August 3, 2006

[link: 1 Hits] OLDaily full coverage: because it's a bit hard to follow, full coverage of the Blackboard case is being provided on a separate page (full coverage will continue on OLDaily as well, don't worry). Click here for all coverage in one handy chronological list.

The patent fight has widened now that it has come to light that SAP have also filed for a series of learning management patents, including a 'course editor', 'e-learning authoring tool' and 'e-learning system'. The applications were filed mostly in 2004 and 2005.

Ray Corrigan outlines what he expects the impact on the Open University will be. "The patent is nonsense on stilts and generically could be interpreted to describe what we have been doing here at the Open University for at least a generation and certainly for the 11 years that I've been here. I suspect Centrinity's FirstClass will be on Blackboard's lawyers' list of targets as well as the open source Moodle system the OU are adopting."

He also reports on some of Blackboard's previous nastiness, citing Jennifer Jenkins's write up of the case at the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse (it was also covered here at OLDaily).

Mark Oehlert offers some criticism of the patent document and, among other sites, links to the New York Times stock watch page for Blackboard. Looking at it a little more closely, I notice that Blackboard executives were dumping thousands of shares back in May. One wonders why.

Graham Attwell points to an item from that same month in which, and I quote, "Campus card solutions provider Blackboard is getting into the laundry business. It has added the eSuds online laundry service to its product line, giving USA Technologies access to hundreds of Blackboard's colleges and universities." Weird. Attwell comments, "I think it is time to return e-learning to the education sector - not a company which washes its dirty washing in public."

David Jnnings points to the Wikipedia page, where more and more contributions of prior art are piling up.

Discussion in an Advanced Distributed Learning forum. As Alan Jeffries observes, "Indeed - I note that Bb didn't immediately go after Docent, Saba, etc.. I guess Bb are the SCO Group of e-learning now. An obvious, cheap-shot money-making tactic. Hearsay is that D2L will be fighting the suit. In a fair world that should serve as a reasonable test-case to limit some of the more absurd moves of the USPO recently."

Bryan Alexander has been blogging about the patent at the NITLE Liberal Education Today (here, here, here). He also adds a couple of unrelated links to Lawrence Lessig and J.D. Lasica (to namedrop? to draw their attention? You won't do that with a Yahoo search redirect link!).

Karyn Romeis expresses concern about the contraditions and loopholes. Roger Goodson comments briefly, as does Christopher Wigginton.

Howard Rheingold Howard Rheingold has picked up the story. "Blackboard's actions are shameful, greedy, bogus, and have the potential for retarding the development of online learning throughout the world."

Leigh Blackall mentions the case in TALO. And Deon Metelski got tired of hearing about Blackboard and decided to take his mind off it by starting a blog, Tools for School. Silver lining?

[Tags: Wikipedia, Online Learning, Web Logs, Blackboard, Copyright and Patent Issues, Lawrence Lessig, Schools, Research, Open Source, Yahoo!] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

[link: Hits] I think this could be a pretty good idea, depending on how it is implemented (Word and PowerPoint don't offer templates on the side for no reason, after all). I wish the paper linked from this blog post offered a view in something other than PDF, because I would like to see the source to see whether the resulting learning objects use a standard XML format, such as Connexions's CNXML, and whether they employ SCORM-type Javascript APIs. P.S., Teemu, your sister-in-law says hi! [Tags: Connexions, Learning Objects, XML, Web Logs, SCORM, Networks, Metadata] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

[link: Hits] Interesting and potentially useful. "LoLa is an exchange for facilitating the sharing of high-quality learning objects. It contains materials for use across the curriculum, with a particular focus on modules for Information Literacy." Good. "The metadata that we create using LOLA [will become] available through national repositories, using either federated search capabilities or metadata harvesting methods." Even better. [Tags: Learning Objects, Information, Course Modules, Learning Object Repositories, Metadata, Quality] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

[link: 1 Hits] The DOPA legislation finally reaches the American political blogosphere, showing up on the left-wing Kos site. But check out the headline: "Bill Before Senate Would Censor Daily Kos." Sure. Wasn't a problem until Kos was affected. No sign whatsoever of the concerted efforts by people in the U.S. edublogosphere to try to call attention to and derail this bill. [Tags: Web Logs, United States] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

[link: 13 Hits] If you are an educator browsing through Second Life (2L) and want to find some goot starting points, this guide is a good place to look. [Tags: ] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

[link: Hits] Good discussion of the application of e-learning outside the usual enterprise and institutional settings. Certainly, if e-learning is to expand, will have to expant in the personal and SME space. But this means many of the assumptions in the institutional and corporate space no longer apply. [Tags: Online Learning] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

[link: 15 Hits] This is pretty neat. "So, if I would like to point you directly to Jesco White's danced-up version of the Ozark Mountain Daredevil's 'If You Want to Get to Heaven' (and I do) it's just a matter of appending #XmXXs to the video URL of the Google Video link." More from Tim Lauer. [Tags: Google] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

[link: Hits] For those of you in the Moncton region, plans are just getting underway for BarCampMoncton, our local installment of BarCampEarth, August 25-27. Visit this wiki page for information on our local event or the BarCampEarth site for information about the event in your local community. And while I'm being local, check out this list of e-learning jobs in Moncton. [Tags: Online Learning] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]

[link: 2 Hits] Presentations from the Microlearning conference last June in Innsbruck are now online, including my own - slides only, in PDF (bleah). [Tags: ] [Comment] [Edit] [Delete] [Spam]