The Auricle

Stephen Downes’ OLDaily post about MyGlu got me thinking. (OLDaily 9 January 2006). Stephen repurposed elements of his own EduRSS codebase to enable other users to build a rss aggregator in their own sites. Great concept and a generous contribution which has stimulated me to make my own donation; but it was when trying out MyGlu prototype that I found myself exercised by how we can move this stuff beyond the bailiwick of web/blog/geek masters. So the first part of my posting considers my alternative approach to RSS aggregation (pseduo-aggregation really) and the second goes part on to consider some of the approaches to making this sort of syndication functionality more usable.

I’ve been a bit silent on the Auricle front lately but I normally try and take a long break from normal life around Christmas and New Year. Anyway, to kick off my first contribution of the New Year let’s consider what Shop Talk has to offer the grey matter.

I’ve been trying to record an interview with Oleg Liber, Director of CETIS for some months and we finally managed to get together on the 14 December at one of the events in the Higher Education Academy’s new Innovation Academy series; the event being entitled Open Source VLEs: The Next Generation. So this podcast interview on Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) was recorded live at the event and it’s brought to Auricle readers ‘warts and all’, or at least air conditioning system and all. You’ll find it in the podcast panel at the top of Auricle for a while and also in the podcast archive but I also offer some commentary and reflections.

Collective intelligence. What’s that? An abstraction for sure, but it manifests itself more concretely when communities of users voluntarily engage with a site and system because they feel a sense of ownership and value in taking part. As a result such a site and system grows organically. The ‘product’ become the collective activity of the users. In this post I begin to explore the question: if synergies between ICTs, and a global network infrastructure have given birth to ‘collective intelligence’ is there an inherent and unresolvable tension between that trend and the adoption of a more corporate ethos by Higher Education institutions?

In a previous Auricle post BBC TV goes broadband (18 July 2005) I considered the implications of the BBC video download trial which provided providing pre-broadcast access, via broadband, to its second series of the comedy The Mighty Boosh. Even bigger plans are afoot because on Thursday (24 November 2005) the BBC announced that the BBC2 will be the first mainstream TV channel to be simulcast over broadband as well as broadcast. If viewers miss out on a programme it also looks like the Beeb is also going to offer a 'catch-up' facility similar to that which is already provided in the excellent radio 'listen again' service. As readers of my earlier posts will know, there are possible loss of previous freedoms as well as gains implicit in these developments.

Contemplate this statement:

Media has taken over some of the teaching that normally society would have provided. And technology has driven that; it has been the conduit.

Following on from my first post on this topic here are a couple of additions to the knowledge base. I’m not saying they are necessarily relevant, just that here’s as good a place as any to deposit them.

Here’s a different type of Auricle post from my normal offering. As well as being a repository of information I’ve started to gather, the post is also a kind of thought lab I’m using to articulate and test out ideas, issues, and concerns related to benchmarking and e-learning. The post is a work-in-progress and so is pretty unrefined, but it may still be of some use to others contemplating work in this area.

Sorry … couldn’t resist this.

A BlackCT or Bored Web of course.

For a more considered opinion read on.

Still catching up on my podcast backlog. The BBC In Business program for 30 June 2005 Do it like Deming is a worthy listen to any contemplating what’s necessary to achieve high quality in any sphere, including e-learning, or enhancing the teaching and learning environment generally. Ironically, it was the post-war Japanese who listened and learned from Deming rather than the US. The lesson? It’s a people thing really. So if you’re interested in quality enhancement, benchmarking, and suchlike, then this may contribute to your thinking.