Introducing the Little Library 1.0

Finally, a full version of the Little Library is out in the wild! After extensive testing on multiple platforms in Beta 1 & 2 (and a lot of failure), the Little Library 1.0 is ready for a gig on the mainstage. Take it out for a spin. Expect automatic updates as feedback comes in.

Check out, fork, and modify the source code for the Little Library on Github.

You can also find out more about the Little Library at http://thelittlelibrary.com.

Mobile JWiki

On the side as of late I’ve been working with Tim Jore at Distant Shores Media to help them create ajaxy goodness for their MediaWiki-based site at http://door43.org that features free and open licensed contributed discipleship resources for everyone in every language, including an open Bible, open Bible School, open worship music, etc. Anyway, I’ve just released a new application for them that dynamically has the ability to turn their entire wiki into a mobile online/offline application.

So if you are using MediaWiki, or would like to mobilize someone else’s Web site or wiki, you can find the simple 1-2 pages of code here: https://github.com/rwadholm/Mobile-JWiki. The code can be put on any server anywhere (that supports PHP 5.3), and will create a mobile offline/online version of whatever site you point it  at (out of the box it works with MediaWiki) via PHP,  JQuery, JQuery Mobile, and HTML5 (and it works as well without javascript enabled, so for non-smartphones it’ll still serve up your mobile site just fine). Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but you could even use it to make your own mobile offline/online version of Wikipedia that’s hosted on your own server.

The real purpose, however, is to allow users of wikis in areas with spotty internet connectivity or expensive data plans to be able to learn on the go, using their phones, without a continually active internet connection.

The Little Library Beta 1 Release

The Beta 1 version of the Little Library application was release earlier today (to mild applause by my family). You can check it out here:

https://github.com/rwadholm/The-Little-Library-Beta

Follow the instructions on that page, and you too can be the proud owner of a test library! You’ll be doing the world a service by breaking things now so they don’t have to later. Please send any comments and feedback my way.

Some new features include syncing with other libraries (actually works now!), automatic creation of an online library, a three page End User License Agreement that quotes Patrick Henry, file validation (to avoid loading those pesky malware files onto your computer and in the cloud), optimized iOS page sizes, automatic thumbnails for any items that have images in them, and the ability to upload and view multiple files for every item in your library. This last feature allows you to use your library as a private Web server. You could host every file of a website you’ve made in one item, and when users click on the item–BING!! (not really “BING”, I actually prefer non-microsoft products), they’re at your hosted Web site. So you could share your library with them, they could make changes, share with you, and you can have a dynamic Website between friends. How lovely.

Beyond Web sites, you could include all of the Word documents, books, videos, audio and images you wanted to all in the same library item, so that you can serve up a college course, a series of videos, a compilation of songs, etc. all packaged together nicely. You’ve just got to make sure the content is owned by you (as in, you created it, or you found it with a Creative Commons license that allows you to share it). That’s because the End User License Agreement requires you to only upload and share Creative Commons or Public Domain or other similarly licensed content.

So you can think of the Little Library not as a file repository, but as a multi-device, peer-to-peer, distributed online/offline open content bazaar based on bleeding-edge technologies like JQuery Mobile, HTML5 WebStorage, and CouchDB. Although that is a bit wordy…

More to come.

JQuery Tools

I have begun to use JQuery Tools for tabs and other minimally animated content. You get six JQuery related plugins in one package, all of which are hosted on a CDN so scripts don’t take up server space or bandwidth. Pretty clean coding and easy to expand. I’ve reworked their tabs and pop-up descriptions on a new site that I’m developing for the IU Theatre and Drama Department here: http://www.indiana.edu/~coas2/thtr/facilities/layout.shtml. This tool has allowed me to focus on specialized scripting rather than patching together many different JQuery plugins to do what I want them to. Also exciting is the release of JQuery 1.4 in January. I’m loving their new API documentation on their redesigned site, and some of the new features that come standard now.

The beauty of frameworks and tools like these are that they are easy to use and learn, and they allow us to focus on content and specialized tasks, and leave the rest to the framework. They are also open and heavily documented all over the internet. And extending them is very simple. This allows us to save time and money and hopefully allows our pages to be more accessible and interactive at the same time. If you haven’t already, try them out. There’s nothing like the feeling you get making stuff move around on a screen in a useful way.

Learning to Blog, Blogging to Learn

Last summer I finished an E-learning solution for highschool and college teachers who would like to learn how to use blogs as a part of their instruction. Videos, links to online resources, and walk-throughs are provided in this extensive (2-3 hour) self-directed tutorial website. Feel free to use these materials in any way you want (think of the content as open source, as well as the code).

Bob 2.0

There is a lot of talk about Web 2.0 tools and resources, but what about me? What personal changes will occur as a result of my use of Web 2.0? Will I become more social? Less afraid of joining into productive conversations with complete strangers? More willing to collaborate with people across the planet? More willing to explore and to open up my own resources, knowledge, and skills to the world?

