Messenger taps social nets
This looks very interesting -- finding expertise using instant messaging tools. "To search for information, a user sends a question to his own referral agent, which broadcasts the query to all of the user's buddies' agents. A referral agent in the buddy's messenger searches its information identity profile to see if that person is likely to be able to answer the question. If not, the agent either returns empty results or forwards the query to its buddies, depending on how the user has set the software." [thanks Patti Anklam]Add tag Permalink | Friday, August 20, 2004
When is a long document not a long document?
So, how do you deal with long documents on the Web? Chunk, chunk, chunk. "Most long documents in other formats (e.g. Word, PDF) are best converted to a collection of web pages, sometimes on a mini-web site."Add tag Permalink | Friday, August 20, 2004
In the Classroom, Web Blogs Are the New Bulletin Boards
This NY Times article cites informal collaboration and ease of publication as the drivers responsible for the rise in teacher blogs. (The article refers to blogs as 'Web Blogs'; isn't this redundant?)blogging Add tag Permalink | Thursday, August 19, 2004
Decentralized Intelligence
Brilliant article by Duncan Watts on the advantages of loose connections and decentralized behavior. He cites many examples in which knowledge was created in a bottom-up manner. This follows David Snowden's third dictum (PDF file) which states that "We only know what we know when we need to know it".Add tag Permalink | Thursday, August 19, 2004
A web standards checklist
A comprehensive checklist for web standards-based design. One can use this checklist to:- to show the breadth of web standards
- as a handy tool for developers during the production phase of websites
- as an aid for developers who are interested in moving towards web standards
Add tag Permalink | Thursday, August 19, 2004
Play and learning in the brain
Nice article on the importance of play in learning. Learning is not all about external rewards and punishments, rather "the human brain determines our learning potential, and subjective experience is, clearly, more than just stimuli and responses. Furthermore, it has been shown that even the most intricate system of rewards and punishment cannot change certain species-specific behaviour. In fact humans exhibit much behaviour where the reward is only rarely external, but rather 'natural', as in the childrenAdd tag Permalink | Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Perplexing Problem? Borrow Some Brains
This report "shows that the approaches and outcomes of cooperating groups are not just better than those of the average group member, but are better than even the group's best problem solver functioning alone." There are some nice stories that illustrate the point very well.Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Interactive: Camp Hale
This is a nice online documentary on Camp Hale -- a site established in west-central Colorado to provide mountain warfare training during World War II. It was developed for the Department of History at The Metropolitan State College of Denver. Also, it is incorporated into at least three different courses taught on campus, thereby giving it a nice reusability factor.Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Online Course Development: What Does It Cost?
Nice points to ponder when making costing decisions on delivering courses online. Here's the first rule-of-thumb: "the first rule of thumb is to use an LMS. Whether it is a commercial, home-grown, or open source system is not as important as whether it meets most of the collective needs, philosophy, and wants of the faculty delivering degree programs."Add tag Permalink | Thursday, August 12, 2004
The corporate taxonomy: creating a new order
Introductory look at corporate taxonomies: "A simple definition of a taxonomy is that it is a hierarchy of categories used to classify documents and other information. A corporate taxonomy is a way of representing the information available within an enterprise."taxonomy Add tag Permalink | Thursday, August 12, 2004
The Good Brand
A company's Web presence is increasingly being seen as an extension of the holistic brand experience. This article from Fast Company lists some trends to watch out for in the branding world.Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Seeking an educational commons: The promise of open source development models
The educational commons meme is spreading: "Schools are hindered by cost and flexibility problems as they try to obtain resources such as software and textbooks. Open source development processes are producing products that can address many of these problems and, as importantly, provide a better alignment with core educational values. Indeed, open source products potentially encourage the development of an educational commons."Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Producing and Designing Online Stories
InteractiveNarratives lists a useful set of tips in this handout for producing and designing online stories.Add tag Permalink | Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Blogs + Egos = Learning?
