This site is rarely updated. benbrophy.com is more up-to-date. - Ben
Whisper is back
I love it when something like this happens. Hours after my post mourning Whisper, I got this message.
Hey there! I didn't know anyone really missed Whisper. I'm going to try to dust it off a bit tonight, clean up the code (it surely needs it), and host it again on my site.
Look for an all new Whisper soon!
Take care,
Adam Newbold
And sure enough you can download Whisper from his site. Can't wait to see the next update!
Tags: opensource cms whisper
Whisper CMS
Last year there was this beautifully simple content management system called Whisper ("Quiet content management"). I downloaded it and used it for a project for a friend. Couldn't be easier - there was no database, and all that had to be edited was the username and password and it just worked after that.
Now it's gone. Googling it won't do you any good. Even it's creator, Adam Newbold, has only a minimal (really minimal not just aesthetically) web presence.
I was following the message boards for Whisper. It seems like the project attracted some highly skilled programmers and they overwhelmed the creator. He threw up his hands and said "fine take it" and they created what is now lucidCMS a content management system 'inspired by' Whisper. Except lucidCMS requires a MySQL back-end, which throws off the whole simplicity that was so appealing with Whisper.
OK, I have to admit, I'm projecting a bit when imagine what happened to Whisper. But I miss it, I was really excited about it and now it's gone.
Update: A few people googling for Whisper have hit this page and asked me for an update. Good news! There is a new version of Whisper available here.
Update 2:Well the site above is frequently un available, so here is a copy of Wu-Wei -aka Whisper CMS (zip - 4k). I took this copy from Adam's site while it was still available.
Tags: opensource cms whisper
Free Wireless in Rozzie Square
I find the idea of universal free (well nothing's free, but tax-supported) wireless internet access really exciting. Boston is slowly taking steps in this direction, largly thanks to the work of city councilor John Tobin. The BostonWAG is great resource for information on wifi in Boston.
There is a Slashdot discussion about a cafe in Seattle that has decided to turn off their wireless during the weekends, because the laptop crowd doesn't spend enough money, detracts from the cafe atmosphere, and generally sits around the cafe way too long.
I often go down to the Emack & Bolios in Roslindale Square to get a Latte and do a little work over the weekend. Their coffee is just terrible, they get my business because of the WiFi. There are usually a few of us with laptops there. I try to be good custumer - buy coffee, smile, and don't sit around more than an hour- basic wifi etiquette. I'd be sad if they turned off their wireless, though I could always use the public library which also has free wireless.
But maybe I don't have to worry. The City of Boston has started implementing a plan to bring free wireless to all of Roslindale Village (aka Rozzie Square). They have an access point in Cutler Park already, so I could sit in Wapo Taco and do my work there. I'm not sure if Mr. and Mrs. Wapo would appreciate me sticking around for some surfing after my burrito, but it's possible. I hope the city is able to keep up with the program. It sounds like Philadelphia has a had a hard time with their wireless network.
I'm writing this entry in the Whole Foods cafe in Cambridge. No wifi here. I hope Cambridge starts work on some universal wifi soon.
Tags: wifi roslindale boston
Initial impressions of Moodle
Setup and administration
Installation was bit more complex than I'd expected, but it took me less than an hour, including re-learning how to set up a MySQL database.
The Administration pages are well done. I've set up classes, monitored user registration, and designated people as as instructors and creators (creators can create new classes as well as teach them). It's been very simple. I can see the are setting for working with institutional data, which i haven't touched. There are fewer than 10 users on the local installation, so I can't say how well it work for 10,000 users. But generally, I'm pleased.
Class sites are session based. When setting up a class you are asked to decide whether to set up the class based on weekly sessions or based on a number of topics. Then when you get to your class, you treat the sessions or topics there as buckets to fill up with resources (e.g. weblinks, documents, etc.) and activities (quizzes, assingments, more bleow). I've sketched out a proposal to tdo session based class setup in Stellar/Sakai. It really simplifies the process. On the down side, I think it would be hard to use Moodle for "project" sites rather than class sites.
