Thursday, May 1, 2008
It just gets better and better
Lately I've been feeling a little discouraged about what I perceived to be a lack of enthusiasm and dedication toward bettering our QA processes . It was a hot topic at the last conference, but there hasn't been a lot of wide discussion. Boy was I wrong! Things must have been simmering below the surface. Within the first hour of the project coordination meeting in St. Paul, MN there is serious agreement about incorporating unit and performance tests into the process as we explore the kernel extraction and separate release process. How cool!
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Sakai just might be ditching that frumpy dress
If you haven't seen MyCamTools yet you have got to check it out! For those of you familiar with igoogle, you'll be delighted to see that the folks at Cambridge have a working prototype where igoogle meets Sakai.
AWESOME!!! It's about time Sakai stopped wearing that frumpy dress and put on something a bit sexy. There are sweet little widgets that allow you to quickly add a file or post an announcement to any of your sites without further navigation. Users can pick and choose to make a highly personalized environment.
For those of you interested, there are a few more screen shots and a bunch of information on Confluence. If you happen to be here in Minnesota, definitely take the time to stop one of the guys from Cambridge for an in person demo.
AWESOME!!! It's about time Sakai stopped wearing that frumpy dress and put on something a bit sexy. There are sweet little widgets that allow you to quickly add a file or post an announcement to any of your sites without further navigation. Users can pick and choose to make a highly personalized environment. For those of you interested, there are a few more screen shots and a bunch of information on Confluence. If you happen to be here in Minnesota, definitely take the time to stop one of the guys from Cambridge for an in person demo.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Hot Diggity - earthquake in the midwest!
This morning started out with unexpected excitement. Normally, I don't make it a habit to get up at 5:30 am but needed check on some system maintenance. I'm sitting on my couch, logging into Oncourse with both eyes barely open and I start to feel this tremor. I live in an older apartment building and the first thought that crosses my mind is "seriously! is this place going to collapse and good thing I'm on the top floor - I'll be at the top of the rubble." Guess what? I don't want to die!
The intensity increases . . . . my blinds are starting to swing, the wine glasses begin clicking and suddenly the whole building is shaking! By this point I'm onto the fact that it might be an earthquake but am still in disbelief that it's *really* an earthquake. Come on' I'm in Indiana! Eventually I shuffle over to a doorway. The shaking didn't last much long, but I could feel tremors I felt for a few minutes after. When it's all over, I'm still wondering if it really happened or if I just dreamed it.
Rest assured, I'm safe and don't see any damage :) For inquiring minds, Sakaiger and Sakaigress are safe but still reeling from their first earthquake experience :)
The USGS has got the 411 on this most unusual occurrence - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2008qza6.html
The intensity increases . . . . my blinds are starting to swing, the wine glasses begin clicking and suddenly the whole building is shaking! By this point I'm onto the fact that it might be an earthquake but am still in disbelief that it's *really* an earthquake. Come on' I'm in Indiana! Eventually I shuffle over to a doorway. The shaking didn't last much long, but I could feel tremors I felt for a few minutes after. When it's all over, I'm still wondering if it really happened or if I just dreamed it.
Rest assured, I'm safe and don't see any damage :) For inquiring minds, Sakaiger and Sakaigress are safe but still reeling from their first earthquake experience :)
The USGS has got the 411 on this most unusual occurrence - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2008qza6.html
Saturday, March 8, 2008
2.5 Release and QA Happenings of late
I'm back from a hiatus I took from posting to my blog and from here on out plan to be posting much more frequently. Between my last post and now life has pretty much focused on testing and preparing for the Sakai 2.5.0 release. Those of you familiar with the our past time lines, the testing cycle for 2.5 has been much longer - we're well past the 5 month mark. While this is a little longer than I'd like to see, this extra time has allowed us to refine our processes for the betterment of the release. When it's all said and done I believe well have a better tested release that folks can confidently install than ever before.
