One of the ways we kill reusability is through layout and markup. In fact, this was one of the realizations that started me on this path eight years ago. Looking at the practical barriers to remix it became clear that highly formatted web pages, PowerPoints, and Word documents were not really remixable, because of the… Continue reading

People with broadly similar goals often operate under different theories of change. Some people believe change comes from moving fast and building things, and a lot of it does. Some people think it comes from laying the intellectual and policy foundations that nurture desired results, and that’s true too. Most massive changes require approaches at… Continue reading

Quick note: after writing the last post on choral explanations I’ve gotten more deeply into Quora. And while there are a number of things that would have to change to make a Quora-style site a viable OER collaboration tool the base interaction is amazingly on target for how collaborative OER repositories should work. Again, I… Continue reading

I mentioned in a recent post that the collaborative web is moving away from the “one best resource” model, but didn’t go into much detail on that point. I’d like to talk a bit more about that, and hopefully relate it to newer models of Open Educational Resource (OER) use and courseware design. When people… Continue reading

I drive my oldest daughter to high school everyday. She goes to a magnet STEM school in the district that’s on the campus where I work. I’ve been brainwashing her into liking indie rock one car ride at a time using carefully planned mix CDs. Last week she tells me I need to get more Magnetic… Continue reading

Herbert Simon, a Nobel Laureate known for his work in too many areas to count, used to tell a story of two watchmakers, Tempus and Hora. In the story Tempus and Hora make watches of similar complexity, both watches become popular, but as one watch becomes popular the watchmaker expands and becomes rich, and as… Continue reading

Wikity 0.31 is released. Download 0.31a here. New installers and curious tourists will also want the Wikity Guide, and the 0.30 release notes. Usual disclaimers about free code people give you on the internet apply. Wikity 0.31 is a bug fix release to 0.30. There is no new functionality, and it fixes only one small but incredibly… Continue reading

I’ve mentioned before that the impulse many people have about OER — that we need a central high visibility location where we can put ALL THE OER and everyone will know to go there — is flawed. We know it’s flawed because it’s failed for 15 years or so (more if you count early learning… Continue reading

It feels a bit silly sharing reflections on Prince when so many people have done it better. I’m particularly moved by the glimpses we have gotten over the last day of Prince, the person, a guy who loved to laugh and saw his mission in life as helping others. I’ve loved the meditations on both… Continue reading

I’m releasing Wikity 0.3 today. There’s some neat updates to this version. Current users can replace your old theme directory with this one. New users should read the Wikity Guide and follow the install directions there, but use this newer folder (we’ll eventually get the documentation updated). The biggest change is the “pathways” feature. The pathways… Continue reading