Tools
Choices
Sort of a one question survey, using a radio button. I found myself wishing I could string a bunch of these questions together in one package, and that I could add short text boxes or other types of questions.
Survey
I was all excited to set up my survey, but it turns out I'm given the option of 5 pre-built surveys that can add to my site. They are basically class evaluation surveys, plus a survey for students to describe themselves. If I a degree in education I would probably better understand these surveys and how to use them, but their value wasn't immediately clear.
Assignment
This assignment gave the option to accept a single file as the submission. I could grade student submissions. The only way to grade was using a dropdown box full of numbers - defaulting to 100! Why not have a text field and a little validation? I imagine this would get pretty taxing if I had a large class.
Chat
The chatroom looked like it could be handy for distance courses. It's just not my style though. I've never seen a lot of value in any chat tool.
Lesson
Seems to be a way to build a branching "walk through" of a topic. I haven't tried building one yet, but it looks interesting. the initial screen of options is pretty intimidating - luckily there are a lot of help icons to to help me along.
Glossary
What's really nice about this glossary tool is that students can add entries as well as the instructor, and rate eachother's additions. Kind of a social constructionist wikipedia.
Workshop
This is an interesting tool for allowing students to do peer reviews. it is fairly complex compared to most of the other tools in the site. it's great to have the option of using a tool like this.
So all in all I'm quite impressed by Moodle. I'd like to dig into the tools some more when I get the chance. The UI was often a bit jargon-rich and complex, but still quite usable. I need to look into changing the default appearance, but that looks quite doable.
Tags: moodle
The View from MIT
This is what I stare at 8+ hours a day. You can see over engineered way I keep track of my to do list. (click the image to view in Flickr with annotations)
Use of Stellar's Copyright Flag
Craig ran some numbers and dug up alot of greatinformation about how much Stellar's copy right flag is used. he copy right flag is used by the Libraries' electronic reserves documents as well as by faculty who use copyrighted materials on their own. Here's a summary of the numbers
Spring 2004 - Copyright flagged documents
| uploaded | 3295 |
| downloaded | 60149 |
Fall 2004 - Copyright flagged documents
| uploaded | 4644 |
| downloaded | 113998 |
Spring 2005 - Copyright flagged documents
| uploaded | 6101 |
| downloaded | 115052 |
In Spring 2005 it looks like the students in 7.36 Computational & Systems Biology set the record with 5890 downloads. The class with largest number of copyright flagged files was 4.602 Modern Art & Mass Culture with a whopping 395.
Tags: stellar ereserves copyright fairuse
Apache Lenya
I attended a presentation of Administrative Computing's Lenya installation.
Lenya is a content management system. Administrative Computing needed a system to manage their documentation - lot's of SAP documentation, plus new documentation for the new payroll system they will roll out in January. They used the report from IS&T discovery project on content management to narrow their choices down to Lenya and Macromedia Contribute. They chose Lenya because it is web based, and has an open source license. They are not rolling it out as a service outside of IS&T, it's just a way for their documentation staff to maintain web pages.
Lenya uses Cocoon and XSLT. All of the content is stored in XML files in a file structure - there is no database. Lenya isn't a big fancy repository, the presenter referred to it a s a "file munger." That simplicity is very nice - it's easy to back up or reuse a directory of XML files.
Lenya has three roles: Editor, Reviewer and Administrator. In general Editors are writers who can modify the content of the site, and then submit for review. The review then decides whether to publish. One person can be designated both an editor and a reviewer.
They hired a consulting company (Coyne Consulting) to help them modify Lenya so it uses Certificates for authentication. they also replaced Lenya's built in search engine with Google.
It editing mode Lenya's UI is a thin bar with 4 dropdown menus. The website navigation, and links are fully functional. When you click edit you have the choice between a couple editors, but with the BitFlux editor you can edit the page directly on the screen. Very slick DHTML work.
