e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: Seb-Schmoller

  • Blackboard and D2L Markman Filings Are Up

    Thanks to Seb for the reference.

    D2L has posted the latest filings from both sides, detailing their competing interpretations of Blackboard’s patent. (Before you can decide if somebody has infringed on a patent, you first have to decide what that patent means.) The judge will evaluate these competing claims in what’s known as a Markman hearing.

    I haven’t read the documents, but according to Seb, D2L’s filing references the Wikipedia page on the History of Virtual Learning Environments that the ed tech community collectively created in response to the Blackboard patent. If you contributed to that page (and hundreds of people did), then give yourself a pat on the back. You played a small role in the legal history of our profession.

  • A New Article Out

    I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t even had time to post notice that I have a new article published in ALT-N. I’ve been having conversations on and off with Rob Abel about ways to ensure that educational technology standards (and, of course, the educational technologies themselves) are more effectively informed by our developing understanding of best practices in online teaching and learning. More recently, I’ve been having somewhat similar conversations with Seb Schmoller, except in the context of ALT rather than IMS. Coincidentally, Seb sent me an issue of ALT-J that talks about the use of pattern languages to make sure that accepted best practices in online learning are more effectively informed by various cognitive and learning theories, and vice versa. (Longtime readers know that I have a fondness for notion of pattern languages and have even created a category on my blog about applying the concept to education.) As I read the article, it occurred to me that use cases serve a similar bridging function between software users/practitioners and software developers. If you could form a bridge between a pattern language of educational best practices and a body of use cases that describe how software could support those best practices, then you might really have something. Hence, the article.

    As usual, Stephen Downes as a few nits to pick.

    To begin with, he complains about the use of the word “praxis,” which he describes as “just the word ‘practice’ with an attitude.” It’s true that “praxis” is often incorrectly understood as and used interchangeably with “practice,” which is why I usually avoid using it. I chose to use it this time for two reasons. First, the authors of the article on pattern languages used it, so if I chose not to use it I would be creating an inconsistency in language which I would have to take significant word count to explain. More importantly, though, they had used it correctly. Praxis, properly understood, refers to the set of best practices that is empirically derived from practice (as opposed to being the practice itself). It is a kind of experiential-derived theory and is meant to be contrasted to more classical scientific theory. So principles of physics are theory while principles of engineering are (generally) praxis. Or, in this context, principles of education derived from cognitive psychology are theory while principles of education derived from teaching experience are praxis.

    His other complaint is…well…I’m not sure what it is. He writes,

    I’m uneasy with this – it’s hard to articulate why, exactly – but I don’t think software should be designed to ‘do things’ so much as it should be designed to ‘create capacity’. I know that’s not a very clear distinction. But it’s like the difference between ‘process’ and ‘creation’.

    He’s right about one thing. It’s not a very clear distinction. In fact, I have no idea what he’s talking about. The only thing I can think of regarding “creating capacity” is Don Norman’s concept of affordances. But affordances are entirely consistent with use cases. In fact, use cases are an excellent (and commonly used) way to ensure that your software is designed to “create capacity” in the way that users want.

    So I guess I’m still in the dark. If Stephen (or anyone else) wants to couch his criticism in concrete terms that are consistent with the…um…praxis of user-centered software design, then I’ll be happy to respond further.

  • The Blackboard Patent Pledge

    I’m late to the party on the pledge news for a variety of reasons (not the least of which is a recalcitrant DNS server out there in the ether that denied me access to my new blog site for the better part of the last two days…grr). It is gratifying to see that my absence really didn’t matter much. A lot has been written about this in the past few days and I don’t really have anything new to add.

    If you’re playing catch-up on the issue, you’ll want to start with Blackboard’s own page on the patent pledge. Equally important to read and read carefully is the joint statement by the EDUCAUSE and Sakai Foundation boards in response. In posting the letter to the Saki listserv, Sakai Foundation Board Chairman John Norman introduced it with the following warning:

    Bb announced an Open Source Patent pledge today. www.blackboard.com

    In their press release they refer to ‘collaboration’ with Sakai and Educause. Our ‘collaboration’ was to try make it as useful as possible. Since Bb quote selectively from our statement, I reproduce it in full below. It will go up on the Sakai website later today.

    I recommend taking John at his word and read the whole letter, in part because it is very well-crafted and encapsulates a lot of the sentiments–both postive and negative–that have been expressed about the pledge since the announcement. For your convenience, I have reproduced the letter in its entirety “below the fold” in this post.

    Inside Higher Education has a good piece on the story this morning, with quotes from many of the usual suspects as well as a few unusual ones. THE Journal has some good, in-depth quotes from Sakai and Blackboard representatives. Slashdot has picked up the story as well, and includes a few interesting and informative comments. Not covered in any of these are comments from the bloggers you’ll always want to read on this topic, including (but not limited to) Seb, Barry, and Stephen. Also interesting is Elgg developer Ben Werdmuller’s (re)assertion that Bb’s patent wouldn’t cover Elgg anyway.

    Since the community as gotten so good at responding to these issues, I think we should take better advantage of the whole RSS thing and consolidate the various comments for easier consumption. If people blogging on this topic would include “edupatents” as a tag or somewhere in the body of their post text, I would be happy to set up an aggregator on e-Literate that scoops up those posts (and would encourage others to do the same). Let me know if there is interest in this; it would be pretty easy for me to do.

    Now, if you haven’t seen the EDUCAUSE/Sakai statement, keep reading:

    (more…)

  • Jim Farmer on the Impact of the Patent Wars

    Seb Schmoller has posted an insightful, moving, and rather depressing reflection piece by Jim Farmer on the impact that the patent wars will have on education in general. Here’s a sample:

    Education patents and the new licensing environment may further commercialize teaching and learning. The Blackboard patent is not alone, but representative of many that have been issued – and many more that are pending – in the U.S. that could apply to any learning system. It is unlikely that all claims of all patents will be found invalid before someone wins an injunction or judgment, and cease and desist letters and license invoices follow. We should be prepared for a new environment of restrictions, licensing, and confrontation of our suppliers.

    Now any choice of software, any method of instruction, and any choice of content will have to be viewed from a new perspective of risk assessment. This moves the decision from teaching faculty to business officers and attorneys who are least prepared to judge the effect on education and research.

    Sad but true.

  • Wikipedia Page Call for Reviewers

    With some encouragement from Seb Schmoller and David Jennings, I searched for and found a way to ask Wikipedia editors at-large to peer review our History of Virtual Learning Environments page for tone and for compliance with their style guide. (You’ll see an icon and text box to this effect prominently displayed at the top of the wiki page.) We want our contributions to be factual, fair, and consistent with the spirit of the Wikipedia project.