Spotlight: a Blog

VT Survey 2.2.0

This free, open source tool for creating and deploying online surveys is worth taking a serious look at, especially if you have your own server to put it on and don't like paying commercial ISPs like SurveyMonkey (still my favorite) or Zoomerang. It requires Sun's Java SDK 1.4.0 and Java application server (e.g. Apache Tomcat), but will run on any platform that supports the prerequisite middleware, including Windows and Linux. There is a demo running, albeit occasionally, on the developer's site.

Thursday, April 24, 2003

Inspiration 7

Not exactly in the category of "social software", but this intuitive, inexpensive ($69) tool is one of the best I've seen for creating diagrams, flowcharts, and concept maps. It is intended primarily for teachers and students (grade 6 and up), so it does provide a lot of resources for "prettyfying" the diagrams (colors, arrow shapes, icons, clip art, etc.), but don't be fooled by these toy-like characteristics. It is a very capable piece of software, suitable for a school iMac as well as a corporate officer's laptop. (And yes, it is available for both Mac OS and Windows - an increasingly rare treat.) The diagrams can be exported as Web pages, making it possible to use Inspiration to sketch the design of a complex Web site, where each part of the diagram will become a separate page to be filled with content with the help of any Web page editor. Go see the demo at the vendor's site or install the trial version and I'm almost certain you'll be impressed.

Wednesday, April 23, 2003

Teaching, Learning, and Technology (TLT) Group

From the site: "The TLT Group's mission is to motivate and enable institutions and individuals to improve teaching and learning with technology, while helping them cope with continual change."

"The TLT Group's biggest asset is its network of hundreds of leaders and institutions already working together to solve common problems and share effective strategies. We listen to their concerns and promote their achievements. They share with us the lessons they have learned so that, through our programs, we can pass the benefit of their experience on to others. The TLT Group makes these benefits available through focused assistance, institutional subscription programs, and free resources and webcasts."

Thursday, April 10, 2003

O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference

Held in Santa Clara, CA, April 22-25, 2003
This conference is aimed at showcasing whatever the "alpha geeks" are playing with now. It will continue to explore the themes from past conferences, including peer-to-peer, web services, the idea of the "Internet operating system," Rendezvous and other mechanisms for ad hoc networking, and wireless. We'll also be looking at biological models for computing, lessons from complexity theory, and lots of other juicy ideas from the hacker noosphere.
Tracks: Rich Internet Applications — Social Software — Untethered — Nanotechnology and Hardware

Wednesday, April 9, 2003

From Burkas to IT for Afghan Women Reuters (by way of News.com), April 8, 2003.

Quote: On Tuesday, Akbari became one of the first 17 Afghans trained in their own country to earn industry-standard certificates in computer networking skills, and one of the first members of what her government hopes will be a growing talent pool of badly needed information technology specialists.

Monday, April 7, 2003

Migrating to Linux Not Easy for Windows Users by Tsu Dho Nimh. LinuxWorld, April 2003.

An excellent, albeit quite long, account of one user's multiple attempts to "switch" from Windows to Linux. Eye-opening for those of us, who would like to see Linux challenge Microsoft on the desktop.

Summary: I assumed I could boot the well-known Linux distributions from a CD-ROM drive, make some on-screen selections, let the distribution know what hardware to use, twiddle my thumbs for a while as it loaded software and configured itself, and then have a working system. Was I ever wrong.

Thursday, April 3, 2003

Collaborative Communities 2003

Online Conference on Collaboration and Communities
Held April 29-May 2, 2003
A four-day international virtual conference that brings together leading organizations, practitioners, and thought leaders in an online "learning community" environment to:
1. Explore and share emerging trends in online communities
2. Learn how the leaders define and build communities that support collaboration, learning, and knowledge management
3. Obtain practical tips, models, tools, and templates for bringing collaborative communities to your own organization
4. Network with other professionals from corporations, universities, non-profits, consulting firms and vendors

ACT Spotlight archive

April 2-29, 2003