On the negative side, will I miss out on physical connections? Will I become like the person you see in the mall walking beside their friend but talking on the cell phone instead, distracted away from the here and now and the people in their lives that are physically present? Will this technology separate me from the ones I love? Or will it connect me more? No doubt it helps me to connect and learn with others far away (proximally), but will it help me to connect in new ways with those nearby? I think perhaps that it will. I already enter into collaborative work with those close to me using Web 2.0 tools and resources. Perhaps I’m becoming more like the person you see at a party using their cell phone to text message their friend who is sitting right next to them on the couch. But is this useful? Sometimes not so much. But I think Web 2.0 tools and resources let us do things that were before much more difficult or impossible to do even with those nearby.

I think one other thing it will do to me (and is already doing to me) is to make me more thoroughly dependant on the internet for my communication, collaboration, learning, and educational needs. I presently spend 4-16 hours on the internet every day as it is (I am a Web developer), and I only foresee more time being spent (the tools and resources are becoming more pervasive in my daily life). Nearly all the television shows I watch are online. Most of my gaming needs are met online. I haven’t physically been in a library to look for educationally related materials since I began my Master’s degree a year ago (though I have probably read 5-10 thousand pages of pdfs online provided through classes and by the library). I no longer print my articles for graduate classes: I read electronic copies. I buy all of my electronics online. I meet all of my present informal learning needs online, and a large part of my formal learning needs. I’m learning several new languages online (some of them programming languages). I no longer use a radio: I listen to podcasts and streaming audio. And nearly all of the tools and resources I use every day online are Web 2.0.

So watch out for Bob 2.0! He’s smarter, faster, more connected, and a lot less tan.

Life’s long lessons

Can Web 2.0 educational opportunities help to provide for lifelong learning pedagogies? Can learning and technology be transformative across entire lifespans using Web 2.0 tools? Here are several videos that address the issue of lifelong learning with Web 2.0 technologies (view the videos here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=54387335815818263&hl=en and http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1201325526056291337&ei=iLclSbKTL4L8rAK_rfyICw&q=life+long+learning+Web+2.0).

While lifelong learning opportunities may be sponsored and facilitated by various Web 2.0 tools, does this mean that Web 2.0 tools are the answer to lifelong learning? Web 2.0 tools are not always easily learned, nor are they static or stable in their services. As technologies increase in complexity, the need to educate learners on how to learn in the digital age increases. Here’s a video on the problems and potential of Web 2.0 technologies in the area of lifelong learning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkEo_CZUek4 (view this video below).

What unique lifelong learning opportunities will the future Web (Web 3.0?) have to provide to users? Here’s a silly video that ties our world with the world of the Web (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=topeBoB-ApQ):

While this last video is just a humorous animation tying two worlds together, our real world and the Web 2.0 world are even more intimately combined. Web 2.0 two way communication, participation in communities of practice, social networking, and personal publishing are all useful lifelong learning supports that help users to always stay connected to learning opportunities. The world is open for life long lessons. And while the technologies will undoubtably change and evolve over time, still the inward human impetus to continue to expand knowledge and learning will reach into the future. Perhaps as the new Web becomes increasingly interactive, so also will all learning activities, allowing for more constructivist pedagogies to be implemented worldwide.

INspiration

What’s “IN”? The newest fad? The greatest and freshest idea or innovation? Have you ever noticed that people often get excited about the newest things? Whatever is “IN” right now gets talked about, argued about, thought about, researched, and often reimagined until it becomes the new “IN” in another form.

Web 2.0 is the “IN” of the internet today. Tomorrow it will be something else, but for now it is what people are still excited about and are talking about. Only time will tell what will come next, but for now, this is it. When people get excited about something, other people see opportunities for making money and a name for themselves. In order to obtain what they want, they seek after innovations and innovators to stand behind. This backing is important, because it often leads to further innovation. When this innovation begins to slow, it may require inpiration to kick-start a new wave of excitement and innovation. The term Web 2.0 and all that has become associated with this word has become the “IN” thing and this has led to innovations in tools used to create participatory online cultures. This current wave of innovation may be slowed by the economic downward trends we are observing in America and across the globe. This may lead to a slow time which may act as an incubation period for the next wave of innovation. No one knows where the next “inpiration” moment may happen, or when it may happen. But we may surmise that it will come. And we can guess that it will continue to open up the world to educational opportunities. Why? Because many of the past innovations have found their seedbed in the fertile grounds of higher learning. And education begets education. In a knowledge based economy, education is king. Invention will come when necessity dictates, when the world is inspired again.

wikiwiki world

The world is now open. And it is faster, thanks in part to wikis (wikiwiki is Hawaiin for “quickly”). Quickly indeed. The world of open wikis are extremely fast. Reading through the short history of wikis a person is prone to get travelling sickness from the speed, bumpiness, and fits and starts on the road to communal knowledge heaven. Wikis are collaborative by their very nature (read/write pages) thus making them prime examples of Web 2.0 (though precursors to today’s wikis existed for several years prior to the coining of the term “Web 2.0″ by Oreilly). Open wikis (like Wikipedia) go one step further. They not only open up editing to everyone on the planet, they also open up their content for reuse, abuse, and modification by anyone else on the planet. Knowledge is freed from being only the stomping ground of the elite. Knowledge is put at everyone’s fingertips. And knowledge is allowed to flow from everyone’s fingertips. This is “us” analyzing and defining “it”.

