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bkozlek

What Is Web 2.0 - 5 views

oreilly.com/...what-is-web-20.html

shared by bkozlek on 29 Jan 11 - Cached
  • So fundamental is the shift from software as artifact to software as service that the software will cease to perform unless it is maintained on a daily basis.
  • It's also no accident that scripting languages such as Perl, Python, PHP, and now Ruby, play such a large role at web 2.0 companies. Perl was famously described by Hassan Schroeder, Sun's first webmaster, as "the duct tape of the internet." Dynamic languages (often called scripting languages and looked down on by the software engineers of the era of software artifacts) are the tool of choice for system and network administrators, as well as application developers building dynamic systems that require constant change.
  • Users must be treated as co-developers, in a reflection of open source development practices (even if the software in question is unlikely to be released under an open source license.) The open source dictum, "release early and release often" in fact has morphed into an even more radical position, "the perpetual beta," in which the product is developed in the open, with new features slipstreamed in on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Cal Henderson, the lead developer of Flickr, recently revealed that they deploy new builds up to every half hour.
  • Support lightweight programming models that allow for loosely coupled systems. The complexity of the corporate-sponsored web services stack is designed to enable tight coupling. While this is necessary in many cases, many of the most interesting applications can indeed remain loosely coupled, and even fragile. The Web 2.0 mindset is very different from the traditional IT mindset! Think syndication, not coordination. Simple web services, like RSS and REST-based web services, are about syndicating data outwards, not controlling what happens when it gets to the other end of the connection. This idea is fundamental to the internet itself, a reflection of what is known as the end-to-end principle. Design for "hackability" and remixability. Systems like the original web, RSS, and AJAX all have this in common: the barriers to re-use are extremely low. Much of the useful software is actually open source, but even when it isn't, there is little in the way of intellectual property protection. The web browser's "View Source" option made it possible for any user to copy any other user's web page; RSS was designed to empower the user to view the content he or she wants, when it's wanted, not at the behest of the information provider; the most successful web services are those that have been easiest to take in new directions unimagined by their creators. The phrase "some rights reserved," which was popularized by the Creative Commons to contrast with the more typical "all rights reserved," is a useful guidepost.
  • bkozlek on 29 Jan 11
     
    in revisiting this classic from 2005, it became obvious to me that much of higher ed is still stuck in a pre-web or at least web 1.0 model of software as artifact, and not software as service. 
  • ...5 more comments...
  • Cole Camplese on 29 Jan 11
     
    Brad, this piece was in so many ways my introduction to the bigger picture of web 2.0 back in 2005. I remember reading it and wondering, "why the hell didn't we write that in IST?" This is the original notion of the "architecture of participation" that I continue to discuss in talks I give to this day. So many people still look at the web through the lens of 1996. I can't agree with you enough that HE does indeed think about the web in 1.0 terms -- while that is changing it isn't happening in the development shops we frequent. I still see this as required reading. I am pushing this into the ITS SLT diigo group to help it get (re)noticed.
  • bkozlek on 30 Jan 11
     
    What strikes me about it this time is that there is a connection between the then new technological methodologies and infrastructures and the new architecture of participation.
  • Chris Long on 30 Jan 11
     
    Do you two think the emergence of the app store changes the dynamic of things? Are we developing apps that will put course communities in the hands of students wherever they are?
  • Cole Camplese on 30 Jan 11
     
    I do think the notion and emergence of Apps themselves change the dynamic of things, but I'm not sure if the Store (either mobile or desktop) challenges the thinking in the linked piece. The question I walk around with is if Apps themselves support the collaborative spirit of web 2.0 ... I have trouble pulling my thoughts together on that one. Clearly Facebook as a website is very collaborative and represents the web 2.0 ethos, but having access to that in my hand as an app brings in a new set of opportunities. Are those positive? To me, yes but I still struggle with the ideas of the closed web (fb), the open web (my blog), and apps. All of those are a framework for participation and perhaps debating the differences isn't important at all. This isn't exactly a great example, but with our blackboard pilot this Spring we have enabled mobile access. I have the Bb app installed on my iPad and can easily log into my sandbox course. I do wonder if I were actually teaching with it how having on the go access to that environment would change my own level of participation and attention. I know I spend a heck of a lot of time in the social networks from my iPhone and iPad -- not so much from my laptop. I bet that would be true of the course management system as well, but I don't have any evidence yet to support that thinking. I'd love to get a bunch of students together and see how mobile access changes the way they participate.
  • Chris Long on 30 Jan 11
     
    Let's get those students together in the Liberal Arts. I can have John work on putting something together. Who should we include and how should it be organized?
  • Cole Camplese on 30 Jan 11
     
    We would need to create a "course" in our Bb instance to see what could go on. The only way for it to work is if it is somehow connected to a real experience. I am open to thoughts ...
  • bkozlek on 31 Jan 11
     
    I don't think the emergence of app/app store models challenges the thinking in the piece, but it does extend the concepts it presents. The app developing tool kits is another way to bring the web service / data/ participatory experience to mobile devices. The web at large wasn't up to the challenge - apps provide a better experience than web interfaces on mobile, or at least it can be argued. HTML/CSS/Javascript versus iOS sdk/Obj C - different ways of writing an interface to the same web back ends. They each have their strengths and weaknesses. Another way it extends the thinking in the piece is that now participating is happening on a more massive scale with people able to participate on the go, not just when they are at their desk. It really raises it to the next level. The amount of data and content being shared continues to mushroom. Participating on the go as become the norm for lead users. I think there is an expectation from the community that mobile access will work well.
bkozlek