Another nice feature of Lenya is that it will publish static sites via FTP (or SCP) to AFS lockers. So it's good solution for groups that want to maintain sites within web.mit.edu.
SimpleXML
I wanted to take a moment to sing the praises of the SimpleXML functions in PHP 5.
When I did my work on Docwalla I used PHP with the XSLT extension. I got a lot of milage out of XSLT, but after I built a variety of applications of Docwalla (wishlist, link list, transcript and FAQ) I could see that it was a pretty labor intensive.
I decided to revamp the Docwalla wishlist in PHP 5, to try out its new XML capabilities. It's just great - I've parsed wishlist.xml as a nicely formatted HTML page, and created an edit form to edit any of the 'wish' nodes in the XML file. I can do this with about 20% of the code it took me to do the same thing with PHP 4 and XSLT.
It's been a little confusing. It's weird how usually the XML nodes are treated like PHP objects, but once XPath is used they become arrays. And I've had to pay attention to typing - it really matters if a variable is a string or a integer sometimes. But it's fun puzzling it out. I guess that's really why I'm doing it.
Stellar access denied page
I mocked up a new access denied page for Stellar. This is the page that pops up when people are successfully logged in, but aren't allowed to access a class website.
Access issues were the biggest category of Stellar-related issues reported to the help desk. The general response form the help desk once it is clear that people have logged in successfully is to tell the person to contact their course instructor. Hopefully adding a contact form rght to the error page will cut down on the calls made to help desk.
Tags: Stellar
Type writer widget
Checkout these tiny little widgets for Apple nerds. Some look they could be handy, some are just ridiculous. Like the one that plays makes typewrite sounds as you type. I'm using right now. It's really really annoying. Yet fun.
Open source user centered design
From an email exchange between Chuck Severance (one of the leaders of Sakai) and Martin Langhoff (one of the leaders of Moodle). Martin Langhoff writing about Moodle's usability:
But if a particular part of Moodle has a bad UI that's OK: if enough people use it, we start getting "usability" fixes and patches, and it soon gets better ;-)
Maybe that's the approach Sakai's UI designers need to take - making improvements after release. On the down side, it's reactive, and it means we release a product that is not polished. It is not the UCD process we've held as an ideal, in which tools are carefully researched and designed before they are coded. It's also hard to do when your customers (faculty and students) have high expectations, and your team is used to delivering top quality polished work.
Our efforts to improve Sakai globally using a UCD process to some extent assume a controlled top-down approach. I'm pretty sure the writing on the wall indicates less centralization, not more. If we are to lose that control (and we never really had it), then we need to learn how to do guerilla usability.
I think that means we need to working more tightly with programmers, and possibly brushing up our own coding skills. We need to do fast testing, and reflect those test results in code quickly. This is one area where Moodle's PHP code base is a huge advantage - designers can start mixing it up in PHP with out steep learning curve and let the more skilled programers improve the code's usability and scalability once the tool proves itself.
If we're not involved in coding, it would still be a good idea to check stuff in. One's credibility in open-source land really seems to rest on what's getting checked into the repository. We've started checking in our materials for the style guide and did the same with the Gradebook specs. I think it helps to be playing in the same playground as the programmers.
I don't know that there's any easy answer here, but I'm trying to imagine a how open source user centered design works, and these are some initial thoughts.
Update: Check the enthusiastic user reviews of Moodle in this article from the SFSU newspaper.
Tags: opensource ucd moodle sakai
Collaborative text editing
Marc Brierly from Stanford and I have been cleaning up the Sakai Style Guide CSS. We had a couple lengthy phone calls this week to go over the CSS file and make edits. What's great is that we were using SubEthaEdit to edit a CSS file on my laptop together. I could see Marc's cursor moving and editing, while I did the same. Some times we were editing the same line, and meeting in the middle. It's amazing how well it worked once we got warmed up.
Another thing that helped is that the files were stored in web accessible directory on my laptop, so we could both see the results of our edits in a web browser.