Can the wiki be trusted? Can we trust our “lifeline”? When certain academic elites proclaim Wikipedia and other similar open knowledge sources as unacceptable drivle, not worthy of anyone’s time, should we follow their advice and give up on the whole enterprise? If Steven Colbert can “troll” Wikipedia, if vandals and jokesters can deface this public property, should we not call a universal moratorium on academic use of such resources?

If a particular article cannot be trusted, and someone who knows that visits the site and views this article and then tells others about Wikipedia’s untrustworthiness, is not that very person guilty of the sin of omission? If you think an article sucks, rewrite it. If you notice an error, fix it. You are a human. Wikis are for and by humans. If you don’t fix it, but you do complain about it, are you any better then the person who complains about poverty and does nothing to remedy this problem? Millions of people reference Wikipedia every day. It is a service for humanity. Why complain when you can change it? Few things in the world are easier (or quicker) to change. If many in the academic world complain about the unscholarliness of certain articles in a wiki, I think their responsibility to the human race is to share their expertise. Or are they too afraid of the wiki? Or of losing their prestige? Or of seeing humanity grow and learn? If I went into a store and a patron helped me find what I was looking for I would be happy. If a store worker helped me, I would be even happier (because they have the added experience and expertise to find the things I need). Store workers should not complain about patrons helping other patrons. They should help themselves. Scholars should think about doing just this. Help the world, help yourself.

In this way the wiki becomes stronger. The wiki can and should become not only fast and friendly, but factual and fabulous (I couldn’t think of another appropriate “f” word). So long live the wikiwiki world!

The World as Classroom

In Dr. Curt Bonk’s newest book (as yet unpublished) on the open world of online learning, a particular passage in a chapter summary on educational resources on the Web caught my eye: “With all these [free online] lectures available, how can we not learn? What is to stop someone from learning any topic she wants at any time of the day? How will ambitious, self-directed learners be mentored or tutored into and through all of this content?”  This passage got me thinking. What if someone really did create such a service for high schools, Colleges, and self-directed learners. What if there were a resource on the Web that provided not merely repositories of online learning modules, lectures, videos, OCW, and learning objects (as if that weren’t enough), but also provided tutoring, mentorship, and guidance through these ever-growing and changing Web resources? A team of instructional designers, reference librarians, and computer programmers could staff an online Web 2.0 service that provides these things (for money or ads as financial backing, or it could be volunteer work). Instead of “Online Tutor,” it could be called something like “Tutol” (TUTor OnLine). Or accreditation could be sought for such a service, leading through OCWs, independant studies, searches, research topics, etc.

One might ask: “Isn’t a wiki a form of such guided learning through a topic?” Not really. While they are participatory in nature, wikis (at least the ones I’m familiar with) have very few integrated question/response or guided participatory learning tools. Online forums can come close to this, but seem to lack a broad enough scope. Also, forums often suffer from poor information architecture, making finding your way around (or sequencing instruction) a little difficult. FAQs are sometimes well organized, but are too static and are not usually participatory in nature, nor do they allow for extended discussions.

On the other hand, there have come to my attention interesting ideas about the automization of such a service. The US government-sponsored Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) has done research into just this topic. Here are some of their wide-ranging interests in the field of instruction:  http://www.adlnet.gov/technologies/index.aspx. The ADL also helped in the creation of SCORM (the shareable content object reference model) which standardizes learning resources and repositories to be easily accessible and reusable. Along these lines they are also developing Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) which are “computer software systems that seek to mimic the methods and dialog of natural human tutors, to generate instructional interactions in real time and on demand–as required by individual students”. These tutoring systems are being developed for the fields of artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, and cognitive science. Is there hope for such an artificial tutoring system? Can these sytems be applied to other fields as well? Could something like this be the next Google (which automates Web searching) by automating Web tutoring? Not only could a person find anything on the Web, a person could also learn anything on the Web. Is such a thing possible? Are we being swept up into an Isaac Asimov world where we learn from robot mentors? I’m guessing not. I think, though, that social learning using automated Web 2.0 or Semantic Web tools is a distinct possibility for great growth in the next five years. So whether or not instructional designers, librarians, and computer programmers will be used to actually assist in tutoring individuals on the Web in the near future through this maze of online resources, these experts will be needed at the very least to design and implement the systems that will eventually do the tutoring. Somebody needs to teach the machine before it teaches us (tongue in cheek).