New look, new name: elearning2.0 :: putting the 'oh!' back into elearning
27-October-2005
After many a month at the code-face without time for writing prose, I'm finally ready to start posting some of the ideas we've been developing about how small open standards and lightweight open services can make elearning work for real users. To reflect our new fired-up mission to communicate these ideas, I've changed the name of this weblog.
Why 'elearning2.0'?
There's a lot of '2.0' going around at the moment, and a lot of people must be wondering what all the fuss is about, and whether it means anything at all or is just venture-capitalist hype and hysteria. We think that it does indeed mean something - in the sense that a lot of hard work on the part of long-sighted web / service developers is starting to pay off in beneficial systems-effects, and that it's time to start communicating the implications and possibilities to the web-using public. A slogan is called for, and 'web2.0' is a good one for many reasons.
"elearning2.0" has been mentioned a few times by people like Stephen Downes. All of us seem to be using it as a slogan in about the same way: To suggest that the bad old days of Big Standards, Big Content and Big Systems can be viewed with some perspective now, and that open architectures and open pedagogies can synergise to create some great new learning experiences and opportunities.
To get a feel for the kind of stuff that the 'elearning2.0' slogan is inspired by, see my del.icio.us elearning2.0 tag, or indeed everyone's elearning2.0 tag. For a feel for what people are talking about when they talk about web2.0, see my web2.0/intro tag
Why "putting the 'oh!' back into elearning"?
Because I never could resist a pun (two-point-"oh!" - geddit?)... but also to emphasise that our mission as developers is to create opportunities for learners to enjoy compelling and rewarding experiences, not to create software architectures :o)
The new look is our first re-skinning of the KNotes blogging-for-Plone system
Over late October 2005, this weblog is also serving as a test-case for some work we're doing on KNotes, our open-source weblogging and discussion system for Plone. In the first place, it's meant to shake out issues in the rendering/markup architecture. Secondly, it's an experiment in re-styling from scratch starting from a 'foreign' (non MT2) stylesheet. If that means nothing to you, please just ignore it. Much credit to Frederico Oliveira of WeBreakStuff for the original stylesheet, and for having the foresight and generosity to open his gorgeous design work for re-use with a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license.
Back posting after a long illness :o)
10-June-2005
I fell very ill in February and have not posted to this blog since then. I've been ramping up slowly towards having a productive life again, but it's only in the past week or so that I'm feeling 50% and able to get any real work done in a day.
My first priorities now that I'm back have got to be finishing knotes and catching up on progress with our main projects and portals. I'll be trying to get round to some serious writing though - or at least some frequent writing :o). One thing that illness taught me was that there is too little time to be putting off what I'm really interested in - which is writing and thinking not coding.
My blogging is scattered across a number of our sites. I'll be posting soon about a "My Blogging Space" feature for knotes, but until then have a look at my sidebar links for an idea of the portals I am active in. I posted quite a lot in the SIGOSSEE site last week, especialy in the Standards and Architectures Working Group, about standards, architectures and open source software for education.
I've been doing quite a lot of thinking lately about web standards, web-logging standards, and educational applications or services like ePortfolios. Watch this blog and my other blogging for posts soon to come on these and other topics.
Welcome another site using knotes for comments and discussion
13-January-2005
The Work and Learning Partners project is having its startup conference today. KnowNet is a partner in the WLP project, mainly responsible for developing and maintaining web presence and online tools for the partnerships' activities.
We have erected a new site for the project, and included the weblogging for site comments feature in this site from the start. We have high hopes that this will encourage active and productive discussion!
See the KnowNet area in the partners branch of the site for further updates.
