Cole W. Camplese

Secure Enclosures

I think this whole RSS thing is really powerful ... I also feel like I'm late to the party. But in all reality, a whole slew of people are just starting to see it. Its been around for quite some time, but podcasting has really brought this to the surface. I remember working at Cogence Media and seeing software that would receive content that was in a "push" mode ... anyone else remember that? I think it was pointcast ... it was the start of the Internet, .com explosion. When I read about it, what strikes me as amazing are the facts that the pace of innovation was so rapid in the face of all that capitalistic competition and that one of the two largest players in the RSS fad, Dave Winer, has been there since the get go.

With that said, I have been thinking for weeks about how you could do secure enclosures ... they could be a very interesting solution to course work, articles, white papers, assignments, feedback, or other academic materials delivered directly to students ... or for subscription based newsletters, magazines, news articles, weather, or really whatever people are currently required to hold some sort of membership to receive. I would have to also imagine someone has done ... at any rate, RSS is so much better than email or html ... the end of people getting information by searching specific websites is on its way.

At any rate, it has me thinking about if there is a new browser experience coming, or if it will be server side protection, or just a next version ipodderx. All of it has me interested in the web and technology again for the first time in a long time. I'm going to continue pushing and exploring this space ... I know there are solutions in this movement ... its actually also fun. This is cross posted at the From the Basement Podcast site.;-)

A Little Audio Feedback -- Websites & Grades

I've gotten a barrage of emails with URLs for your websites the last several days. I have to say, I am very happy with most of the results. Some of you really did a great job organizing and communicating "your story" ... I know my expectations seemed big for this little project, but most of you rose to the occasion and produced dynamite results.

As far as grades go, let me say that I will be looking at them all very critically in the next week or so. I don't want any of you stressing over points here or there. I want you to be focused on finishing your problem solution and getting prepared for the final. I know who's done what, who has been contributing, and what you have put into this class ... grades are a means to an end ... I am concerned with the things you take away from the class. I am hopeful that you've enjoyed it as much as I have and that you have a new found respect for the power of technology as a driving factor in your world ... I am also hopeful that you get the whole process orientation we've been working on since day one ... my favorite professor in college used to talk to us about the "Five P's of Success: Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance..." I know, a little corny, but he is so right.

New Ideas

I hate to say it, but I feel like I am just “getting” the open source community ... I've known its there, but I've never really taken the time to look at all it really has to offer. That all changed this week when I set out to create a new domain for another project ... I didn't want to set up a standard site for it. I wanted it to be a standards-oriented open source blog space. I've been looking at several things, but I settled on WordPress. It is a great toolset.

The thing that really amazes me is that it is free -- free to download, free to use, free to use for other reasons, free to make money on, free to base new products on, just flat out free. And it just works ... I mean I was able to make it work in a bout five minutes ... mySQL, PHP, and everything! It took me another day to get it all looking close to what I wanted, but still easy. I am beginning to see a powerful opportunity here ... I know I am late to the party.

When I stopped to think about it, this software could easily be the basis to a whole new toolset. The new hosting company I went with has a whole suite of open source tools that can be installed and running with just a couple clicks from a somewhat easy to use central interface. Really eye opening ... there isn't anything like it in higher ed -- competition makes a huge difference. I am going to see what it would take to turn several open source tools into a great product … At any rate, I think I am about 70% to a solution to something I've been trying to figure out for years ... and its all free.

How Much is it Helping?

Quick post this morning ... saw this at wired.com and thought you'd all be interested. Looks at the growth in file sharing ... they are essentially debunking what the RIAA has been saying -- that file sharing is decreasing. Interesting stuff ... what do you think?

RSS Nation

A while back I did a posting on podcasting ... I am so into the stuff! Not just because there is finally some content I can stand to listen to -- The Daily Source Code just flat out kicks ass -- but because it has opened my eyes to the power of RSS. I really think as you are envisioning your solutions it would be important to think about how RSS plays into your ideas ... trust me on this one, you'll see RSS exploding into the mainstream within 6-12 months. Its all just too powerful ... BTW, you know its got legs when Madison Ave is interested ...

Just as the RIAA and MPAA are filing more and more suites, the whole underground scene is exploding with content. The FCC is trying to figure out how to regulate blog spaces and the free Internet ... to that I say, good luck! Do me a favor, read this silly little intro to RSS and really think about the fact that you will be getting exactly what you want, when you want it without the overhead of the media machine. It is just too important to ignore. Anyway, take a look and let us know what you think.

Discussion Activity 11

A week away from Thanksgiving ... the time is flying by. I have to say up until recently, the activity at the Course Blog has been great. Maybe my posts haven't been as interesting? At any rate, please keep those posts coming ... the Discussion Activity for this week is a little late, so you have until Sunday at 5 PM to finish it. I really struggled with this one ... in years past, I've gotten some decent responses, but I've just never really liked the idea behind this one. The Solutions Institute builds software -- some of it we even sell to people ... most of it however is used in educational settings to support IST. I understand the whole designing and developing IT applications and it is a critical piece of knowledge to have if you are going to be a part of any development effort. With that said, some of the things that are going on in industry do disturb me ... I don't want to give away too much, so I'll just give you the question.