We're so close to releasing I can taste it! There was a last minute gotcha design bug with new functionality with the gradebook. The project team was able to quickly work with the community to determine a solution that wouldn't result in a substantial amount of time being added to the testing and release cycle. The speed in which the community can rally together to resolve a problem never ceases to amaze me. We should have the final release candidate to go on Monday and my hope is that the code will be good to go by mid-week. Once the release artifacts are built, 2.5.0 should be officially announced.
Then the community can turn it's attention to a 2.5.1 maintenance release . . . .
On a sad note, I learned last week that Margaret Petit's contract with Stanford is up. I'm fairly certain that Margaret predated my involvement in Sakai. She's been a great asset to the QA WG and contributed greatly to moving quality forward. To give you an idea of the impact she's had, she's filed 459 bugs (which btw, is more than I have!) and verified countless others. With all that knowledge and experience with Sakai, it is my hope that another institution snatches her up and that she is able to continue to work on the project.
We're so close to releasing I can taste it! There was a last minute gotcha design bug with new functionality with the gradebook. The project team was able to quickly work with the community to determine a solution that wouldn't result in a substantial amount of time being added to the testing and release cycle. The speed in which the community can rally together to resolve a problem never ceases to amaze me. We should have the final release candidate to go on Monday and my hope is that the code will be good to go by mid-week. Once the release artifacts are built, 2.5.0 should be officially announced.
Then the community can turn it's attention to a 2.5.1 maintenance release . . . .
On a sad note, I learned last week that Margaret Petit's contract with Stanford is up. I'm fairly certain that Margaret predated my involvement in Sakai. She's been a great asset to the QA WG and contributed greatly to moving quality forward. To give you an idea of the impact she's had, she's filed 459 bugs (which btw, is more than I have!) and verified countless others. With all that knowledge and experience with Sakai, it is my hope that another institution snatches her up and that she is able to continue to work on the project.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
K-12 Open Minds Conference- what an enlightening experience!
October 9th-11th I had the opportunity to attend the K-12 Open Minds Conference, a conference that brings together teachers, technicians and educational leaders to share and explore the use of open source in K-12 teaching.
It's very apparent that the technology available today has changed the way students learn. It's something that I myself have experienced to some degress, but it's still an eye opener to take a step back and really reflect on all that has changed and what will be changing! The connectivity that exists opens up so many avenues for the exposure of information and collaboration - but how do we harness that so that it's meaningful?
One thing that struck me about this conference was the fact that the majority of the people that
attended were teachers. I learned a lot from these folks about what it is they currently do with technology and what it is they'd like to do. It make me realize that I haven't interacted with a lot faculty at the Sakai conferences. These interactions are critical in developing a system and the Sakai community should strive to make bring in more of this perspective.
The use of technology varied greatly. Some were new to open source and looking for solutions to replace proprietary software with heavy licensing fees while many were looking to explore the sharing of best practices. One session highlighted over 30 different open source or free resources and more were shared by the participants. There were a variety of resources used in the classroom that I hadn't ever heard of such as Google LitTrips and Celestia and it was really neat to learn about them . . . as someone that loves reading, I'm definitely going to be checking out the Google LitTrips further. My take away - keeping tabs on what's going on in primary and secondary education is very important as the students of tomorrow will have their expectations shaped by the experiences they have there.
Another aspect I found interesting is that teachers are not only using technology for the use of teaching pupils, but also to share lessons plans with resources like Teacher Tube. The professional development of teachers a very important aspect of the evolution of tech in learning. It's much easier for younger generations to pick up new technology given how ingrained it's become in society. In higher education hearing about an instructional technologist being among the staff is pretty common - in primary and secondary education these types of positions are less common and those that do exist are supporting entire schools or districts.