Interesting thoughts again from Louis Rosenfeld, this time on student learning in the blogosphere. He argues that tools that allow students to monitor their "egoboo" are a must for learning along with the tools that allow for content publishing. "Understanding how one's content performed in a competitive, if local, information marketplace would surely be quite instructive. Through trial, error, and emulating others' successes, students would learn to write more effectively for the medium..."blogging Add tag Permalink | Friday, August 06, 2004
Storytelling and KM
Bill Ives takes a look at storytelling and knowledge management in six parts.storytelling Add tag Permalink | Friday, August 06, 2004
ScratchMedia Course
ScratchMedia offers this shareware course on web design: 'Web Design from Scratch' is a practical training course in web design for everyone interested in creating effective web pages.Add tag Permalink | Thursday, August 05, 2004
DIS2004: Bill Mitchell on Campus Design
Matt Jones has written a nice summary of Bill Mitchell's keynote on campus design. He also mentions a Charles Moore quote that I'm going to remember for a long time: "the fundamental principle of campus design should be to figure out the exact spot that the next revolution should begin"Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Embracing Information Architecture and Information Design
In this article for the Australian Flexible Learning Community, I try to frame the need to be holistic in learning design -- simply because it's about the experience now and not about having 'how-tos' at hand. Here's the gist of the article: "Information architecture (IA) and information design (ID) are two fields that are taking the Web experience to a new level. They form the foundations of what is now widely known as user experience design (UXD). In this article, I argue that e-learning teams too have to embrace UXD practices in addition to learning design practices to take the learning experience to a higher level."information architecture Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Making Tea: Iterative Design through Analogy
Called upon to design in an area you have very little domain expertise? Try making tea! "In this paper, we describe Making Tea, a design method foregrounding the use of analogy to bridge the gap between design team knowledge and domain expertise. Making Tea complements more traditional user-centered design approaches such as ethnography and task analysis." [thanks Dan]Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, August 04, 2004
What we know? The great info-knowledge debate
Amy Gahran on the difference between information and knowledge:- Information generally includes facts, observations, sensations, and messages. Information is content which informs our minds. It's fuel.
- Knowledge, in contrast, is the human experience of information
Add tag Permalink | Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Developing a knowledge management strategy
A detailed article on how to go about crafting a KM strategy with an emphasis on needs analysis.knowledge management Add tag Permalink | Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Deceivingly Strong Information Scent Costs Sales
Jakob Nielsen writes on the need to provide the right content in the right place. He uses the information foraging theory to explain why having the right content in the wrong place can backfire. "[F]or example, users were looking for a baby seat for their car, and quite logically looked in the automotive section of one of the sites we were testing. No baby seats there, so no sale. Users assumed that the site didn't sell the product they needed because it wasn't in the category where they assumed they'd find it." His solution: provide contextual cross-references and clear labeling.Add tag Permalink | Tuesday, August 03, 2004
e-Learning to Become Strategic Industry (in Korea)
Guess e-learning has to become strategic in a country where being online is an essential part of everyday life. "Under the law, representatives from the eight ministries, including the MOCIE, the Ministry of Human Resources & Education, the Ministry of Finance and Economy and the Ministry of Planning and Budget, will set up a committee for the e-learning industry development. The committee will map out the industry development plans and implement them."Add tag Permalink | Friday, July 30, 2004
NY Times Multimedia Section
The multimedia section of NY Times (free registration required) is turning out to be a fantastic resource not only for visual journalists but also for all web designers. They have a search feature which is great for someone who's coming in from the news perspective (e.g. search for 'Palestine ') but no so good for someone coming in from the design perspective, which is but natural as NY Times is a news website and not a design school. But it would be great if there were a meta search somewhere where I could, for example, search for 'timeline navigation' or 'audio slideshow'. I actually rely upon InteractiveNarratives to offer this kind of meta commentary on design. For example, the commentary on this multimedia piece on the Transition in Iraq says that it offers an intelligent design and packs in an incredible amount of information. After checking it out, I agree, it's a great design that involves a lot of charting and information organization and one that should be bookmarked for later reference. And yes, the NY Times multimedia section also has a RSS feed for those interested in keeping up to date with the latest in multimedia reporting (and web design).Add tag Permalink | Friday, July 30, 2004
Network links go well beyond simple straight lines
This is an insightful piece of project management advice from the trenches. Dennis Smith writes on the "simple line connecting two tasks in the plan... representing a relationship between tasks, and often indicates where one task stops and another starts." "In a project plan, tasks represent what people do, and in any hand off between tasks, there are far more interactions than can be shown by a simple line. Interactions include resolving specification issues, getting