The Auricle

In my previous article, Learning Material Repositories: Rafts or Battleships - Part 2, I looked at RSS as one potential approach to aggregating information about, and providing access to, distributed learning resources. But viewing RSS requires a special reader or access to a server-based conversion service … or does it? One of the key features […]

In the first part of this theme I provided an overview of some of the major developments in learning material repository development and outlined our needs. In this article I try to draw some conclusions and make some decisions about a practical way forward. First let me establish terminology. For our purposes and to avoid […]

On Tuesday (20 July 2004) I gave the keynote address at the University of Leicester's first e-learning conference. Despite it not being the optimum time for such a gathering the conference was fully subscribed. In this article I highlight some of the work of other presenters as well as provide an overview and links to […]

Let me fling away my muddled thinking and 'get with the programme'. No more resources 'locked-in' to e-learning environments, tools, or multimedia applications. I want my educational applications populated from a 'proper' learning object repository … don't I? That was the mission, but here's the findings and thinking so far. We've been involved in a […]

By all accounts the Sony Librié ebook reader could become an object of maximum desire. Apparently, its amazing screen contrast developed in collaboration with the US E-Ink Corporation and others puts it in a league all of its own; it supposedly comes very close to the reflective reading experience of paper we all know and […]

In Derek Morrison's Auricle article E-Learning: challenges to the neo conservative model? he states: “The biggest impediment I see to the vision is those vested interests who will apparently embrace the vision (of interoperable functional components) but somehow will still manage to operate a classic 'lock in' model.” I've just been looking at a catalogue […]

I just had to use this Stephen Downes' quote from yesterday's OLDaily as the basis of this short Auricle article. Stephen hits the nail on the head when he challenges the Motley Fool's contention that 'lock in' to Blackboard's products is a 'good thing' (from an investor perspective). “Oh, I know, investors leap at lock-in […]

In a previous article, 'e' for efficiency? by Derek Morrison he made reference to a report by Carol Twigg on the nirvana of improving learning whilst at the same time reducing costs. Today, I'm going to provide an overview of, and a brief commentary on, this interesting work. Derek quoted from the article: “… redesign […]

My colleague, Graham Blacker's, recent article on the beta release of the new TOIA system hopefully gave readers an insight into how a person unfamiliar with Computer Aided Assessment might view the system. We threw him in at the deep end really:) Now it's my turn so read on. I'm the CAA person in our […]

The multitude of JISC circulars and in particular the Technical Framework to Support E-Learning that Derek Morrison refers to in his article E-Learning: challenges to the neo-conservative model? are worth reading, especially if you're a developer considering developing any tools or applications that could work within this framework. But … I think the Technical Framework […]