I still favor BBEdit for my day-to-day text wrangling needs, but SubEthaEdit rocked for this specialized need. Not bad for a free app that took about 90 seconds to download and install.
Now if there was only an app that would let me have Palo Alto weather here in Cambridge...
Tags: subethaedit sakai collaboration
Section filters
Over on his folk music, indoor horticulture and Sakai hacking blog Steve mentioned the practice of undercover requirements gathering. It's funny I do the same thing whenever I'm chatting with a student or instructor.
He says the one thing people say when he mentions BlackBoard is "Why can't I make the gradebook show only the students in my section."
The sad news is Sakai isn't going to help him for now. It really broke the gradebook team's hearts when we realized Sakai would not support sectioning in Sakai 2.0. But there is hope. I working with others on the Sakai tools team to design the UI for managing sections and groups in Sakai, and members of the architecture team are approaching it from the other direction. So I'm still hoping that by Spring 2006, we'll have our section filtered gradebook.
Tags: sakai blackboard gradebook
Buzzword Bingo: Ajax Patterns
I've been reading a bit about Ajax and Design Patterns, and now there is a site that pulls them together: AjaxPatterns
Looks promising, for the day when I finally start using Ajax. I may start using it in the new simplified PHP5 version of Docwalla I'm working on. I would also try out these PHP underpinnings for Ajax.
By the way, here's the best description of Ajax I've seen - it gives better examples than most.
My colors are HOT
I just saw a post on the top ten hot colors. And the burnt orange gracing Inline Comments is one of them. Does this mean I need to pick a new color? I kinda like burnt olive but it's on the list too...
Moodle community on Sakai
It's not just the Sakai community noticing Moodle, you can read the discussion of Sakai on a Moodle discussion board (you can login as a guest). When the discussion isn't in a rat hole about PHP's scalability, it's really interesting. They give Sakai a good thrashing.
Not just a course management system
I have seen repeated notes in Sakai discussions that say Sakai should be more than a course management system. This often comes with the implication that a CMS is "commercial" "corporate" and "mass market." Check the responses to the Moodle vs. Sakai post on Sakaipedia for some examples.
What's wrong with being a course management system? Why is it better to also be used for research projects? What's so incredible about research project management systems, that course management systems are insignificant in comparison? Is this part of the school of thought that suggests faculty who do research are much more than prestigious than those who have to actually teach?
If I buy a refrigerator I want the it it to be a really good refrigerator. I don't want it to be "more than a refrigerator, it's also a microwave." If I want a microwave I'll get a good microwave.
Tags: sakai
Technorati tags
I installed a Blosxom plugin that adds Technorati tags to the end of each post. I'm doing this because I'm interested in how folksonomies work and it will give me an easy way to see what others are writing on the topics I write about.
Tags: technorati blosxom
Sakai vs. Moodle - Again!
Here's a little gem. The creator of Moodle writes in Sakaipedia about why moodle is better. And refers to himself in the third person. I can't say I disagree with him.
Sakai tool distribution
I wrote this message as part of an email discussion on a sakai list. The thread concerned how and whether a centralized Sakai organization should decide to "accept" new tools.
I think it's helpful to think of Sakai as useful tool, not as code. What would it mean to have an "Apache model" for tool development? Apache is a fantastic piece of software, but the user interface is a big long config file that you change with a text editor. Doesn't seem like a great example of how to make tools for use by students and instructors.
If we're talking about tools that non-technical people use for teaching and learning, we need to focus on having a coherent toolset that's easy to use. We make a toolset easy to use by having tools that work well together (e.g. I expect a quiz I create in one tool, to show up in the gradebook) without too much overlap (e.g. If there's a homework tool, a dropbox, and an assignment tool, where do I turn in a problem set?).
Your comments about tools illustrate the mindset; we want to listen to you, but in the end we (the tools team) will decide. I hear that from vendors."
