Category: Web/Work

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SunGardHE Summit: Emergency Communications

(Notes from SunGardHE Summit on Tuesday, April 15)

Western Washington University shares emergency communications site and processes.

WWU partners with Pier Systems for emergency communication via web pages, email, text messages, voice and text-to-voice. Also important, the system includes inquiry management tools. The emergency system has templated emergency messages with prior approval channels in place. The messaging system is dependent upon student extracts from the student information system which must be refreshed periodically.

The same system is used for ongoing university communications which includes media databases for news distribution.

All systems are hosted by Pier Systems at a remote site outside of the region.

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SunGardHE Summit: Competing with MyYahoo and iGoogle

Notes from SunGardHE Summit (Monday, April 14)

Tab and channel drag-and-drop sample from Lehigh University making use of YUI. Cleaner implementation of functionality without major mods to nested layouts.

In Luminis IV you have to preload content/layout channel and then a second call to ‘return’ to where you were so JavaScript calls return you to correct place and not to content/layout channel.Shows changes to portal.properties to remove caching on startup that can be used in development environments to speed up testing of changes.

MyNotes application channel added to Luminis student portal using CAS and creates user on first use. Ajax to post changes.

www.lehigh.edu/~gas207/luminis.zip

Kyle is using scriptaculous to modify some basic tools. For example, minimize icon is shrinking channel instead of page refresh that currently happens.

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SunGardHE Summit: A Portal To/Of/For the Future

Notes from SunGardHE Summit (Monday, April 14)

A session with Michael Wesch, cultural anthropologist and creator of the YouTube popular Web 2.0 The machine is Us/ing Us,  on how technology and the web impact us. His basic tenet is that instead of preparing our students to enter the world, we need to prepare students to create the world.

In today’s world we see user-generated content, filtering, organization, distribution, commentary, and ratings.

It would be interesting to see a video of the communication path in today’s world, based upon Michael’s diagram of flow, from YouTube, Flickr, Del.icio.us and from creation tools to sharing and rating tools and to feeds and information distribution sources.

“We shape our tools, thereafter our tools shape us.” Marshall McLuhan

Wesch puts web time in perspective… 12k year timescale, 11k years ago the first farmers: sedentary, more division of labor, cities possible, 25 minutes ago first towns, 15 minutes ago alphabet, 3 minutes ago the printing press, 1 minute ago industrial revolution, 51 seconds ago telegraph, 41 seconds ago telephone, 5 seconds ago the web.

Yesterday, information treated like a commodity like a locations on a desktop or in a library — foldered away. Yahoo! starts and continues this. Blogger late 90s, anyone can create content. Content now everywhere and organized by everyone. Tools now allow content organized by readers, as they wish and trashing the folder paradigm.

Wikipedia and the web make use of “discussion creating authority.” RSS allows information can find us.

“Nobody is as smart as everybody” Kevin?

Stepping through the scenario…

“Create learning environments that realize and leverage the merging media environment using a re-defined portal to address the problem with education.”

“A platform for participation that allow students to realize and leverage the merging media environment using a re-defined portal to address the problem with education.”

Check out his portal at netvibes.com/wesch.

  • Students collaborate on class notes, noting what is important to them.
  • Study together (the more you contribute, the bigger your face is).
  • Share discoveries (Diigo shared links).
  • Assess each other (work harder for each other, than for instructor).

YouTube: A Vision of Students Today collaboratively scripted by Michael Wesch’s classroom of 200 students.

kaltura.com — collaborative video

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SunGardHE Summit: Eric Weihenmayer

(Notes from SunGardHE Summit Keynote Address on Sunday, April 13)

Highlight of Summit kickoff was the keynote by Eric Weihenmayer, a renowned adventurer and the only blind person to summit Mt. Everest. His talk was inspiring and enjoyable. Much as people speak of the good that can come from “unintended consequences,” Eric speaks of the opportunities to be found in the face of adversity. Amazing results are found overcoming adversity. Eric lost his sight as a teenager, he has overcome this challenge and has overwhelmingly overcome the limitations others would place upon a blind person. His Seven Summits accomplishment is testament to his abilities.

