This NY Times piece on the Lawrence Journal-World highlights a number of interesting ideas for online publishing. My favorite is the plan for a service to download daily news to a docked ipod each morning before a student leaves home for the day. Let's keep this in mind as we redesign TCR services.

Certainly, one type of collaborative activity that we will need in edLab is something akin to a charette, a rapid design process that evolved among French architecture students in the nineteenth century. This type of activity seems like a great technique for understanding the requirements of a project by listening carefully to a client/sponsor and then confirming what is heard through a rapid design/prototyping process.

As we develop the edLab environment and culture, I think that we will need at least two types of meetings (and perhaps many more). One type will need to be completely open to virtually anyone in the library or the college. This meeting may also serve as a venue to which we might invite special guests with particular kinds of expertise. I see this meeting as the site for the following: a) General planning b) Reporting in on activities c) Developing an intellectual agenda for the lab d) Scheduling events and projects e) Scheduling other meetings such as design events f) Introducing ot...

We need to begin a discussion of the features that might be included in our next generation meeting scheduling/collaboration tool. Beyond just scheduling rooms in Russell Hall we should offer tools to help patrons hold more effective meetings. This will be an important entry-level intro service of our Collaborative Solutions Group. Here is a brief feature on meetings from CNET to spark some discussion. Here are some things that might be included in our meeting tool: 1) Schedule a room 2) Order AV/Computer Equipment Setup 3) Po...

This piece in the NY Times highlights the growing possibilities for online instruction afforded by better video conferencing tools and more robust network connections. The article deals with new technologies for video conferencing, but the example used is distance guitar instruction.

I have posted a new paper on distance learning that I wrote for the August special issue of TCR. Comments are welcome.

The entry on Moodle reminds me that I am slated to teach the Sociology of Evaluation Course online this fall. I am hoping that this might be an opportunity to try out some of the ideas for online learning that we have been discussing (e.g., paths, reusable elements, games, simulations, etc.). Check out the syllabus from the last time I offered the course in Fall 98. As you will see, this is a wide-ranging course that allows for the use of a wide range of materials, print and other media, as well as a number of different exercises. Let...

Check out this article on the Mayo Clinic workstation. This suggests a few easy possibilities, including some standing workstations and walking meetings, even before the Mayo workstations are on the market.