Focussing on the people who use the software, not just those who create it, is not inherently corporate. Our motive is not profit, it is simply to serve our communities well. If Sakai is to release tools along with it's framework, then some group of people will need to decide which tools those are. That decision should be made based on how the tool contributes to the overall experience of using Sakai.
This should not discourage any developer or institution from doing creative new tool development. The "flowtalk" example is perfect. The current discussion and email tools have some real drawbacks. This tool seeks to answer that challenge and do the job a bit better. There's no permission needed to make a new tool, or to distribute it.
Some tools will be selected for the standard release, some won't. As a tool developer I'd be really pleased to have a new tool included in the standard release. I would also like to see Sakai offer a browsable catalog of all tools written by SEPP members, so I could share niche tools without having to manage distribution through MIT, and so I could seek out highly rated tools that meet our own needs. But I'll develop new tools for MIT whether they get distributed through Sakai or not.
A genuine Open Source contribution
On my family website I use WordPress to run the updates. On the the sidebar I use have a list of the movies in my Netflix Queue that is powered by a WordPress plugin called MyNetflix. MyNetflix is a nice little RSS translator that takes the items from your Netflix Queue's RSS feed and posts them as a HTML list.
When the initial version came out, I contacted the author with a few suggestions on how to code the XHTML that the list produces. Not a huge contribution, but changing the copy I'd taken for my own use, and wanted to share with the creator. A few months later, and I've been credited in the release notes for the new version. Nice.
I've been working on an big Open Source course management system for well over a year, and I put my wishlist/faq/linklist software in the public domain. But this feels like my first real contribution to open source software because I did it as a volunteer, and I only contributed small chunk of the effort.
Open Source
Steve from Northwestern University wrote in to point out that I missed a key point in my earlier post Sakai vs. Moodle.
I think the important thing is that these projects are open source.
If someone is stuck at a University that is using Sakai and really wants PHP bindings, or the ability to run Moodle Components, or has a problem with it that is driving them nuts, they can go in and fix it (not saying they will, as it is a huge time commitment).
If someone is stuck at a University using Moodle and wants to use a scripting language like Python with better OOP support they can go in and do this.
If existing CMS's like Blackboard were open source I think that people stuck using them would have already invested a lot of time in fixing them.
The fact that these are Open Source projects gives much better prospects for future interoperability. These products aren't at war like commercial projects might be. There is every possibility that they will use standards to trade data freely in the future.
Beginner's Mind in Web Design
I had the pleasure of watching 21 presentations by people who had just learned how to build a webpage during a 5 week course. They each presented the homepage for an imaginary website. The results reminded me of the web back in 1998 or so, when large numbers of people were learning how to put up a web page and say a little about whatever topic interested them.
Pick a topic you're interested in
There were sites on historical figures, a site of keeping tropical fish, two on the activities of separate quilting groups, and one a gathering place for former residents of the now abandoned colony of the planet Snowcross. The key is to pick your interest and just go for it.
Steal images
If you need pictures for your website, just surf the web until you find a good one, then copy it. This was so totally the spirit of the web in the 1990s. I used to look everything on the web about the town Bodh Gaya in India back then, and every site would have the same photo. And I had a copy on my site, too.
Whatever works
Tables, CSS,
fonttags, whatever gets the job done quickly. You should be able to put up a complete website in about 4 hours, so don't waste time coding. Just believe that browsers are forgiving, and so are the people who use them.Link generously
The web is all about linking. Fill your navigation bar with links to other websites. At the very list have a prominent page titled "Links" where you offer links to all of your favorite websites.
The sad thing is, pages like these, that were so cool in the 1990s, look so odd now, it seems don't get created anymore. But we now have web applications that take advantage of the best parts of this "beginners mind" in web design. Wiki's like wikipedia allow anyone with a passionate interest in something to start contributing it to the web. Blog sites like Blogger and LiveJournal, where I think a lot of newbies now go to get started, are a quick way to be generous with links, write about your passion, and generally get stuff up quick. Sites like flickr, with it's built in options creative commons licensing, let people share images.
