try Twist to graph trending topics in Twitter (here's one of 'economy', 'dow,' and 'stocks').

I do fancy visualizations of various things via the internet. In doing so I happened upon




and




both of which are interesting ways to look at graphs of the economy.

I hope this was helpful if you happen to be searching for those terms. May your journeys through the interwebs be prosperous.

VSS revs up the call to bridge the gaps!

Susan Patrick begins the morning by highlighting international efforts to improve access to education around the world. The gist is that the US is falling behind because of the speed with which other countries are moving toward better access and systemwide professional development in elearning. Susan challenges us to keep focusing on providing a world class education to all kids. In one example, the state of Georgia, there are over 400 high schools and only 88 qualified physics teachers. How else can the US provide quality education to our students without implementing blended and virtual education? Follow @desertjul on Twitter this morning to see some of the related resources from this moment at NACOL's VSS!

Google Sites and Notebook Webinar Tonight, NMSU Families Webinar Tomorrow

Find out more about these free webinars at http://webinars.nmsu.edu.

Fabulous Friday Following

Just a few things for you to look out for on this Friday, October 10...I'll try to help you see the forest through the trees.

MoodleMoot New Zealand 2008 just ended, but you can stream some very fresh information reported on twitter nicely via hashtag #mmnz08 (ie: what's up with Moodle 2.0, what Martin Dougiamas recommends Moodle communities should invest in, issues involving students identity management, etc). It's worth a moment of your Friday time, especially if you are a Moodle administrator. If you get especially curious and want to go more indepth, follow my shared Moodle feeds here to see aggregated Moodle tweets from throughout Twitter alongside recent blog posts by attendees.

The Twitter 20 is an effort by Jay Baer to conduct real time, '20 question' interviews of 20 influential Twitter stars. It happens this morning, follow it live, if you dare ;-). I think this would be interesting for those of us who are looking at educational possibilities of microblogging or uses of twitter for learning. I love how the format is presented...

140 character questions (x20).
140 character answers.
In real-time.
On Twitter.

I'll be with Melody and Kerry as we try to persuade folks at the Community College Roundup to try out Everybody's Business. We look forward to expanding users across campuses to widen the institutional knowledge community.

I realize these are all random weak-tie-style connections to Moodle, Twitter and Higher Ed Social Networking... maybe you'll find something here for you. If not, stay tuned. Next week I will be with some amazing colleagues at the New Mexico Technology in Education Conference and chatting up all sorts of things from Moodle to Adobe Connect to Professional Development Ecosystems to Web 2.0. And yes, there will mobile blogging and probably even a Twitter hashtag, #NMTIE08? any other suggestions?

Have an amazing-super-fabulous-glimmering Friday!

Give one XO to a child in a developing country, Get one for a child in your own life

I have not once regretted following Julz lead and participating in the G1G1 of 07, and I've been delighted with my daughter's XO. This Sugar Linux machine has been designed for children to practice and develop/program their own technology adventures. Since our XO came in January, many people have asked how to get one of these machines...and now you can!

Amazon will handle the Give one, Get one program this year, still at the amazingly bargain price of $399. So check it out, and consider connecting a young person in your life with 'gen XO' kids around the world.

Moodle Webinars On Demand, Wikis in the Classroom Coming Up

Thank you to the fabulous educators who came out the past two Mondays. We had some great conversations and excellent ideas shared on how teachers can use Moodle in their classrooms. To access the recordings for Show me the Moodle and Introduction to Moodle on demand, visit the NMSU Webinars site. Don't forget the collection of resources for each event, where you can see the chat log and access other cool stuff.

Hope you can join the superbly talented presenter and model RETAzen, Bethany Bovard, for

Webinar Event: Wikis in the Classroom I

Date: Monday, October 6, 2008

Time: 6:00-7:00 pm MST

Description:
Wikis are extremely useful tools for doing everything from helping you easily create web sites to providing your students with an engaging collaborative workspace. Yet, choosing the right wiki from among all those available can be quite challenging and time-consuming. In this webinar, you will explore a few different wikis and learn how to choose a wiki that's appropriate to your class needs.

