Free Technology Tutorials

Blackboard announces the purchase of moodlerooms, the largest Moodle partner. For those of you who don’t know, Moodle partners pay a stipend (normally around 10%) to Moodle HQ. Wonder how much Moodle HQ got and will continue to get in this deal?

Not sure why this should surprise anyone…Moodle was never an open source project…it was always about pretending to be one, getting free labor and development from thousands of people, and making a handy profit off a closed business model. However, this announcement takes the business side of Moodle to a complete new level.  Read more... (343 words, 3 images, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)

I had a great time at BETT this year and never stepped foot in the UK. And after reading a tweet about someone spending 17 pounds for a sandwich, drink, and chips…sounds like I made the right choice

I’m new at this twitter thing, but I think I’ve found a new hobby combining blog posts and twitter hashtags.

How did I discover this hobby?  Read more... (222 words, estimated 53 secs reading time)

Blackboard, known for its course-management software, is moving into a whole new sector. Today the company announced that it bought Presidium Inc., which provides outsourced call centers and consulting services for admissions, financial aid, and other student services, and also runs IT help desks for many colleges.

Blackboard paid $53-million to acquire the company, in a deal that wrapped up December 30...

Read story here…

A very interesting blog post of 21 Things That Became Obsolete This Decade can be found at the link below. I’m not sure what will be on the list next in 10 more years, but I would be willing to bet good money the Desktop Computer and the LMS will be among the other 19 things on the list…enjoy them while they’re still somewhat relevant

http://www.businessinsider.com/21-things-that-became-obsolete-this-decade-2009-12#pdas-1

Note: The following is made available under GPL from http://codex.wordpress.org/GPL. It may be edited a little from its original form, but probably not a lot. There is no guarantee this information is accurate…use at your own risk.
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To get information about your server, you can use the PHP Info function:

• Type the code shown below into a text file

• Save as info.php
• Upload to server. Visit in your browser (www.example.com/info.php)

That will give you info about your php version, mod_rewrite, and lots of other server “stuff”.  Read more... (101 words, 1 image, estimated 24 secs reading time)

Outline of my presentations at WordCamp Louisville:

WP  Basic Installation and Setup:

• Install in subdirectory
• Install in root
• Install multiple copies
  • Using single database
  • Using different databases
  • Mention setting up a networking
• Install local copy for offline testing/development

Moving WP From One Host to Another:

• Move WP maintaining same url
• Move WP changing the url
• Move WP subdirectory to root & vice-versa
• Copy WP from hosting account to local computer

Tools used in presentations:

WinSCP: A simple ftp client I use in conjunction with hosting control panels such as Cpanel.  Read more... (183 words, estimated 44 secs reading time)

FlexBooks is a site where you can create custom free textbooks under a creative commons licenses. Interesting…selection is a little limited, but may be of use to some…

http://www.ck12.org/flexr/

Assisted Learning for All is a website published by Saddleback College with over 150 short nursing videos…could be a good resource for those involved in nursing education.

http://www.saddleback.edu/alfa/vid_index.aspx

The link below is to the Khan Academy website where you will find hundreds of short video tutorials on various subjects. If you are a math teacher, you will want to check this out. All videos are made available under a creative commons license.

http://www.khanacademy.org/

A Dutch security company called Online 24 released a “research” study claiming to have found 84 security vulnerabilities in the Blackboard LMS. You can download the paper from Webwereld.

Research? Strikes me as simply a load of unsupported, extremely vague ramblings. Why would I say that? Maybe it’s due to their liberal use of “Imagine this” support in their “study”:

Imagine this situation:
“An attacker is able to gain access to files outside Blackboard’s document directory.
The attacker includes Blackboard’s access logs. These logs can be influenced by
the attacker, so exploitation would lead to a new highly dangerous vulnerability
that allows the attacker to execute custom commands on the Blackboard server.”  Read more... (270 words, estimated 1:05 mins reading time)

Last week I had a server crash — hardware problems — and have spent the past week recovering. I had several php apps running on the server along with a lot of static content–including a couple thousand videos. So I spent a day rebuilding the server on a new box and restoring the static content was a breeze–really drove home the point for me about the value of keeping things simple. 500+ videos were just uploaded into a directory and were not part of a php app–very simple to restore. However, the vast majority of my content was tied to a couple Moodle LMS installs, several WordPress installs including one WordPress Mu install, and five MedaiWiki installs.  Read more... (580 words, estimated 2:19 mins reading time)

The foundation behind the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment, a popular and free courseware-management and group-cooperation system, has announced that it intends to pursue a merger with another open-software group active in higher education, the Jasig organization. Jasig is known for uPortal, a general online gateway for college and university services. The two groups say they will craft a merger proposal to be submitted to both boards of directors in the coming months.

See original post here…

Sakai following Blackboard’s lead and integrating student management systems into their LMS…smart move.

SunGard and Blackboard have largely kept out of each other’s turf, with Blackboard dominating the market for course-management systems and SunGard focusing on administrative software for student records and other tasks.

Now SunGard is crossing that line. For the first time, the administrative software company will directly sell a course-management system to colleges and universities.

SunGard is making the play through a deal with rSmart, a for-profit company that packages, supports, and hosts freely available software that has been produced through a collaborative “open source” process. Under the partnership, SunGard will sell subscriptions to rSmart’s version of Sakai, an open-source course-management system developed by universities.  Read more... (109 words, estimated 26 secs reading time)

That kind of thinking is why many traditional colleges will be extinct in the near future. One reason why faculty are not the best decision makers when it comes to ensuring the longevity of an institution…

Lots of colleges are experimenting with e-book readers. St. John’s College is fighting them. At a recent meeting, the faculty of the liberal-arts college’s Annapolis campus voted “to discourage students from loading up Homer or Aristotle on their Kindles or iPads and bringing them to seminar,” said Rosemary Harty, the college’s communications director.

Read more…

Last week was a big one for Google fans in higher education. Google Wave opened its doors, and Google Voice now lets students get calls forwarded from their old numbers to their new phones. Google made one more announcement last week—about a new course-scheduling system, CloudCourse—that could potentially have implications for higher education. READ THE REST HERE.

And see the second comment in the comments section of the article…that’s coming and it’s a death sentence to the rigid, out-of-date LMS systems like Blackboard and Moodle. Blackboard may survive as it’s evolving into a full-fledged campus management system, but Moodle, being nothing more than a document repository, gradebook, and discussion forum, is well on its way to extinction.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Figaro and Tori and family.

Note: Figaro is the old, ugly one Tori, joined our family in 2009, so it’ll be hard for 2010 to top that.