A simpler version of the "what doesn't work in SharePoint" blog post. We will need to attend to these issues one way or another.

A list of arguments against SharePoint as a file server with rebuttals from an MS SharePoint developer. The benefits Joel points to are real, but his handwaving about "it does require training" actually helps the other side of the argument..

One of the biggest challenges for a document management system built on SharePoint is scaling lists.  There is actually quite a bit of knowledge spread across the help files, technet documentation, in whitepapers and on blogs… but it's still quite difficult to navigate this challenge.

"A student majoring in computer science at San Jose State University said he fought against a professor who had tried to force him to remove his homework from the Internet, and won..." For computer science assignments where a working solution to a specific problem is the expected response, the implications are clear. But what are the implications for assessment (and for higher educaiton generally)?

In this 4-minute video, Jim Groom articulates the "LMS is out-of-date" argument, and suggests that the future of online education depends on re-imagining the "form". He points to issues like openness of code and owndership of data.

CRITIQUE OF E-LEARNING IN BLACKBOARD "Just as utopic visions of the Internet predicted an egalitarian online world where information flowed freely and power became irrelevant, so did many proponents of online education, who viewed online classrooms as a way to free students and instructors from traditional power relationships . . ." In "A Critical Examination of Blackboard's EˆLearning Environment" (FIRST MONDAY, vol. 14, no. 6, June 1, 2009), Stephanie J. Coopman, professor at San Jose State University, identifies the ways that the Blackboard 8.0 and Blackboard CE6 platforms "both constrain and facilitate instructorˆstudent and studentˆstudent interaction." She argues that while the systems have improved the instructor's ability to track and measure student activity, this "creates a dangerously decontextualized, essentialized image of a class in which levels of 'participation' stand in for evidence of learning having taken place. Students are treated not as learners, as partners in an educational enterprise, but as users."

Educating the Net Generation is a collaborative project involving the University of Melbourne, the University of Wollongong, and Charles Sturt University. The project, funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, began in June 2006. It involved an investigation into students' and teachers' use of new technologies and the development of eight case studies in which emerging technologies were implemented in learning settings across the three participating universities.

"A University of Toronto professor who got students to grade their peers' work has seen the practice blocked by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. The union that represents teaching assistants and sessional instructors at the university filed a grievance against the university when it discovered that psychology professor Steve Joordens was using specially designed software to have students grade and comment on one another's written work."

A workaround for the broken "Add a Web Part" bar when using Firefox or Safari

If you're in FF and need to add a web part to any SharePoint page with a web zone, just click this bookmarklet

If you recognize any of these names, you will expect some gems of thought, some of them challenging, some incomprehensible, many that will stretch and bend you -- and you won't be disappointed. Click on any image, then use the "next" and "previous" links.

WHAT IS YOUR FORMULA? YOUR EQUATION? YOUR ALGORITHM? Alun Anderson, Scott Atran, Mahzarin R. Banaji, Simon Baron-Cohen, Samuel Barondes, Gregory Benford, Susan Blackmore, Paul Bloom, Stewart Brand, John Brockman, Rodney A. Brooks, Sean Carroll, George Church, M.Csikszentmihalyi, Leda Cosmides, Paul Davies, Richard Dawkins, David Deutsch, Keith Devlin, Chris DiBona, Freeman Dyson, George Dyson, Drew Endy, Brian Eno, Dan Everett, J. Doyne Farmer, Richard Foreman, Howard Gardner, David Gelernter, Steve Giddings, Daniel Gilbert, Marcelo Gleiser, Alison Gopnik, Joshua Greene, John Gottman, Jonathan Haidt, Judith Rich Harris, Marc D. Hauser, Donald D. Hoffman, Gerald Holton, John Horgan, Nicholas Humphrey, Marcy Kahan, Danny Kahneman, Dean Kamen, Kevin Kelly, Rem Koolhaas, Bart Kosko, Kai Krause, Ray Kurzweil, Lawrence M. Krauss, Janna Levin, Seth Lloyd, Benoit Mandelbrot, Geoffrey Miller, Marvin Minsky, Oliver Morton, David Myers, PZ Myers, Tor Nørretranders, Mark Pagel, Irene Pepperberg, Steven Pinker, Jordan Pollack, Ernst Pöppel, William Poundstone, Eduardo Punset, Martin Rees, Lisa Randall, Matt Ridley, Carlo Rovelli, Rudy Rucker, Doug Rushkoff, Dimitar D. Sasselov, Gino Segre, Michael Shermer, Neil Shubin, George Smoot, Dan Sperber, Maria Spiropulu, Linda Stone, Leonard Susskind, Nassim Taleb, Timothy Taylor, John Tooby, Max Tegmark, Craig Venter, Alexander Vilenkin, Shing-Tung Yau, Anton Zeilinger

As I mentioned in this afternoon's Learning Environment Team meeting, this blog post introduces the notion of "ateleological" (emergent) processes, as opposed to purpose-driven, planned processes. Though the focus is on information technology, the ideas are broadly applicable.

Introna (1996) identified eight attributes of a design process and uses them to distinguish between the two extremes: teleological (planning school) and ateleological (learning school).

This article is deeper than it sounds.

3 Lemons: Corporate website, Intranet, Groupware, and how they can be fixed. Also, social networking R&D, and 8 Web 2.0 tools ("Dave's Faves") to consider for your organization.

Offers a chart of the competencies of various kinds of people, and two processes for making decisions, one for "complicated (not complex)" problems, and one for complex problems, based in part on Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds". Also a list of types of questions that fall into the two categories.

Benefits and Risks of business use of cloud computing

Some considerations listed here are relevant as CTLT looks at cloud computing

Seven principles for conducting assessment of student learning. Basic stuff well summarized.

A free, open-source webpage creation and editing tool that can export in IMS Content Package, IMS Common Cartridge, or SCORM formats (or as stand-alone web pages.

Teaching and Learning, e-Bay style.

"Now, fortunately, PPK [of Quirksmode.com] is turning his attention to the world of mobile web devices. To no one's surprise, browser compatibility on mobile devices is even worse than it is on the desktop."