e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Author: Michael Feldstein

  • Research at the SUNY Learning Network

    One of the things that I love about the program here at SUNY is that staff has integrated a well-oiled research machine right into the daily operations. They have a growing theoretical/pedagogical framework from which they are building. Apparently, each year they pose hypotheses based on that framework. They construct and conduct faculty and student surveys at the end of every semester to test their hypotheses. And then they take the results of their research and roll them back into the next year’s faculty training. Very slick.

    I haven’t had a chance to give their research papers my full attention yet, but once I do I will blog about what I’m learning from them. In the meantime, you can read them yourself here.

  • Search, Copyright, and Course Pack Affordances

    I’m still very much interested in the idea of creating a system that enables professors to assemble course packs out of Open Access or, better yet, Creative Commons-licensed content. But my idea is broadening somewhat based on what I’m learning at my new job. (more…)

  • The Edublog Weblog Awards

    Brought to you by the (thankfully) irrepressible James Farmer, the Edublog Awards recognize top educational weblogs across a range of categories. Nominations are open until December 3rd, after which voting will begin.

    In addition to some of the old standards, about 50% of the nominees are blogs that I never heard of before. Good stuff.

    (Note to Mac users: The site doesn’t render properly in Safari, so if you haven’t downloaded Firefox yet, now is the time.)

  • Learning Activity Management Systems

    SUNY has a home-grown Lotus-Notes-based learning management system that has some truly remarkable features. I’ll be posting about some of these innovations over the coming weeks as I get to know the system better. What I want to focus on in this post, though, is a feature that I have only ever heard of one other LMS providing in a meaningful way, which is providing a fundamental course organization structure (i.e., a user interface to the course) that focuses on the temporal sequence of learning activities rather than the more typical interface that simply organizes the course based on types of functionality and content resources (e.g., course notes, discussions, etc.). In previous posts, I have referred to this idea in terms of learning experience objects, but the folks at Macquarie University in Australia have built a system based on the same principles that they call a Learning Activity Management System (LAMS). (more…)

  • Lots of Good Stuff Coming

    I’m still alive; I’ve just been immersed in my new job. I’m learning tons of good stuff and am getting close to the point where I can take a deep breath, have a drink, and make time to do a little blogging. There is some amazing work going on at SUNY and I can’t wait to share some of it.

    Stay tuned.

  • More on Hart InterCivic

    The Austin Chronicle has a fairly lengthy piece on e-voting in general and Hart’s machines in particular. If the article is presenting the situation accurately (and I have no reason to doubt that it is) then it looks like Hart InterCivic may be one of the good guys.

    There’s some good stuff about e-voting machine design in this piece; it’s well worth the read.

  • Creative Commons Licensing as an Affordance

    Open Access News points out that the Open Archives Initiative is seeking public comment on their specification for conveying copyright metadata on Open Access content. Such a specification is critical to the aforementioned goal of assembling course packs out of Open Access materials. (more…)