Tablet-based mac
I'd like something more mobile than a laptop to lug around. But I want it to be a mac. I was daydreaming about a Apple handheld computer, but maybe a tablet mac would work...
Internet Audio
Alan Levine posted an entry called "Internet Audio: Can You Hear/Talk to Me Now? Good." about using Skype, podcasting and iPods in education and all that nonsense. Actually, having read and listened I am now persuaded it's not all nonsense, maybe you can learn things from your iPod. Maybe I'll start using podcasts to cram even more information into my brain instead of using my iPod to just relax a little.
He's got quick audio recordings of ed tech scenesters talking about how they could use their iPods and how they'd be used in education. You can listen to me being skeptical, or even better hear Phil Long wax eloquent about how he has his life wirelessly networked for music using AirTunes , multiple iPods and his BMW.
Ajax summit
I can't believe I haven't received my invitation to the Ajax Summit yet. True I have no experience either designing or developing using Ajax techniques, but I'd like to and I am sure I could come up with something interesting to say under pressure.
Bose headphones
My colleague Anna is letting me use her Bose QuietComfort Acoustic Noise Canceling Headset. Now that's a pair of headphones. When the music is on I can't hear anything but the music. I can see my coworker's lips moving but I don't know what they're saying. Are they talking to me? I guess if it's important they'll throw something.
The morning flew by as I concentrated on a form validation script. When I finally took off the Bose QuietComfort Acoustic Noise Canceling Headset my phone was ringing, and I hadn't been hearing it. The world seems so loud and chaotic now.
Comments
I added added a contact form to this site, and it's found following the "comments" link at the end of each post. I used CGIemail to make the form work and I popped in a validation javascript I put together.
The script is pretty simple (you can see it here). Here's how you'd use it.
- Put a copy of the script with your web page
- Link the script to in your form's HTML page by adding a script tag like this:
<script src="contact.js" type="text/javascript"></script> - Add this attribute to your form tag:
onSubmit="return checkForm('name,email,subject,message');"
That's it. No change to the Javascript needed.
The words separated by commas are the "id" attributes of the fields you want to validate. The script checks that those fields are filled in before it will submit the form. Should work with any valid HTML form. It only checks if the fields are filled in, it's doesn't have any additional checking to make sure the email address looks right and such. I only care that the form is filled out, in this case.
Feel free to take it and use it yourself. I'll use it as a base to do some simple form validation in Stellar and other EDDG projects.
Moodle vs. Sakai
I wrote a post about Earlham adopting Moodle on my old weblog. I still get occasional comment there from people championing Moodle. Moodle obviously has an enthusiastic community, especially in New Zealand.
I can still drive myself batty thinking about what would have happened if the Sakai project had poured it's resources into contributing to Moodle rather than starting with CHEF. It's a pretty pointless exercise, though.
I'm hopeful that as Sakai becomes an open source product it will have an enthusiastic community of it's own. it's already starting. The Sakai conferences are very exciting, there dozens of schools eager to start developing tools with Sakai (not to mention the hundreds that want to use it). People outside the six core schools are already building Sakai tools and loving it.
Still what if we'd started with Moodle, and I was be doing work in PHP...
P.S. I withdraw my comment about Moodle being less scalable than Sakai, and apologize to all the Moodle and PHP lovers I offended.
QTVR of ancient Roman exhibit
My colleague Joanna Proulx designed an excellent QuickTime VR presentation of an exhibit about Ancient Rome (Use your cursor to click and move through the museum and explore hot spots).
Mark Brown said:
We now feature a recent multimedia project designed and produced entirely by EDDG's Joanna Proulx. This MLN project is an excellent example of the advanced multimedia capabilities that we offer our clients -- a virtual museum exhibition that allows viewers to browse an entire gallery and gather information from combined visual and text sources.
I HIGHLY recommend taking a look to get a real sense of the clarity and richness of the final product. It's very cool!