After sharing ample examples of overcoming adversity and actually innovating due to this adversity, Eric went on to share assistive technology that may help eliminate barriers. Leading up to a video sample, Eric spoke of how it is the brain that “sees,” the eyes are our data input device. Making use of an oral input device, Eric was shown to “see” his environment while reaching for a coffee mug, playing tic-tac-toe with his daughter and extending his arm to a handhold while rock climbing. A computer is converting video input to a physical sensor that Eric’s brain reads as input from his tongue. An amazing approach and display of challenging adversity. I believe this work is related to the BrainPort. Learn more at How Stuff Works or from a CBS News story. No Barriers, a non-profit started by Eric, supports efforts to expand the assistive technologies available.

Eric’s talk was sparked by his witty humor and compelling stories. I enjoyed stories of his friend Chris and his use of “optimistic pessimism.” With optimistic pessimism you followup a pessimistic comment with another negative comment that might make you feel better about the intial comment. His friend’s example came from crossing a crevasse on a bunch of ladders strapped together by sherpas.

“These ladders sure are rickety, but at least the wind is blowing.”

There were also touching stories of loyalty and friendship. While preparing for their Mt. Everest climb on a nearby mountain, a friend and team member became sick and had to be rushed down the mountain for medical care. This episode required a prolonged recovery which kept Eric’s friend from his usual rigorous training that threatened his preparedness for the Mt. Everest climb. His friend came to him saying that Eric should replace him, that he isn’t ready to support the team. Eric refused to give up on his friend and told him he was still on the team. The friend stated that he wasn’t ready to get himself to the summit but will do it to get Eric to the summit. It turns out that 19 of the 21 team members (including the first blind person and the oldest person to reach the summit) made it to the peak which is still a record for any Mt. Everest ascent.

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SunGardHE Summit: Kickoff

(Notes from SunGardHE Summit Keynote Address on Sunday, April 13)

SunGardHE Summit 2008 kicked off today in Anaheim. The kickoff was a lower key and less risque than last year’s ceremony in Las Vegas. MASS Ensemble set the atmosphere with a musical introduction featuring a cool auditorium-spanning wire harp, a diagonal spatial harp and a revolving globe-like drum set.

The keynote address was the highlight of the kickoff. (see separate posting)

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SunGardHE Summit

We’re in Anaheim for SunGardHE Summit and enjoying our stay at the Disneyland Hotel. Days are filled with conference sessions. Every night is filled with either Disneyland park or California Adventure.

The trip here was great, all quiet with no delays or other travel annoyances.

Saturday was hot, somewhere in the 90s which made standing in some of the Disneyland lines a little taxing.

A lot of fun happening here!

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Customizing Routes with Google Maps

Google Maps gets even better with the option to drag-and-drop the suggested route to create your own customized route. Or, simply check a box to avoid highways. Or, click “take public transit” to get bus options.

Great additions from Google. My only feedback regards slow performance on an update of driving directions after customizing my route. Might be worthwhile to refrain from updating driving directions until I’ve completed my customizations. Of course, perhaps only I am making several modifications quickly. Watch the driving directions tour to learn all about customizing your route.

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Buzzword

It looks like we’re taking another step forward in online word processing. Buzzword is a new web-based word processor running in the Flash player. It is an AIR application with a great interface and intuitive organizational options for your documents. The document list can be sorted alphabetically, by author, by user role, by last edited time stamp, by last viewed time stamp and by size.

The document editor itself is simple to use and supports a short list of Adobe fonts. (Adobe is acquiring Virtual Ubiquity, the developers.) You can share documents with others and also view the history of a document.

While you won’t find a lot more options than most online word processors, this rendition goes further and does it with amazing style. A key advantage to the Buzzword interface is the ability to see on the screen what you’ll see from the printer. I especially like the list handling. Creating and modifying a list of items is quite easy. “Skipping” is an excellent option that permits a new paragraph to stay associated with the previous bulleted item.

Will I stop using Google Docs? Most likely not for this stand-alone tool but we’ll see where Buzzword heads.  Buzzword is an impressive beta release.

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CF Community

There is a new ColdFusion community out there. It looks to be a promising community with numerous well known ColdFusion evangelists already participating.

It was of interest to me as I had just finished taking a look at the service used to host the community. Ning permits you to, as they say, “create your own social network for anything.” Provide your community with its own MySpace equivalent.