Discussion Activity

More and more, software giants are selling beta versions of their software to end-users. Beta testing has traditionally cost companies a lot of money to perform properly. However, they receive very valuable feedback from the beta testers. With this new trend, they are receiving both feedback and a revenue stream. Is this appropriate? Should end users pay for incomplete, unstable software and provide mission-critical feedback?

A Few Ideas ... What Do U Think?

Ok, so I went to a good talk on Friday to listen a guy from one of IBM's research labs ... he talked about eLearning and focused a lot of attention on how to provide quick, customized content to learners. Now, he was coming at it from a training perspective, so it’s a little skewed relative to what we do, but there are some really good ideas to port over. As I was listening, I felt like most of it was sort of ho-hum, but it did get me really thinking about how I could start to make our courseware (like the 110 topics you all are reading) a little better ... it also made me want to ask you all what you think. Here are a couple of quick questions for you:

Right now if you click into a Topic you get the opportunity to select any lesson and then from there, navigate through a series of pages ... back when we started the Online IST project we felt it was critical to "chunk" the content so it could be easily read ... over time, I have gotten less and less impressed with that approach ... for one thing, it makes printing really tough. The other thing it does is make it tougher to move around whole lessons at a time to let faculty and students build new topics quickly and easily – in other words, it screws with the concept of modularity a bit. Here's the question ... how would you all feel if each lesson was really one long html page instead of the 6-15 screens they are now? Let me know, I am ready to make a change.

How important would it be for you all to have quick search capabilities from within the syllabus or a given topic? I know it would be cool during a lecture if a point came up I could quickly find the information I was looking for with a simple, google like search. Why don't we have search now you ask? Well, we got huge push back from faculty because they felt that would allow cheating during "open browser" exams ... I am at the point where I care less about them and more about what you guys think ... so, what do you think?

I doubt many of you are taking advantage of rss feeds for news or podcasts, but I do ... I also think you'll all be using it within a couple of years as the whole Internet experience moves towards an end user centric approach. RSS allows you to select what feeds you like and the content is delivered to you automatically ... in other words, if you read Wired.com five times a day, with an rss feed, you'd never have to point your browser at it -- the content would be downloaded to you in the background as it changed. What I am thinking about is how we could add rss capability to the syllabus so you could subscribe to all sorts of news -- IST stuff, other blogs, news sites, sports, whatever and it would show up for you ... what do you think?

The syllabus now gives you some basic communication capabilities -- direct links to individual emails, team emails, and IM status. I have gotten good feedback on the whole IM status thing, but I'd like to take that further ... I am looking for ideas. You see, I came up with the whole IM status thing from two experiences ... the first was at a big meeting at Apple that showed me IM is not a toy, but the other was by asking (and watching) students what they want the most -- they said IM! So the SI team put it in. I use it all the time to get to you guys. The question is, what the hell do you think would increase the social connectedness of out of class communication?

You guys have been a great group and I think you are starting to get the whole teaching with technology thing, so I would really value your ideas. Leave some comments and help us make Edison Services 3.0 kick ass ... what do you think?

Discussion Activity 10

I can't believe we are in the double digits discussion activities! This semester is blowing by ... its been fun so far. Anyway, you ought to spend a little time reading Topic 10 ... it will give you some good insight into the types of systems you'll need to plan for when solving the 110 Challenge. Ok, here we go ...

Discussion Activity

Computers that can evolve to improve themselves have been fantasized in science fiction books for years, but something similar has occurred at the University of Sussex in England. Adrian Thompson (Center for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics) works with computer chips that can manage their own logic gates by testing new designs and choosing the best configurations for a particular task. Two technologies make this possible: evolutionary algorithms are computer programs that can rapidly generate variations in their own code to evaluate and select the most efficient code; and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), which use transistors that appear as an array of logic cells to change their value and connect to any other logic cells as they are programmed. When these two technologies are brought together (shazam!), circuits can become more effective than similar circuits designed by humans using known principles. There is one problem -- Adrian doesn't know how it works.

So if a management system, which is a critical system, has been built using a working technology such as evolutionary algorithms and FPGAs, but we don't know how it works, should we implement this technology? Is this technology reliable? Explain the possible advantages and disadvantages, potential for success and potential risk in your opinion.

