Fascinating stuff: SUNY !!!

I have found some real recommended reading, while I was checking out the wiki that MIT has set up on their migration efforts from Stellar 1.7 to Stellar 2 (which will be Sakai under the hood!). This wiki is worth reading....
But what I found while browsing, was a reference to SUNY. And that is really really worth reading!!
Back in October 2005 the State University of New York (SUNY) put out a Request For Public Comment: "We are asking for your comments about the Educational Appropriateness, Technological Feasibility, Risks and Opportunities that you see in our plan, as well things we may have missed. (..) To this end, we are asking for your comments along with those of other SUNY and external stakeholders, including open source and proprietary providers."
Basically the plan they propose is to go Sakai all the way! Furthermore, the report states that their current homegrown Lotus Domino-based LMS solution is not fit for the future (performance is too much of a problem, when you serve 100.000 students). The report is very informative, to say the least. But what is even more fascinating, is that we all can read the public responses that were received. You will find responses from Blackboard, Angel, but also from Unicon and Charles Severance.
Definitely worthwhile to read. Please do!

LMS / VLE of the future?

CIMG9668,
originally uploaded by wytze.

This was one of the posters that was made in our workshop regarding the VLE (or LMS) of the future. We had a very packed session (40 participants!), which was very inspiring for us. And hopefully it was even more inspiring for the participants.
There were suggestions that we should take this discussion further and give it some more attention within our institutions. Could we do this through this weblog? Or maybe we can use a Wiki for this?

Moodle pilots in British Columbia (Canada)

Scott Leslie, from Canada, operates a nice weblog. I've been reading his weblog for quite some time now. His recent post concerns a Collaborative Moodle Pilot in British Columbia: "As the original home of WebCT, it is not perhaps a big surprise that it is the most widely adopted CMS in the province of BC, where I live and work. And while that doesn't look set to change anytime soon on a large scale, 6 institutions have done pioneering working to investigate the viability of Moodle as an alternative".
Oh, I didn't actually know that WebCT originated in British Columbia. So, you learn new things all the time, isn't it? But anyway, if you want to read more on the results on these pilots with Moodle, then this is a nice starting point.

Great news on open content!

The Open University in the UK announced to make a selection of its learning materials available free of charge to educators and learners around the world. They are supported by a multimillion dollar grant of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation the University. Indeed, this is really good news. Check the full press release on the Open Content Initiative.
This sort of reminds me of the farewell speech at the Open University in The Netherlands, given by the former president of the board, Thijs Wöltgens, in september 2005. He also promoted open (or free) content, but he also said that the OU needed around 12 million euro's to make it happen. That never happened, as far as I know.... Pity! Maybe the OU in The Netherlands can copy the proposal that the OU in the UK offered to The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation?

Stephen Downes on hiatus

Stephen Downes has taken a break. Read all about it in the Hiatus FAQ: "Yes, there was an event that triggered it, internal to our organization, which I don't really think I should discuss. But this has been building up for a while, and is a combination of factors."
I hope he will back real soon, to keep us awake and this fast-moving world that is called Elearning!

Shameless plug in Dutch

SAKAI voorlichtingsbijeenkomst: "SAKAI biedt de mogelijkheid aan instellingen over de gehele wereld bij te dragen aan het SAKAI-initiatief. SURF is in het programma vertegenwoordigd middels de UvA. De UvA evalueert ook de SAKAI-producten. Wij hebben vernomen dat ook andere instellingen overwegen of hebben besloten zelf te gaan experimenteren met SAKAI. Graag nodigen wij instellingen uit om op 19 april a.s. in de middag met ons van gedachten te wisselen en te kijken hoe we tot een optimale bundeling van krachten kunnen komen. Ook als u niet deel wilt nemen aan het project, maar wel interesse heeft bent u van harte welkom. "
Need I say more? Anyway, I always thought that Sakai should not be written with ALL CAPS. See you on April 19!

Java Elearning Framework is here!

I 've been following a discussion on the weblog by Michael Feldstein for some time now. It's really great, there are a lot of very interesting comments there for those interested in subjects like the e-Framework and Sakai.... and Web 2.0 etc.
Clicking through these links i found a few new acronyms, such as LMOS and JELF.... Read the following and you will see that Bernie Durfee has something interesting to say in JELF - LMOS: "The ELF is nothing more than a very, very, very high level good idea. The LMOS takes that good idea and makes a real framework out of it. This picture needs to have wheels put on it so people can drive it around. It needs to have a real implementation, such as in Java to create a JELF."

I am back!

DSC02951,
originally uploaded by wytze.

Today i was in rainy and windy Eindhoven (as you can see on the picture) for a meeting of a project of the Digitale Universiteit
This means that I am back. Posting will start as of today!