Two years three days ago:

“Having spent so much time thinking about & arguing for the use of blogs in eduction… figured it was about time I got myself one and started playing with the idea a bit more.” [James Farmer’s Radio Weblog]

[Update: Thanks to Lindon for pointing out that it should be comments.html (not.php or wp-comments), edited and now correct!]

Hey, this is even better, WordPress plugins seem to work as well for IncSub Blogs!

What I’ve done to start with is to install the Subscribe to Comments plugin first which allows commentators on your blog to get email updates of further comments on the post… IMO this is the most valuable comment tool (bar Kittens Spaminator) going.

To turn it on all you have to do is go to ‘Plugins’ and activate it… then in the comments.html file (under Manage > File) you need to do this:

“3) Add the following inside your comments form (between your <form></form> tags) (in comments.html):

<p>
<input type=”checkbox” name=”subscribe” id=”subscribe” value=”subscribe”>
<label for=”subscribe”>Subscribe to comments (Email field must be filled in)</label>
</p>

WordPress will then tell you that it hasn’t worked… but it has!

Any more plugin requests or suggested great functional plugins send them along, this is sooooo easy!

Tom posts about weblogging / eportfolioing in schools from a “progressive comprehensive school reform” angle and looking towards “a progressive, authentic approach to standards-based assessment”. Good stuff!

Personally I reckon that what he asks for, namely as system which allows him to:

“* View entries for a given course, e.g., English 11, across different sections and teachers.
* View entries related to a specific unit, e.g., quatratic equations.
* View entries related to units which address a common standard, e.g., all units which address the bill of rights.
* View entries by 9th grade students.
* View entries by all students in my advisory.”

Isn’t far off the kind of system that CMSs, Blogs, Aggregation, ePortfolios and Digital Objects Management Systems are going to blend into in the not too distant future… hopefully.

In the meantime though here’s a theoretical hack solution using WPMU and a yet to be released web-based, independently hosted aggregation / email service.

-Using LDAP independent Blog/CMSs are created for each learner
-Using LDAP as well OPML files are generated for class(es) / year / ‘house’ (posh school hangover ;o) etc. These pre-populate the aggregators which are also assigned to individual students (School library also has set of subject specific OPML packages but that’s another area)
-These OPML files are also easily extractable to independent aggregators
-For each course a ‘category’ is automatically created in each individuals students blog… tags are available for each category covering specific units / standards
-These categories and blogs are automatically registered by year, class, advisory, student / musical interest / sporting stuff etc. etc. for easily viewable access.

Naturally these blogs have all the functionality of a sleek CMS, wonderful editing tools, wiki-esque potential for collaboration, simple authentication processes etc. etc. etc. and they’re all hosted behind a school firewall but with the RSS able to ‘get out’.

But I don’t reckon it’s that far off or that hard… where I do think it’ll fall down though is if one systems tries to do it all. The idea above is kind of a WordPress / Plone / Any dbase / Bloglines-esque aggregator type solution, any ‘all-encompassing’ would surely fall over standards / interoperability-wise as well as provide insufficient tools for the job? Perhaps?

This is turning into serious link day… checkout Michael Coghlan’s Adelaide, Education and Life including fascinating (despite the Adelaide bit ;o) experiments with incorporating audio into blogs with many different play buttons! Michael is a leading TAFE guy down these parts and recently was a fellow panellist on GLDVIII.

Hey, checkout fellow Melburnian education designer (that’s me in my day job) Marg which I guess makes another Monash Blogger!

“From north-west Western Australia to the madding crowd at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. How does a community educator move into educational design across educational sectors?” [Flexible Learning and Educational Design]

Thanks for the link Marg, welcome to the emerging ed tech Melbourne blogosphere!

Yay, IncSub blogs are now Strayhorn… there’s a small difference in the menu tabs between the individual and the wpmu install but the functionality is still the same giving you excellent control over comments and a heap of other stuff.

Here are a couple of cracking IncSub bloggers too:

In the Bungelow – Lindon Parker on technology, building your own music studio, pinhole cameras and other stuff – catch him before he disappears again ;o)

Mr Blake’s Class Blog – Online learning, gadgets, technology and stuff from a K12 angle… from a pioneer in the area.

Hmmm, still haven’t quite got the WMPU upgrade working but Donncha has put a bunch of WPMU templates up which I’ve installed so… yourIncSub Blog can now look as pretty as you like!

In answer to D’Arcy’s question about how I’ve set up the registeration page, it goes something like this:

1. Once WPMU is installed get the alpha registration page from here and stick it in wp-inst

2. Now create a page called something like register.php also in wp-inst and deck it out exactly how you like (mine is just a centred CSS image :o) and then pop something like this in (you’ll have to select and source code until someone tells me the markup I need to display html here… ladeda):

http://incsub.org/wpmu/

Heh :D… come on then… I notice you quake at the sight of Lamb!

“I wiped bigger pieces of lint off the many carpets I sold at Sears Roebuck. I’m coming for you Downes, Levine, Farmer and Norman. I’m going to be so big there won’t be room in the blogosphere for you. Make way for Lighips.” [Ligships or somethiung like that…]

Have been looking for a while with no luck, does anyone know any websites that act like Microsoft’s map search worldwide but which gives you a GPS reading or longitude / latitude readings for that location (rather than just a map). GeoURL is still working on getting up again so that’s no good for now… any other ideas?

Update: Seems like Getty has some potential… but a bit limited and I’d prefer GPS

Here’s Fitzroy:

Coordinates:
Lat: 37 47 00 S degrees minutes Lat: -37.7833 decimal degrees
Long: 144 59 00 E degrees minutes Long: 144.9833 decimal degrees

Did I mention how cool it is to get comments from Anil & Matt & a trackback from Donncha on the same post, well it is, alright.

Good news as well today that the Strayhorn snapshot of WPMU is out and the WPMU Support forum is now up and running too… quickly populated my my good self bletherin’ on.

Will check with those who know about upgrading the IncBlogs (not wanting to squash the two (out of 100 or so) installations that are being used!) just yet but will let ya know as soon as it is and you can enjoy the beauty of WordPress 1.5 without having having to install it yourself!