Not unexpected was widespread use of Moodle. In my conversations, many did not even know what Sakai was. I did spend some time talking to Lic. Douglas Galindo of the Universidad of Dr. Jose Matias Delgado in El Salvador. While this university is using Moodle, they've been following the progress of Sakai as an indicator of the health of open and community source software and are very encouraged by the progress Sakai has made. We had an interesting conversation about the challenges of making a smooth transition for learners as they progressed through their learning careers as well as supporting the teaching activities/workflows in different ways. This conversation (and many others) made me realize how much we have tool silos that force users into actions that probably aren't very natural.
Quick summary of what I took away from the conference -
1) Support the integration of resources. There is so much out there and there will be more and more as time progresses!
2) How can we change Sakai to break down these tool silo's and facilitate a meaningful flow of activities?
3) The need to not only support the teacher <> pupil education process but provide professional development avenues for instructors
4) Keeping tabs on what's going on in primary and secondary education is very important as the students of tomorrow will have their expectations shaped by the experiences they have there.
5) Work with well known standards so the data that is accumulated can traverse the learning landscape with learners.
It's very apparent that the technology available today has changed the way students learn. It's something that I myself have experienced to some degress, but it's still an eye opener to take a step back and really reflect on all that has changed and what will be changing! The connectivity that exists opens up so many avenues for the exposure of information and collaboration - but how do we harness that so that it's meaningful?
One thing that struck me about this conference was the fact that the majority of the people that
attended were teachers. I learned a lot from these folks about what it is they currently do with technology and what it is they'd like to do. It make me realize that I haven't interacted with a lot faculty at the Sakai conferences. These interactions are critical in developing a system and the Sakai community should strive to make bring in more of this perspective.
The use of technology varied greatly. Some were new to open source and looking for solutions to replace proprietary software with heavy licensing fees while many were looking to explore the sharing of best practices. One session highlighted over 30 different open source or free resources and more were shared by the participants. There were a variety of resources used in the classroom that I hadn't ever heard of such as Google LitTrips and Celestia and it was really neat to learn about them . . . as someone that loves reading, I'm definitely going to be checking out the Google LitTrips further. My take away - keeping tabs on what's going on in primary and secondary education is very important as the students of tomorrow will have their expectations shaped by the experiences they have there.
Another aspect I found interesting is that teachers are not only using technology for the use of teaching pupils, but also to share lessons plans with resources like Teacher Tube. The professional development of teachers a very important aspect of the evolution of tech in learning. It's much easier for younger generations to pick up new technology given how ingrained it's become in society. In higher education hearing about an instructional technologist being among the staff is pretty common - in primary and secondary education these types of positions are less common and those that do exist are supporting entire schools or districts.
Not unexpected was widespread use of Moodle. In my conversations, many did not even know what Sakai was. I did spend some time talking to Lic. Douglas Galindo of the Universidad of Dr. Jose Matias Delgado in El Salvador. While this university is using Moodle, they've been following the progress of Sakai as an indicator of the health of open and community source software and are very encouraged by the progress Sakai has made. We had an interesting conversation about the challenges of making a smooth transition for learners as they progressed through their learning careers as well as supporting the teaching activities/workflows in different ways. This conversation (and many others) made me realize how much we have tool silos that force users into actions that probably aren't very natural.
Quick summary of what I took away from the conference -
1) Support the integration of resources. There is so much out there and there will be more and more as time progresses!
2) How can we change Sakai to break down these tool silo's and facilitate a meaningful flow of activities?
3) The need to not only support the teacher <> pupil education process but provide professional development avenues for instructors
4) Keeping tabs on what's going on in primary and secondary education is very important as the students of tomorrow will have their expectations shaped by the experiences they have there.
5) Work with well known standards so the data that is accumulated can traverse the learning landscape with learners.
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Where to go in '07?
2007. It's a new year and time when many are working on their resolutions. I however, like to use the new year as a time to evaluate and then set forth or adjust goals for the coming year. As I mentioned at the Sakai project planning meeting in Atlanta, my vision for 2007 is to foster a workgroup that is active all the time rather than just during the QA cycle for an upcoming release. This will enable the community to better speak to the level of quality with a release as well as to better document our process, grow our participation and develop the WG skill set.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
