ICTlogy

I guess I already finished to update to WordPress v1.2.1 “Mingus”

Things I changed (to keep in mind for the next update):

• index.php: functions, template
• wp-admin/admin-header.php: header customization
• wp-admin/menu.php: include own menus
• wp-admin/wp-admin.css: admin header customization, categories column resizing: left position, width, height
• wp-include/template-functions-category.php: function wp_list_cats arguments to sort by name and show/hide empty ones
• clean cookies in cache: if not, unable to login to admin :P
• upload own js, css, images, documents, etc.

My setup is completed and can be always seen in my blog’s right column, at the bottom section: Setup

Nabuur.com is a community of on-line communities to provide assessment to villages in need of help all over the world.

It’s an online volunteering project and, according to their web site, it works thit way:

1. A community has an urgent question

It all starts with a local community in a developing country looking for assistance. After a screening by NABUUR this community gets a ‘Village’ on NABUUR.com. On this Village the representative of the local community describes the question or problem to be solved.

2. Virtual Neighbors look for solutions

NABUUR invites visitors to NABUUR.com and they become ‘Neighbors’ of a Village. These virtual Neighbors then start looking for solutions to the question described by the local representative. They work together and report their findings on the Discussion boards of the Village.

3. Best solutions are selected

After several solutions have been found and the best ones selected, the Neighbors present these solutions to the local representative. The local representative discusses the solutions with his or her people.

4. Solutions are implemented

If the solutions found by the Neighbors fit the local situation they are implemented. The Neighbors get to see the results (photos, stories) on NABUUR.com.

In most cases further assistance of the virtual Neighbors is required. A new question is put to the Neighbors by the local representative and the process starts again.

I’ve read quite a bit about Sakai Project, a Managed Learning Environment with course management, assessment tools, portal functionality, etc.:

• A framework that builds on the recently ratified JSR 168 portlet standard and the OKI open service interface definitions to create a services-based, enterprise portal for tool delivery
• A re-factored set of educational software tools that blends the best of features from the participants’ disparate software (e.g., course management systems, assessment tools, workflow, etc.)
• A synchronization of the institutional clocks of these schools in developing, adopting and using a common set of open source software.

The technical barriers can now be overcome [thanks to:]

• Service Interface Definitions
• Standard Portal
• Tool Interaction Framework
• Localized User Interface

Let me suggest some further reading I’ve found of value:

• The Sakai Project
• The Sakai Project FAQs
• More Sakai details revealed and partner programme presented, an article by Wilbert Kraan at CETIS, info on Sakai.
• Same area, different goals; Sakai and the JISC Framework Programme, also by Wilbert Kraan, comparing Sakai and the JISC TFP. Very worth reading it.
• US universities consortium starts OKI and Portlet implementation project, by Wilbert Kraan too, when Sakai was presented as a project (old post but worth reading too).

See if I can make a list of things that MIT is carrying out in the field of “sharing his knowledge” and “applicable to e-learning for development”. Some copy-paste from institutional sites, some comments by myself, some by Octeto:

Intellectual Commons
MIT makes materials freely available to strengthen overall university commons.

• Commiting to integrating educational-technology deeply into on-campus education
• Creating major, shared campus-wide educational resources
  It includes OKI, OCW, DSpace and .LRN

Related posts in ICTlogy

Open Knowledge Iniciative (OKI)

It is a collaboration among leading universities and specification and standards organizations to support innovative learning technology in higher education.
The result is an open and extensible architecture that specifies how the components of an educational software environment communicate with each other and with other enterprise systems. OKI provides a modular development platform for building both traditional and innovative applications while leveraging existing and future infrastructure technologies.

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OpenCourseWare (OCW)

Is a large-scale, Web-based initiative to provide free, worldwide access to educational materials for virtually all MIT courses.

OCW is not a course or distance learning, but it is courseware.

Rather than substitute for the experience of being a student at the Institute, OCW will provide students, faculty, and other interested parties throughout the world free and valuable educational materials.

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DSpace

A durable electronic archive for 10,000 MIT research papers and other publications per year. DSpace is a groundbreaking digital library system to capture, store, index, preserve, and redistribute the intellectual output of a university’s research faculty in digital formats.
Developed jointly by MIT Libraries and Hewlett-Packard (HP), DSpace is now freely available to research institutions world-wide as an open source system that can be customized and extended.

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.LRN

Is open source software and a development kit for supporting innovation in collaborative education and learning and research communities. Originally developed at MIT as part of the Intellectual Commons, .LRN is now backed by a worldwide consortium of educational institutions, non-profit organizations, industry partners, and open source developers. .LRN capabilities include course management, online communities, learning management, and content management applications.
In other words:

• A fully open source eLearning platform
• A portal framework and integrated application suite to support course management and online communities
• A set of best practices in online learning shared in the form of source code

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Caddie.NET

It serves as the hub application for information exchange. It provides online news, event and course information, along with interactive discussion forums and students contact information. In a nutshell, everything needed to maintain and run the fast-growing course site.

As I understand it: .LRN manages the course learning environment (contents, interaction, etc.) and Caddie.NET manages the course site or information environment (information, news, etc.)

Related posts in ICTlogy

I don’t like to spend lots of time writing about blogging because I feel the same way than watching some TV show dealing about some TV series: endogamic. The unique occasions I talk about the tool I use (and not its use) is to track down all the setup stuff: to get back where I got lost and to shine some light on someone coming behind.

All this digression is to introduce two people I’ve met by looking at my logs. Someone got here through Technorati and, well, I couldn’t help to “technorate” ICTlogy and found two (new) people linking me. Wow! They made my day!

One of the reasons I made this blog up was to get in touch with other people with similar interests, but this is becoming quite a hard thing to do. Finding people quoting me or considering me a Key EduBlogger makes me think I’m not alone and there’s people I can learn from.

Thanks Josephine and thanks Yan for being there and showing up :)))

Jayne Cravens is looking for some Spanish-speaking “techie” online volunteers. Here goes her original mail:

“Does anyone out there know of an online discussion group or association that could help me reach Spanish-speaking “techies” who might be interested in online volunteering?

In particularly, I’m trying to recruit some Spanish-speaking MS Access experts, but other areas of expertise (web site design, online database development, etc.) are also needed.

[snip]

The Online Volunteering service is seeing a big increase in the number of assignments either in Spanish or asking specifically for Spanish-speakers. To view such opportunities, please visit: www.onlinevolunteering.org click on “Search Assignments”, and choose “Spanish” in the language category.”

Contact info:

Jayne Cravens (jayne.cravens@unvolunteers.org)
Online Volunteering Specialist
United Nations Volunteers
www.unvolunteers.org
Bonn, Germany

Online Volunteering: www.onlinevolunteering.org
UNITeS: www.unites.org
Global volunteerism portal: www.worldvolunteerweb.org

[Update: opportunities have been fulfilled… but there’s still a need for profiles like these ;) ]