TO ATTEND:
Please use the following link to attend the webinar:
http://nmsu.na3.acrobat.com/wikis1fa08

Plan to join us 15-20 minutes prior to the start time to configure your computer. To participate, speakers are required. A simple computer microphone and/or a headset is ideal for interaction. A webcam is optional.

If you have never used Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, please test your connection at: Adobe Acrobat Pro Support Center
https://admin.acrobat.com/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm

For complete information on this and all of our webinars visit us at:
http://webinars.nmsu.edu or contact us at webinars@nmsu.edu or call 575.646.6143.

Have a cup of coffee, invite a colleague and raise your eQ (eLearning
Quotient) with us!

Interested in Moodle? Show me the Moodle Webinar Monday

There's no need to scream ...

See how easy it can be to create interactive learning environment using Moodle and hear what teachers are doing with it.

Please join me Monday for...

Webinar Event: Show Me the Moodle

Date & Time: Monday, Sept. 29,2008 6:00-7:00 pm MST

Presenter: Holly Rae Bemis-Schurtz

Description:
Find out how teachers use Moodle in their classrooms and see how easy it is to create an online classroom environment. Participants will discuss ideas for integrating Moodle in the classroom and other learning situations.

To attend:
Please use the following link to attend the webinar:
http://nmsu.na3.acrobat.com/moodle2fa08. Plan to join us 15-20 minutes prior to the start time to configure your computer. To participate speakers are required. A simple computer microphone and/or headset is ideal for interaction. A webcam is optional. If you have never used Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, please test your connection at:
Adobe Acrobat Pro Support Center
https://admin.acrobat.com/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm

For complete information on this and all of our webinars visit us at: http://webinars.nmsu.edu. If you have questions or need tech assistance, please contact Cissy Lujan-Pincomb or Miley Grandjean at webinars@nmsu.edu

Have a cup of coffee, invite a colleague and raise your eQ (eLearning Quotient) with us!

RETA Webinar Team

Intro to Moodle Webinar this Monday

What is Moodle and why would you want to use it? Who is using it in New Mexico? What does a a school district need to run Moodle?


Please join me for a revamped version of my Introduction to Moodle webinar. I'll be sharing the basics, as described below, and promoting the resources at our super cool OTL wiki (http://reta-otl.pbwiki.com) where you can learn about Moodle 'til your mouse is content.

RETA would like to invite you to our NEXT professional development
webinar in our eLearning with Emerging Technology Series.

Webinar Event: Introduction to Moodle

Presenter: Holly Rae Bemis-Schurtz

Date & Time: Monday, Sept. 22,2008 6:00-7:00 pm MST

Description:

Moodle is an open source course management system used by educators around the world. Created by Martin Dougiamas to support social constructivism,Moodle provides flexibility and autonomy for districts and teachers while supporting a wide variety of interactive social learning tools. In this session you will learn more about what Moodle can do and find out what infrastructure is needed for districts, schools, and teachers need to access this powerful toolset. To attend: Please use the
following link to attend the webinar:
http://nmsu.na3.acrobat.com/moodle1fa08.

Plan to join us 15-20 minutes prior to the start time to configure your computer. To participate speakers are required. A simple computer microphone and/or headset is ideal for interaction. A webcam is optional. If you have never used Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, please test your connection at: Adobe Acrobat Pro Support Center http://www.adobe.com/support/connect.

For complete information on this and all of our webinars visit us at:
http://webinars.nmsu.edu. If you have questions or need tech assistance,please contact Cissy Lujan-Pincomb or Miley Grandjean at webinars@nmsu.edu or call 575.646.6143

Have a cup of coffee, invite a colleague and raise your eQ (eLearning Quotient) with us!

RETA Webinar Team

RETA (Regional Educational Technology Assistance)
College of Extended Learning
New Mexico State University
http://reta.nmsu.edu

See you then!

Just a thought on Moodle v. Drupal

Drupal, you're a rock star...but your reporting features just don't hold a candle.
v.
It's just data, but then again, it's the Data!

We should probably research some way of adapting Drupal to give us the data we need. Any ideas?

ICOT in the NECC

Caught up in the net of NECC even though I'm nowhere near. Not that there's anything wrong with that (but we can all only run away from home so often ;-) )...a variety of my Google Reader feeds and Summize alerts (trackable through GReader) keep me in the loop on the news and notes at NECC 2008.

