Flexknowlogy – Jared Stein's ARCHIVED blog – update to jaredstein.org

Campus Technology reports that all 44 of Blackboard’s LMS-related patent claims were rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office based on 10 issues raised in a reexamination request filed by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) in November, 2006.

Blackboard has two months to respond to the USPTO’s determination, and we can bet they will bankroll as big a response as possible. Surely their recent victory against Desire2Learn for patent infringement will fuel their strength of will to fight. For my part, Bb’s lawsuit leaves me wondering if allowing the lawsuit to stand trial while a USPTO reexamination request was under review was not just premature, but also extremely wasteful of our tax dollars and court time.

I’m always on the look-out for new conference ideas that can be implemented to make Teaching with Technology Idea Exchange (TTIX) more and more useful. While most of the “un-conference” ideas mentioned here require a large crowd (larger than we can expect at TTIX 2008) this article does illustrate the growing tedium with the conference-as-usual approach, and highlights key problems that TTIX can seek to avoid or inhibit in the future.

Roger Johansson posted up a good, general review of the new O’Reilly book, “Designing Web Navigation”. The first question Johansson asks is a good one, i.e. “We need a whole book on designing Web navigation?” If you’ve ever struggled with navigation of a Web site, or know anything about the idea of the “scent of information” I think you’ll agree that the answer is, “Yes.”

My first attempt at drafting a map of my personal learning environment came out better than I expected. I didn’t utilize any of the physical space metaphors I’d planned to use, instead opting for a fast mapping solution through Excel that showed strong relationships (matched edges) as well as weaker relationships (arrows).

PLE Mapping, Draft 1
Originally uploaded by Mr_Stein

You’ll note that I did not limit myself to technologies, let alone Web-based tools as some have been inclined to do. I’ve used all tools, utilities, and resources that make up my actual environment for teaching, learning and professional/creative production.

I know much of the discussion of PLE’s centered on the idea of using technology as an all-containing hub, and while I see significant usefulness in hubs (my own primary hubs are Google Reader, Twitter, and my own blogs) I am beginning to believe that a single hub is not the answer, and PLEs should not be encompassed by a single product or service. For instance, Ron Lubensky defines the primary goal for a PLE as follows:

The primary goal of a PLE for an individual is to bring all the disparate artefacts of interest for learning under a single operating roof. … PLEs are meant to simplify managing these artefacts…

I have two problems with this goal as stated:

1. It is akin to the goals of monolithic learning management systems, and seems to vie for a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Scott Wilson with the Personal Learning Environment blog says, “It’s an unfortunate tendency especially in our sector to take a concept (PLE, e-Portfolio) and attempt to reify it as a product.”
2. Because individuals with several generally distinct interests likely have multiple origination/entry points for learning, one all-encompassing, multitudinous hub may not be optimum for effectiveness (it may in fact be distracting; I’ve found this to be the case with a fully-loaded iGoogle home page)

Speaking of my several generally distinct interests, I was initially inclined to separate my teaching and creation activities from this map. Arguably not “learning” by some strict definitions, but certainly from a “learning by doing” perspective. At any rate, teaching, creating, and learning seem to me to be inextricably intertwined.

Before responding to the (apparently provocative) question posed by Chris Lott this week, “What does your PLE look like?”, I have one genuine question that precludes defining one’s PLE (playing into the indictment of the concept in what D’Arcy Norman initially showed as his PLE) is what is the utilitarian scope of a PLE? Presumptively we are primarily talking about networked utilities (e-mail, Web) but clearly also just plain digital utilities (computer, files [I think Ray mentioned desktop searching]), now how about the physical realm? My office? My phone? Pens and papers? My bookshelf? My colleague’s office? The library?

I ask this question without facetiousness, because if we’re talking about a holistic look at individuals learning environment, we certainly don’t want to restrict it to Web, and I even think just brainstorming the variety and interconnectedness of utilities and tools in our non-digital learning environment(s) may validly inform our digital ones, and can provide anecdotes through which we can better adapt (ourselves and others) to the online tools.

As far as my PLE, though I outlined a laundry list in your wiki, I’m now trying to think about it more organically. I’m currently toying with conceptualizing my digital PLE through a metaphor of physical space, with interconnected rooms and even “wormholes” that take me in and out of the “real” world. While at first I imagined this as a house with multi-doored, hexagonal rooms and intermediary halls (plus windows one can jump out of and back into the “real world”),

Walter R. Tschinkel’s cast of an ant colony, The nest architecture of the Florida harvester ant

it might end up being more simply sketched as the architecture of an ant colony. This latter metaphor is probably seems particularly apt to anyone who knows me, as my “train of thought” is more akin to a state of ants scurrying from one point to another as they forage with semi-obscured motivations and objectives, constantly adjusting based on new and immediate information.

There is some amazingly engaging stuff in Howard Rheingold’s “Howard K. Martian” video episodes (circa 1976), and hope to take some inspiration from the deliberate, steeped-in-whackiness approach to teaching.

Currently Howard has posted 3 video episodes of The Martian Report on his vlog web site. Most memorable bit of episode 3 is the teletype-driven, computer-generated science fiction story #5:

Earth is attacked by giant betelgeusian potato bugs which want our women and are not at all radioactive and cannot be killed by a pleasant crowd of peasants with tear gas and torches, but a priest talks to them of God and they die.

The End

I think it was sheer coincidence that this particular episode ends with an announcement of God’s retirement, wherein he reveals half of the secret to organizing the cosmos:

You didn’t really think I would spoil it here, did you? Watch episode 3 to learn how it’s done!