WikiEducator can export a collection of Wiki pages to an IMS content package, which can then be imported into Blackboard (or any other LMS). This is a great feature! Learning content can be authored collaboratively and versioned prior to be loaded into an LMS. Ah but should the LMS not support this by default? Wondering whether this is a feature Confluence could also support?

…… I am going to build the converter with a genetic algorithm, sit back and watch it evolve! This idea is inspired by Genetic Algorithm in Python to Generate File Converters.

Edupunk - the anti ppt and blackboard movement, or rather the avoidance of ppt and blackboard. Start the revolution NOW! More info: http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=44760

I’ve finally got round to putting my presentation from the Blackboard Asia Pac 08 conference up on Google Docs.

I’m heading off to Adelaide to present at the Blackboard Asia Pacific 08 conference. I’ll be presenting on work done in collaboration with Dr Shane Dawson on extracting and analyzing data from discussion forums in Blackboard Learning Systems. We had a few unique conditions: we could not install anything on the server (no server side Building Blocks or Powerlinks) and the solution had to work for both Blackboard and Vista (ie WebCT). ….So we embraced ‘constraint’ and built a GreaseMonkey script that was able to extract the relevant post-reply data from the forum thread tree. The GreaseMonkey script also exported the data into the VNA and GraphML formats, so that a free/open source social network visualisation tool could be used.

To illustrate the important of visualisation, we compare two forums. The forum threads look similar: the same number of participants and same number of posts. Visualising the structure of the forums, however produces completely different pictures of the social interaction.

Note: NetDraw was used to generate the visualisation.

Insightful post by Michael Feldstein on Blackboard NG. I am hoping to find out more at the BB Asiapac 08 conference.

Simile Timeline - the ajaxy time-based events widget, has been implemented as a building block. Great to see educational tools embedded in Blackboard. You’ll need to upgrade to Blackboard version 8 to install it though. If you are developer minded, check out the ppt on its development from the BBDev 08.

I’ll be heading to Adelaide to present at BbWorld AsiaPac ’08. The presentation is entitled “Visualising Social Network Formation”, and covers work done in collaboration with Dr Shane Dawson on community formation. The presentation will feature a client-side Greasemonkey script for Firefox that facilitates the social network analysis of discussion forum data in Blackboard and Vista (WebCT). I’ll post more on the tool in the coming weeks…

I can’t help but wonder (in a nightmarish way) about what is involved in 1 - porting over content and 2 - updating building blocks to Blackboard NG…. I so want to return to ed tech development, but am so scared of having to migrate content/activities and fix links again. Most uni’s in South East QLD use Blackboard which makes it hard to find ed tech jobs where I will be safe. Sob!

Um - the NG stands for Next Generation, a new way to say BB 2.0 but as we can’t because BB NG is actually BB 9.

Ok so I just watched the Blackboard NG videos. Phil Chatterton does a great job presenting the new BB NG features.

What I liked:

• The iGoogle like drag ‘n drop portal
• Drag ‘n drop content reordering
• Mashup — well just embed Social stuff (eg Flickr, YouTube) anywhere in a course

What I’d like to know more about:

• The BB API changes
• Are there new content building block types?