Hi Simon, Thank you for your thoughtful reply below. Did you ever see the "Cyclo Teacher Learning Aid" instructional system which shipped with World Book encyclopedias? Here: http://www.laughinglibrarian.com/2006_07_01_archive.html#115318764847654506
I'm trying to provide the internet version of that, with adaptive testing. This could be used, for example, to determine whether to recommend that a learner start with the simple or regular version of a Wikipedia article (i.e. http://simple.wikipedia.org or http://en.wikipedia.org). Also, sets of self study questions have long been recognized as useful instruction as a supplement to static text, especially if they are interactive rather than static texts themselves. I am also interested in calendars, but I know the consortia and commercial vendors involved with those technologies are making progress. Do you know about the W3C? http://w3.org -- They have working groups involved with standardizing calendar formats. Sometimes I fear that instructors don't want to endorse the best educational technologies because they are afraid of them, just as many of the academics who were wasting so much time copying scrolls at the time of Gutenberg were afraid that his printing press would put them out of business. On the contrary, it enhanced their earning potential and the utility of their professions. Regards, James Salsman On Jan 5, 4:13 pm, simonfj <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi James, > > I've spent quite a bit of time working my way through the links you've > offered, trying to get my head around what microformats (mf) is all > about. I can see it's a "grass roots up" approach to sharing functions > and content. But it hasn't clicked between me ears, probably as I need > some concrete focus for the penny to drop. > > This one is one problem which mf wants to solve that interests > me.http://www.scottmcmullan.com/blog/2004/12/googleinternet_.html > "Berkeley calender project is part of the effort by trying to bring > sanity and sharing to the 80+ event calendars of UC Berkeley". > > My problem is that, although perfectly logical from an engineer's > perspective, I just don't see this approach having legs. i.e." ... all > events in the world, from a garage sale in Lexington to a tech > conference in SF, could be automatically discovered (Google), stored > in one central, public domain, web services accessible database > (Internet Archive), where the events could then be categorized". > > It's the categorization where the problem lies (for me); of events or > anything else. Language (metadata) precludes the mash up of bilingual > content/resources. That's one shortcoming. But main problem, so far as > I can see, is that we want content to be aggregated by the groups, in > environments which span institutions like Berkeley. As yet a suitable > global directory, which can be shared by them, has yet to be agreed > upon. On OCWC' site, like so many other sites, we can see the groups > popping up on "communities of interest" pages. Groups, like WE's, > attract their Communities of Interest; or they would if they could be > found and/or be given a fixed spot in cyberspace; and shared a common > directory. > > I'm delighted to see you talking about "building curation systems", > and "increasing the number of people to whom the content is useful". > Absolutely! The challenge though, it seems to this little poor geek > floating on a world wide web, seems more about having curators agree > on which global community they will be supporting, and offering all > (multilingual/global) groups a global classification system - like > they do groups' printed stuff, which they buy (back) from 3rd party > publishers. > > We could certainly use a group calender around here (as one mf app), > just as much as Scott could have used it for his web services SIG. > Every other similar SIG will say/has said the same thing, as they come > and go, reinventing the same same wheel/producing similar content, > again and again. Hopefully this year we might see a few National > librarians/curators agreeing on which common directory is to be used > to point at 'their' global groups. At which point mf's might come into > their own. > > Thanks again, simon> I agree. I am thrilled that new Quiz extensions are > being built but > > astounded so few have come forward to join me in endorsing GIFT as > > described athttp://microformats.org/wiki/gift > > > The asterisk bulleted list tree format is write-only with no metadata > > to accommodate question management. GIFT and the extensions proposed > > at that site are designed to be most useful for open educational > > resource curation, adaptive content delivery, and encourage serious > > low stakes self study assessment content. > > > We need to increase the number of people to whom the content is > > useful, including by building curation systems for this sort of > > content. > > Regards, > > James Salsman -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. 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