Continuous Deployment - 0 views

www.avc.com/...continuous-deployment.html

development infrastrcuture

shared by bkozlek on 14 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Continuous deployment is the idea that you push out changes to your code base all the time instead of doing large builds and pushing out big chunks of code.
  • At Etsy, they push out code about 25 times per day. It has worked out very well for Etsy and has led to faster cycles, improved morale, and a more stable and reliable web service.
  • I asked how to roll back the changes. He said "we don't roll back, we fix the code."
  • bkozlek on 14 Feb 11
     
    Continuous deployment is not just a technical detail. I think it informs the character of the web service. It allows the web service to react to the needs of the users on a constant basis. It also makes being agile easier, as managing larger releases incurs overhead with each new release. Tim O'Reilly defined this ability of software to constantly be updated as one of the hallmarks of web 2.0. Large releases are vestigial of a time when software had to be shipped to and installed by customers.
Cole Camplese

News: The Invisible Computer Lab - Inside Higher Ed - 5 views

www.insidehighered.com/...rim_costs_and_grow_enrollments

shared by Cole Camplese on 24 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Only 10 percent of colleges have begun phasing out their physical computer labs, even though the vast majority of students now own laptops, according to the Campus Computing Project. A full two-thirds of respondents to last fall’s survey said they had decided not to phase out their labs. Yet all of the technologists contacted by Inside Higher Ed agreed that virtual computing labs are bound to emerge to supplement physical computer labs across higher education, and some even suggested that the rooms where students currently tap away on campus-owned computers will eventually yield to the virtual kind.
  • Well before the term entered the popular lexicon via a recent Microsoft advertising campaign, “the cloud” was transforming how college students interact with their coursework.
    • Cole Camplese
      Cole Camplese on 24 Jan 11
       
      I never thought of the power behind MS' "the cloud" advertising campaign ... even my own 9 year old now says that ... and we aren't Windows users.  I wonder if that commercial is enough to tip the scale on a student's understanding of cloud services.  Interesting.
  • In a virtual computing lab, students log in via a secured website and choose from a library of “images” — virtual desktops outfitted with different versions of various programs. The selected image then appears as a window on the student’s own computer desktop, at which point students can open a program and begin working. They can save or print their work just as though the program were running on their own hard drives.
    • Cole Camplese
      Cole Camplese on 24 Jan 11
       
      We will be releasing our own virtual lab infrastructure later this semester.  CLC is making that happen now.
    • Chris Millet
      Chris Millet on 24 Jan 11
       
      I know IST has been doing it for several years. They had a lot of technical problems, which I hope they have (and we can) overcome. It did give students access to a lot of high end software that they couldn't have otherwise. I'll be curious to see how CLC's solution affects lab usage patterns.
  • Chris Millet on 24 Jan 11
     
    Not sure how interesting this is other than example of approaches to computer lap alternatives
  • ...2 more comments...
  • Chris Long on 28 Jan 11
     
    I assume we would need a laptop or a netbook program at PSU to make this really work, but as you all know, I a big fan of the idea of phasing out physical computer labs.
  • Cole Camplese on 31 Jan 11
     
    I'm not sure we would need a laptop program. Our own survey numbers point to close to 100% ownership by students as it is. In the short term, remote application services would not be able to replace the labs. We would use this service at first for very specialized software that a relatively few use. The number of students using our labs is staggering ... I now have numbers broken down by College and the students in the Liberal Arts are the largest population. Something we should look more closely at.
  • Chris Millet on 31 Jan 11
     
    I'd love to see those numbers, and to start putting some meaning behind them. What are the patterns of usage in different disciplines/colleges? I think some of it comes down to software needs, but also instructional styles, how technology is utilized in a discipline, college culture, and how affordances of labs match up with those things. I'm not sure the answer is so much reducing computer lab seats as much as understanding what people are doing and building spaces with that knowledge.
  • Chris Long on 31 Jan 11
     
    If the CLA is the biggest user of the labs and much of what students are doing is printing, it would make sense for us to initiate a move toward paperless teaching and learning. If we are able to use the iPads for faculty after the pilot in ENGL, then perhaps we can fold that into a larger initiative.
bkozlek

Substance (Developer Preview) - 1 views

substance.io

software collaborative editing

shared by bkozlek on 25 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • bkozlek on 25 Feb 11
     
    Open source software for web based document authoring, publishing, and annotating. Looks very slick. It could potentially be brought in house.
  • Cole Camplese on 25 Feb 11
     
    Hey, Brad ... I took a look at Substance and am very intrigued -- all in javascript? What does that mean for deployment in PASS? Is that something you have in the back of your mind? I'd like to learn more, but need you to teach me!
  • bkozlek on 27 Feb 11
     
    Substance uses server-side javascript, so it is not a plug right into existing webspace. That doesn't mean it can't be run at penn state.
bkozlek

Google Apps Marketplace Gets An Education Category - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...ace-gets-an-education-category

google

shared by bkozlek on 25 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Aimed for Google’s 10 million Google Apps for Education users, the category offers over 20 applications from 19 vendors including specialized apps for schools and universities such as social learning game Grockit, grading software LearnBoost, math teaching tool DreamBox, design apps Aviary and more.
  • bkozlek on 25 Jan 11
     
    disaggregation of education software services built on a common platform
Cole Camplese

Idea Management - Innovation Management - Crowdsourcing - Suggestion Box - Customer Fee... - 1 views

ideascale.com/index.html

questions management ideas

shared by Cole Camplese on 15 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Cole Camplese on 15 Feb 11
     
    Another live question tool ... but it may be best used to capture feedback and drive new services or service improvement.
  • Chris Millet on 16 Feb 11
     
    This certainly could be useful to make decisions about a project, or just to bounce ideas around an organization (or with faculty) to see which ones stick. I like that there's a disagree choice too. Many tools like this, you either agree or don't vote, but its useful to count disagrees separately.
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