Pages

Friday, June 13, 2003


I've added some links to the SMARTeo model on the SMART Ideas(R) software Server.

The nice thing about SMART Ideas(R) Software is the ease of posting navigable links to all the levels of your "concept map." Click on layers of the model above to explore "inside" the model. Making maps for activities and tutorials is as easy as drawing and producing objects and saving them to the server. examples.

Your development group can work on the model on the server -- synchronously where practicable -- and keep a record of how the concept came to fruition.

The "Playback" feature allows newcomers to "see what's happened" to the model since last visited. Good way to provide a context of "how we got to this point" in project completion.

RussW also asked me about another offering from SMART Technologies Inc., Bridgit Data-conferencing Software. Bridgit allows for data-conferencing -- desktop to desktop -- without an install on the "client" (your!) PC.

We have truly state-of-the-art technology in "interactive whiteboards" and related products at SMART Technologies Inc., and I feel very fortunate to be able to work with our hardware and software on a daily basis.

Thursday, June 12, 2003


Did some work on the SMART Ideas(R) Server last night. My buddy Russ stopped by and I took him on a tour of the model. Russ indicated he'd like to see voice-over-IP(VOIP) added.

SMART Ideas(R) software now supports synchronous chat, but Russ' point -- over the phone last night -- is well taken. "Voice conferencing" is very valuable in tutoring beginning users of technology.

Russ also mentioned that issues of copyright are particularly tricky -- especially in terms of altering exisiting objects for reuse. To wit, while in looking at what CANCORE had to say about Rights I happened across a couple of gems.
  • One regarding the intent of the specification:
    Rather than being a rigid, parsable set of rules, CanCore encourages common, consensual element semantics that have their own benefit in increased resource discovery and metadata interoperability.

  • and a reference to the Creative Commons which in turn led to this Flash tutorial on the difference between "the Big C" and "cc" -- Get Creative


Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.

Tuesday, June 10, 2003


It's been a while since I've had a chance to post. The trip to 'lando was a busy one.

Today I got a mail from the Open Knowledge Initiative @ MIT that included a link to sourceforge.net the site of OKI's release of Open Service Interface Definitions (OSIDs) Released for Educational Software and Learning Management Systems


The Common Services OSID package is available on SourceForge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/okiproject. Software developers are encouraged to use the SourceForge discussion forums to provide feedback and comment.