See also: Archives
This post describes the initial implementation of show student posts screen. IT builds on the format/process used in the show student details screen....more...
This post documents the creation/completion of the BIM show details screen. This is used by staff to get a summary of their student details, whether they have registered their feed, made posts etc....more...
This post follows on from the last post in doing some minor improvements to the show student details screen in BIM. This includes:...more...
This is in part a test of Wordpress.com's new support for Vimeo video. The video below is of a presentation I gave at CQU this year. The abstract is below. The slides are on slideshare....more...
This is a plea for pointers, suggestions and direct assistance....more...
In the last bit of BIM work I'd successfully created some test data and laid out some rough plans for what is next....more...
The last bit of BIM work resulted in getting the show student details screen up and going, mostly. Any more of these screens will draw on, at least in part, other data from other tables. Time to get those populated. This will be done using data from BAM currently being used....more...
The following was initially written as a report for my current institution. I've removed the name of the institution here. It is my perception that most universities suffer from the problems described below....more...
In the last post I'd gotten started having the show student details screen actually getting data from the database. One data source this screen needs is not in the database, it's in the RSS file from the student's blog that is mirrored on the Moodle site. This post talks about the process about how BIM will be saving, reading and using that RSS file in its operation....more...
This post summarises the work necessary to take the next step in BIM development. As summarised in the last post the plan is to implement the remaining screens roughly complete so that potential users can interact and give feedback. This included the need to start designing and populating remaining database tables....more...
So, getting back into BIM development. The last post reminded me where I'm up to. The following is an attempt to plan, implement and document some code. Am starting where I left off, with the registration process for students. As part of this process I am finally starting to use the to do list for what it was meant to be used for....more...
Today has been a fairly frustrating today with a mixture of organisational "stuff" and an increasing level of annoyance at the state of the public documentation around Moodle development slowing down BIM development. That state is essentially with stuff all over the place, no coherent path through it and regularly discrepancies between advice from different sources, or sometimes the same. But that's the nature of documentation and open source projects....more...
Over the weekend it was reported in various media outlets that the Australian government has a new plan for higher education. A plan that includes words like "results-based funding", performance, targets, quality and "readily available". They cynical tone that I hope you are hearing, is not solely - or even mainly - due to some opposition to the idea of universities being accountable or effective. It's mainly due to the belief that I think for the majority of teaching at universities this move will encourage more task corruption than it will actual real improvement in the quality of teaching....more...
The last couple of months have resulted in an absence from work on BIM (BAM into Moodle). This post is meant to be a summary of where I had gotten up to and a restatement of what I need to do. The latter part is somewhat uncertain due to limited communication within my local context. Somewhat disappointing....more...
The final keynote at ASCILITE'09 was by James Clay and was titled the Future of Learning (this is a link to an apparently earlier presentation by same author, same topic). Many aspects of the talk resonated with many in the audience, however, the one that perhaps resonated the most was that of the Innovation Prevention Department....more...
I've heard a number of folk at ASCILITE'09 claim that there needs to be a change in culture amongst academics around learning and teaching. To me this has always sounded a bit like a deficit model of teaching staff. It's a model that I've heard again and again at ASCILITE'09 and in other literature around learning and teaching in higher education. You know the sort of thing e.g....more...
I'm currently on my way to Auckland for the 2009 ASCILITE conference. A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be in Denver for the 2009 EDUCAUSE conference. Both were/will be useful and interesting experience. But having been at EDUCAUSE, read a couple of the ASCILITE papers and talked with a colleague I'm once again wondering...more...
The Indicators project is an attempt to enable the examination, analysis and comparison of LMS usage across time, systems and institutions. The project is nothing new. Projects around academic analytics have been around for a while and I and others at my current institution have been talking about using the collective data in systems logs to inform the practice of L&T at universities for a long time....more...
As outlined very briefly in a recent post I am involved in the early days of project that may result in some sort of proposal for a research group/centre around the future of education. This is meant to be some documentation of my early research to look for groups that are already doing work in this area....more...
In the University within which I work there has always been one particular divide. There are the faculties - these are the parts of the organisation in which the "normal" academics live - and there are the non-faculties - populated by those folk who are not "normal" teaching/research academics sitting within disciplines. For example, I'm employed as an academic, I do research, but I do no direct teaching and live within the Curriculum Design and Development Unit. I'm supposed to help the institution improve it's learning and teaching....more...