I am delighted to announce the beginning of a series of guest posts on distributed learning environments by the authors who will be contributing to a forthcoming special double issue on the topic in On the Horizon. Each post will provide an introduction to the article that will appear in the issue when it is published some time in the first half of next year. We have a rather ambitious schedule for the series; I hope to publish three of these guest posts a week over the next month or so. The first, by the OU’s Martin Weller, will be up shortly. I encourage you all to comment on the posts. Your input may well help to shape the final articles.
Archive Page 3
Distributed Learning Environment Posts Coming
Published by June 16th, 2008 in Higher Education, Tools, Toys, and Technology (Oh my!) and LMOS. 2 CommentsI, Too, Am a Twit
Published by June 13th, 2008 in Blogo-eroticism and Other Hype and Tools, Toys, and Technology (Oh my!). 7 CommentsFor a long time, I vowed never to get sucked into Twitter. The idea of broadcasting my every belch and hiccup to the world in real time just struck me as absurdly narcissistic. Of course, I made exactly the same vow about blogging for largely the same reason back in the day and, well, here we are.
And thus it was that I observed myself with detached amusement as Nate Angell (a.k.a. @xolotl…his gang name, I guess) succeeded in convincing me to give it a try when we sat down to lunch (along with Mike Zackrison) at JA-SIG last month. Nate, in addition to being super-sharp about ed tech issues in general, is also one of the best conceptual salesmen I’ve ever met. Seriously. By the time he was done working me over, I was like, “@Dude, WTF was I thinking? I have to download Twhirl and start tweeting, like, RIGHT NOW!!”
So I did. I gave Twhirl a whirl. Hated it. Then I tried hooking Twitter into GChat. That made me happy for a few hours until I remembered how much I hate GChat. (And don’t get me started on the state of chat clients in the Windows world.) Then I found TwitterFox, which I like and seems to work well. (I’m a Firefox extension addict anyway.) Since then I’ve been tweeting (hate that word) on and off. And now, after diving in and spending some time with Twitter, I can honestly say that…
…uh…
…I still don’t get it.
D2L Resolves Current Patent Burdens
Published by June 12th, 2008 in Higher Education and Tools, Toys, and Technology (Oh my!). 0 CommentsAccording to the latest entry on D2L’s patent blog, D2L has payed the court judgment plus post-judgment interest in full and has also migrated all customers to version 8.3 of their software, which they claim does not infringe on the patent. There’s been some FUD flying around about whether D2L could handle the financial impact of the judgment. Well, they just did handle it. End of discussion.
Opening Up the IMS
Published by June 11th, 2008 in Open Source, Open Content, Open Access. 1 CommentIn general, I am a fan of the IMS. I believe that we need interoperability standards in education, and I think that the IMS’s recent work such as the released Common Cartridge standard, the in-progress Enterprise Services v2 (now called Learning Information Services, or LIS) and Learning Tool Interoperability standards, and the foundational requirements work happening within the Learning Technology Advisory Council (LTAC) are going to prove to be important drivers of learning impact over the next several years. That said, I am also highly sympathetic to complaints about the IMS’s policy of members-only access to specifications under development. There’s something fundamentally contradictory about open standards being developed behind closed doors.
Over the past 18 months, I have had the privilege of participating in the IMS work on a regular basis. During that time, I have mostly kept my mouth shut about the openness issue. Out of respect for the staff and the board, I wanted to experience the process from the inside and see how it works today before advocating change. But at the Learning Impact conference last month, I decided to speak out.
I didn’t mince words. At one point I said, “I know plenty of people in the ed tech community—good people, exactly the kind of people that we need to participate—who think that the IMS is some kind of secret society.” I got a fair few “amens” from other participants, both publicly and privately. To his credit, IMS CEO Rob Abel responded positively and non-defensively. (I expected nothing less.) In the spirit of that dialog, I am going to articulate my case for the further opening of the IMS specification development process here.
Blackboard and Desire2Learn Fight Over Venue for Next Round
Published by May 30th, 2008 in Higher Education and Tools, Toys, and Technology (Oh my!). 0 Comments*Sigh.* At some point I hope the world—and the Blackboard case—will slow down enough so that I’ll actually have time to blog about something else.
Here’s the latest from D2L’s patent blog:
April, 2008 – Matthew Small, Blackboard’s Chief Legal Officer:
“Certainly we believe the reexamination process is a healthy process. It serves to generally strengthen patents, and this case is no different.”http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22358
May, 2008 – Blackboard’s filing with the Patent & Trademark Office:
“Patent Owner Blackboard Inc. (”Blackboard”) hereby petitions the Office to suspend the inter partes reexamination between Blackboard and Third Party Requester Desire2Learn Inc. . . .”
Petition To Suspend Inter Partes Reexamination Under 35 U.S.C 6314(C)
Yesterday, despite Blackboard’s prior assertions (including on its own website) about welcoming the re-examination of their patent, Blackboard has now requested that the Patent and Trademark Office stop its re-examination of the patent. We will leave it to others to speculate about the reasons for Blackboard’s change of heart.
Note: we have not yet received the exhibits that the filing to which the filing refers. When we do receive them, we will post them. (As an aside, we’re still awaiting the exhibits to Blackboard’s response to the PTO’s rejection – they, too, will be posted upon receipt.)
On another note, and consistent with our position since the beginning of this litigation, yesterday we filed an Emergency Motion To Stay Proceedings Pending Reexamination Or Alternatively, Motion To Stay Judgment Pending Appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. That filing, as well as the numerous exhibits and related papers that accompanied it, can be found here.
It looks like D2L wants to pursue this through the USPTO while Blackboard wants to go through the US Court of Appeals. Each is trying to petition one body or other to suspend what could be duplicative processes.