Digital Media: All Sorts of Goodies

There has been an absolute flurry of activity around our primary topics the past several days. Now that the election is over and blogger.com is back to normal traffic I feel like I can actually post some of it. This isn't new today, but I thought I'd point you to some news I saw several days ago, but again today on bbc.com ... "Studios to Sue Net Movie Swappers." Basically it breaks down like this -- you steal and illegally trade/provide a film online, plan on coughing up $30,000.00 per film. Not too cheap! Here's the breakout quote, "We know who they are, and we will go after them." Ok, sounds like the MPAA is going to use the same tactics as the RIAA ... management by fear. Anyway, very relevant stuff …

In related news, Wired.com ran an article today titled, "File-Sharing Thrives Under Radar." It talks about BitTorrent and how it is getting some serious attention from the MPAA and RIAA ... goes on to say that it has existed under the radar for so long, but now that it is gobbling up bandwidth (up to a third!) "Hollywood's copyright police are taking notice." I'm not going to bore you with the details of ol’ BitTorrent, but you should know there is a ton of stuff out there -- spanning from legal music, trailers, etc, to all illegal stuff. Literally anything you want is sitting there ready to be taken. The article gives a great overview of how the technology works -- which is a very cool way to distribute materials by the way -- and lays out the prediction that its days could be numbered. Ouch ... people do use peer 2 peer for good as well ... oh well.

All the while more and more legal music services are expanding ... Apple has a ton of music available online and not to be outdone I read this morning that MSN's download service is expanping. I guess the point is that we are really just on the cusp of this stuff exploding in the digital world. All the stuff we were talking about weeks ago -- the pervasive nature of technology and how we live in the digital world is getting set to go mainstream. Those of us who have been plugged in for the last five years or so don't find this astonishing -- we have been waiting for it. But to see the whole world begin to line up to buy digital products is cool to me ... for crying out loud, my parents even have an iPod and an account on the iTunes Music Store. Ouch again ... only reason I say that is that I am tech support ...

In a totally unrelated sense ... I found this cool little thing today ... take a look at it. I know its a little goofy, but it does hold HUGE potential. Anyway, as always, very curious about you are all thinking and if anything you've been learning via class or your own research makes you want to say something please do -- in other words, comment!

My Thoughts From Today's Guest: Glenn Johnson

Glenn Johnson, Project Manager for the PSU ePortfolio Initiative, stopped by class today to discuss the whole ePortfolio concept. He started by discussing the importance of evidence ... what I take from that is that it is critical to create a sort of historical roadmap of your time here at PSU. I did so much stuff in college that is lost forever ... some of it was actually good stuff -- other stuff wasn't, but the point is that I don't have ANY real record of my knowledge and intellectual development. The new ePortfolio opportunities can easily overcome that.

Going Beyond the Resume

"It allows others read between the lines ..." It provides prospective employers with the evidence they need to see what you can actually DO. That is an important distinction ... with a static, paper-based resume you list all sorts of skills and experiences -- but if you pair that with an ePortfolio, there is a historical record of your actual competencies. It lets people actually see what you've done. It is going to make a huge difference.

At PSU, students are being asked more and more to create digital assets as outcomes to their classroom assignments. Trust me, unless you have some sort of next generation storage area network system with a huge meta data repository, you'll loose it all. That's what I did. With an opportunity like ePortfolio, PSU has provided you with a digital repository that represents you -- and its easy to do. Good stuff.

Glenn went on to discuss some real-world examples of students' usage of the ePortfolio and how it transformed their job/internship search experience. One of the students he highlighted is over in EMS ... this student differentiated himself (using ePortfolio) from someone who has taken the courses to someone who can actually report the weather. Good stuff. Here's an incredible example.

What are the 5 pieces of evidence that you will point to that differentiates you ... then think critically about each one of those and why they were the ones you selected ... Glenn says, "that's part of your story." Here's a real nice page that describes how to do the selection process.

Here are some tips:

• Keep it focused
  


• Keep it simple
  


• Make sure you tell your story
  


• Know your audience
  


• Sell yourself to that audience
  

Scenario ... faculty staff, instructors, advisors at PSU are in a unique position because of how well connected they are ... they have friends in so many different areas of the world -- corporate, professional associations, other Universities, etc ... if one of my colleagues has a grant that requires an information technology problem that needs to be solved and they send me a request to see if I have a student or know of someone who can help out ... typically what happens is that they send that out to a whole bunch of people via email and someone would respond that, "hey, I know someone ..." now, if that email contains a link to that student’s ePortfolio, I've just given my friend that opportunity to do a "virtual interview" via the portfolio.

ePortfolios begin to make a big difference when you make it to the short list ... two positions with 250 applications ... will an ePortfolio make a difference? No, but if you are one of five left, then yes it will make THE difference.

The point is this; you really need to start thinking about how important it is to start documenting your competencies via the ePortfolio. I wish you all would start building one ... at a minimum; it will help you organize your experiences. At the other end of the spectrum, it will give prospective employers an opportunity to really get to know you without having to physically meet them. It will be the way people are differentiated in the coming years. If you want any help, let me know and we'll do a web publishing session. If you have questions or comments, post them here and I'll make sure Glenn gets them.