Amazing what you can observe when a whole bunch of people at the same session tweet at the same time...not to put to fine a point on it, and not to name names but when 'this session is boring' gets tweeted with a topic name all in the same span of time you kind of get the picture...crazy.

Haven't even glanced at the NECC Google Trends but I think we can safely assume there has been a spike as of late.

So the moment that prompted this post was actually the locating of ICOT (ISTE's Classroom Observation Tool). We need more open and/or free assessment resources like this one.

Catch the fire...

http://summize.com/search?q=necc
http://www.google.com/trends?q=necc%2C+moodle
http://twist.flaptor.com/trends?gram=necc&table=0

Scribd

I have seen Scribd, but never paid attention. Hmmm, docs, ok. Was playing with FlashPaper and Kerry did some research on .pdf to Flash and came up with this...

Now I get it! It's like the Slideshare of pdfs, docs, etc. Woah, the cooliemust embed codes of existing or your own content...

Check it out. First time I posted this I posted a Moodle resource that was on the site. It was later removed...so I found this!

Handbook on Synchronous e-Learning - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Handbook on Synchronous e-Learning

Gizmodo's headline: "Future-y"

XO 2.0

Read Matt's post here.

Streaming News, Emotion, Thoughts & Conversations

There's something happening which I can't describe because I don't really have the words or the schema to say it at this point.

I imagine it as this great nebulous cybernet of memes - I might venture to guess that RSS is the main technology which has allowed for us to have these amazing streams of information.

When my colleague Phillip shared the Maramushi Newsmap http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm

It reminded me of these stream of conversation/consciousness/emotion sites

http://www.wefeelfine.org/ (draws from blogs in general)

http://twistori.com/ (draws from twitter)

Finding twistori led me to Summize ..I do especially like the searches for popular terms like "is down" or "listening to" or one of the coolest "#haiku"

http://summize.com/

So what exactly is happening here? ;-) I could see some cool mashup of all of the above which is designed to meet the learning needs of students...and society in general.

The magic of the 'Turn Editing On' button will be revealed...

... at this week's RETA Webinar.

Below are the event details and instructions for participating:

Event: Introduction to Moodle II
Presented by: Holly Rae Bemis-Schurtz

Description: Now that you know what Moodle is, you’ll want to see it in action. In this demonstration, you will see how a basic Moodle course shell can be designed into a learning module. This will give you an overview of the Moodle design process. Participants will discuss ideas for integrating Moodle in the classroom and other learning situations.
When: Tuesday 13 May 2008, 04:30 PM - 05:30 PM MST


TO JOIN THE WEBINAR
Our webinars are one hour and will begin promptly at 4:30pm MT (5:30 CST; 6:30 EST; 3:30 PST).

If you have previously registered for this event or you are having problems registering for the event, please use the following url as it will take you directly to the webinar session: http://nmsu.acrobat.com/r32422589/

Join the webinar 20-30 minutes prior to the start time to configure your computer. To participate speakers are required; a simple computer microphone and/or headset is ideal for complete interaction. A webcam is optional. If you have never used Acrobat Connect Professional, please test your connection at: http://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm

TECH ASSISTANCE
If you have questions or need assistance, please contact us at webinars@nmsu.edu or call us at 575.646.6143.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Please visit us at http://webinars.nmsu.edu

Have a cup of coffee, invite a colleague and raise your eQ (eLearning Quotient) with us.

Thank you,
The RETA Webinar Team

Pitfalls of mobile blogging

Phx Airport Terminal D Starbucks
Funny how you forget to mention things. Slide pictures from the Sloodle pres by Jeremy Kemp.. Supercool!

Somehow in the mobile blogging excitement & frenzy, grammer & structure get a little crazy.

Enjoying the symposium

First I must tell you the salad for lunch was like a dream (so great you must see a picture)..as a matter of fact all of the foods has been great.

It has all been great. Carefree has been amazing, ,presentations are fabulous, Sloan C is just a first class organization.

It's nice to talk to people who have used Second Life in their teaching. Certainly, I've never been with so many Moodlers... I've learned so much.

Que Cooliemust.

Marginalia

Open source discussion annotation for Moodle! Beautimus - we're watching a live demo as we speak...

Http://www.geof.net/code/annotation/