My college career started at Middlesex Community College. It was there when I needed it, and I had an excellent semester. It gave me the boost I needed to get back onto the college track. In fact it is still one of the more memorable semesters of my many college experiences. My professors exhibited a real commitment to teaching. Bravo to our president for his focus on the community colleges.
Campus Technology Magazine‘s latest issue lists 11 innovative projects. In the portal category is a series of special research portals provided through the library. The aim is to make faculty and student research work more efficient. The portals utilize open source software, WordPress and CWIS. The stated benefits of using these technologies include an easy interface for end users and relatively easy deployment.
Server administrators, web-application programmers, web site designers, help desk support, software companies, technology providers, government officials, and yes, even end-users — we are all responsible for information security on the internet. We need to not fall for knee-jerk, and ineffective solutions — i.e. strong passwords — or assume that certain technologies will keep us safe — i.e. “I use a mac and they don’t get viruses”. What can we do? I am not a security expert with specific prescriptions to give — but remember, easy prescriptions don’t exist. What is needed is an ongoing conversation — at my workplace the CIO recently held the first of a series of campus-wide forums to provide technology staff with information, and to gather ideas from all of us. This is a good first step. Here are a couple of other ideas: Read the rest of this entry »
People constantly build models of real world systems to inform activities like business strategies, classroom technology deployments or a software development project. This model takes some subset of real-world conditions, make assumptions, which then drive the project. And often the solution will influence user behavior — the medium is the message. The world is constantly changing, and so must our models and resulting assumptions and solutions. And at one university their model of the classroom no longer includes PowerPoint.
Alright, I know this post may make me sound like I’m arriving late to the Google Docs party So fine, I can take it. And I’ll admit that I haven’t had any real opportunities to use Google docs for shared document creation. But in a recent workshop I was part of a team where we had a lot of collaborating to do in very little time — and we used Google docs as our collaboration platform. It was simple, easy to set up, and worked REALLY well. The coolest thing was that we all had the document visible on our computers and could watch the edits unfold as each person took turns on it. No need to refresh the screens — no need to hand off the editing. In fact the document showed who was actively editing which section. It was easy, dynamic, and a crucial resource to support our collaborations.
Why do IT projects so often run over budget and over time? Perhaps thinking too big, too costly, and too risk adverse is part of the problem. All three conditions often lead to a long project timel ine, another significant risk factor. A recent computerworld article discusses the increasing use of ‘lite’-thinking with open-source/web 2.0-type tools. The advantages? Read the rest of this entry »
Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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