Comments for e-Literate

Comment on Learning to Like Twitter by Teddy Diggs

Teddy Diggs — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:55:49 +0000

Are you a mind-reader? You perfectly voiced my ambivalence about Twitter in your two blog posts. The advice in this one is excellent as a “refresher” course. Thanks! (@dtd on Twitter)

Comment on Learning to Like Twitter by Mathieu Plourde

Mathieu Plourde — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:45:19 +0000

You have learned well, young Padawan… I would add two things to your list, little tips to help you grow your network faster.

1) When you make contacts at conference or on other occasions, make sure you give them your twitter account, or add their twitter account to yours right away. I usually put a sticker at the back of my business card with my user names on most social networks, so it helps continue or even start conversations with people who share the same interests as you.

2) The @ feature is critical to building your network. If you follow people who are relevant to you, and that these friends have discussions with other people on subjects you find interesting, look up their profiles to see if they might end up becoming your friend. Twitter is very open, you don’t have to be shy. It’s not like LinkedIn or Facebook, where you might feel shy (with a reason) to ask for friendship with people you don’t know.

I previously compared Twitter to a gateway drug to the social web (Re. Will Richardson’s post and comments - http://weblogg-ed.com/2008/what-i-hate-about-twitter/ ). It’s a knowledge nugget factory that makes you jump to harder drugs later, like blogging or podcasting.

Two other terms to describe Twitter: Personal Learning Network, and Human Search Engine. I’ll let others describe those

Comment on CSU Picks Moodle and ANGEL by Michael Feldstein

Michael Feldstein — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:03:16 +0000

I can only tell you what I’ve heard. You may well know more about the actual state of ANGEL’s accessibility than I do.

Comment on CSU Picks Moodle and ANGEL by Anonyomous Reviewer

Anonyomous Reviewer — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:04:13 +0000

I struggle to understand how CSU could find Angel accessible. From what I understand of the process here are some of the facts:

1) CSU stated that Angel’s “Normal Display” mode is not accessible and doesn’t meet 508-compliance (significant flaw).

2) CSU relied on the switch to PDA mode as the way to certify the accessibility and they admit that a sighted person is required to help someone switch the system into PDA mode (second flaw).

3) CSU testers stated that the PDA mode was fully functional, but that is not true. The PDA mode only offers a subset of features compared to the “Normal Display” and doesn’t even include basic update information or at-a-glance reports found on the homepage of a course (third main flaw).

4) CSU testers also stated that the PDA mode was accessible, Section 508 compliant and everything works with a screen reader, but that is not true. Even basic principles such as alternative text for icons is not supported for many icons (e.g. date pickers), and the interface can even block the ability to click or even see some links depending on your resolution and browser (fourth main flaw).

I’m not sure they did a very thorough review of the system — from someone that understands the process they followed it seems to differ greatly from the reality for users.

Comment on Creating a Social Portfolio by Nicole Hansen

Nicole Hansen — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:41:58 +0000

Please please, could you re-record the audio in the above video? I couldn’t stand to watch more than half of this because your blowing in the mic was so irritating on the ears! It sounds like an interesting project but the torture of hearing it was too overbearing to be able to follow what you were saying.

Comment on EDUCAUSE Openness Constituent Group by Jon Mott

Jon Mott — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:58:12 +0000

I’m sorry I missed the constituent group meeting in Orlando. Thanks for posting this and the link to the Educause site for getting involved. I will!

Comment on Openness: Finally, We’re Getting Somewhere by Educause Conference wrap-up from Michael Feldstein : Sean’s weblog

Educause Conference wrap-up from Michael Feldstein : Sean’s weblog — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 12:03:25 +0000

[...] Feldstein just blogged his summative analysis of the Educause conference here. It seems that there was some major progress in the development of Openess in educational [...]

Comment on Bizarre Chapter in Blackboard, Inc. v Desire2Learn by Michael Feldstein

Michael Feldstein — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:39:52 +0000

Thanks for the heads-up, Anol. I’m aware that there have been intermittent problems with the feed that seem to be web host-related. (Specifically, the database server appears to be flaky at the moment.) Sorry about that.

Comment on Wikipedia Page on History of the VLE Gathers Prior Art Info by Michael Feldstein

Michael Feldstein — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:34:08 +0000

You know, I’ll leave this up because it is germane, but I am inches away from deleting this as comment spam. If you have an announcement that would be relevant to my readers, email me and I’ll consider it. Don’t post it as a comment on an old post.

Comment on Wikipedia Page on History of the VLE Gathers Prior Art Info by Larry Shindel

Larry Shindel — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:59:55 +0000

A question; about a year ago I got EMails calling my patent 5199530 among the simplest (I think I had chosen that property myself in terms of math and beauty) and the smartest and abunch of other things I would’t claim and listed with a few dozen others including a few electrical fork utinsil like stuff as unique from millions of other patents. It all smelt of spam or some kind of con. And I noted then that wikipatents disclaimed any association with wikipedia. Googling 5195530 and wikipatents brings my patent up among a couple dozen still unique for being chosen among millions for the simplest category. Wikipatents is looking increasingly legitimate, is the US Patent Office formally involving itself. And is evry patent as ’special’ there.