Day 2 of the Drupal Upgrade Experiment

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s blog posting that described the experience of upgrading a Drupal site from version 5 to version 6. To see the raw notes from yesterady, read the original post here. After all was said and done yesterday, I had (mostly) successfully upgraded Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 using our development servers. This involved updating or abandoning about two dozen modules, and took about 3-4 hours in total. However, we had two errors on the site:

Playing with a new toy

I recently had the chance to pick up a used iPod Touch (thanks, Mark!) and so far it proven a welcome addition to my technology arsenal. I got it at first to replace my mp3 player (so I could give my old one to Carole), but it has quickly become more than that – a game system for our son, an offline email client for me, and a rival for my laptop when it comes to working with some portions of the Internet.

For now, though, I don’t feel the need to upgrade to a full blown iPhone. I’m happy with intermittent connectivity where I find an open wifi spot, and frankly don’t have the budget to pay a monthly fee to AT&T. Maybe in a year or two.

The real reason why I’m writing this post, though, is to experiment with the WordPress app, which I hope will prove useful for a project or two at work. We’ll see how much I end up using this app versus a web browser.

On Individualized Learning

I recently became aware of the Journal of Technology, Learning and Assessment as part of a project at work on open education. After scanning the list of articles published (which appear to be all available online in PDF format!) I found one titled “Individualizing Learning Using Intelligent Technology and Universally Designed Curriculum”.

The author, Michael Abell, seems to be operating more from an undergrad or even K-12 perspective in some of his statements – compared with an undergrad/graduate design school where I work – so the paper may not be directly applicable to my project. But, he does raise some interesting questions.

One of the first topics the paper covers is the notion of student learning styles. He seems to be arguing that one of the hallmarks of a successful individualized learning system is that it would be able to configure its contents to adjust to the learning styles of any given student. Given what I remember about the different types of intelligence and the variety of ways in which a student might prefer to learn, that seems like it might be a recipe for creating about seven different versions of the same curriculum; each tailored to a specific type of learning, but each differing somewhat significantly from the others.

That seems, to put things mildly, like it would be a time-intensive process. Noble, certainly – useful almost probably – but time consuming. Given that one of the promises of open education (at least as I’ve heard it from some quarters) is that it would free up instructors to be able to pursue more research, I wonder whether those two things are mutually exclusive.

Still, I’m intrigued. Another part of my job is to train students in how they can safely operate equipment like laser cutters, CNC mills, and other digital fabrication apparatus. In that type of instruction, the “bad thing” students need to avoid is not a low mark but personal injury or damage to property.

In that sort of context, the effort required to provide seven different variations on a core curriculum is much easier to justify.

Perhaps it might be time to either schedule a consultation with some local learning science experts, or to brush up on those different types of learning so I can start radically revising our fab lab training presentations.

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Online Studios in Architecture

There are a few trends I’ve noticed within architectural education on which I’d like to ruminate – having to do with blogging in school.

One of the websites which I follow somewhat regularly is Archinect – specifically their School Blog Project. This is an initiative where they identify one or more students at each school of architecture in the country to blog about what they are doing in their school. It offers a good way to get a glimpse of what is going on at various schools around the country.

One drawback to that approach, however, is that if you get the “wrong” student from a school, you don’t get an accurate picture of what the school is like. Or, if the student doesn’t post frequently, you get no picture at all.

Another example of this sort of blogging, which gets around what is essentially a sampling error, is to have an entire studio blog about their work. I’ve seen this done at Cranbrook, Clemson, and currently at UNC Greensboro; I’m sure it has been done elsewhere as well. This seems to offer a much better impression of what a student’s experience is likely to be, simply because you get a sense of the entire studio participating.

Extrapolating from these starting points, I’ve been working over the last few months to develop a blogging platform for our school. The goal is to provide a digital commons for everyone in the school to blog about their work. We’re getting ready for the formal unveiling at the beginning of next quarter, and in the meantime I’m frantically trying to work out as many kinks as I can.

Stay tuned…

(I’ll have to edit this post tomorrow with relevant links to the various sites I’ve referenced here)

A music game

(I haven’t forgotten this profile – here’s some love, 360-ers – this is also posted on my MySpace and Facebook profiles, if you want to play along there)

The Rules:
Step 1: Put your music player on shuffle
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 50 songs that play (no matter how embarrassing)
Step 3: Strike through the song when someone guesses the artist and song title correctly
Step 4: Looking them up on Google or another search engine is CHEATING!
Step 5: If nobody gets the song right, then you may post further hints.
Step 6. Make your own

1. Yeah, hey, When you wish upon a star, dreams will take you very far

2. If I cried, if I said I’m sorry, and if I told the truth a million times

3. What a feeling, what a feeling, all alone, I had a cry

4. Well bless my soul, what’s wrong with me?

5. Another Saturday night and I ain’t got no money

6. Why don’t you move, damnit?

7. Hey baby, is that you? Wow your hair got so long

8. I could feel you across the miles in my body

9. Where oh where can my baby be? The good lord took her away from me

10. Kindness, in your eyes I guess you heard me cry

11. They’re justified and they’re ancient and they like to roam their land

12. The light, the heat upon my face, the steady weight upon your chest

13. This is HEFW waste. Sweet chocolate starfish. Read. Over.

14. There is a house down in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun

15. Your eyes are burning holes through me. I’m gasoline.

16. The night is chilly as the stars above. The things you said that day made me feel loved.

17. Should I thrist or need, can I beg you for some water?

18. Where were you when I said you remind me of a portrait in a dream?

19. My heart, my soul, my mind, I pity me for true.

20. Breakin’ my back just to know your name, seventeen tracks and I’ve had it with this game

21. I just died in your arms tonight, it must have been something you said.

22. There’s a training course where boys and girls of real ambition start a new job in a factory

23. This time its on my own, minutes from somewhere else, somewhere I made a wish

24. Danke schoen, darling danke schoen. Thank you for all the joy and pain

25. I don’t need a shrink to tell me what to think, there ain’t no missing link in my love line

26. I’ve had one cup of coffee and a cigarette, then I roll out of bed with my shirt soaking wet

27. Finally found what I was searching for, it was here all along

28. When I was a young man, I carried my pack and I lived the free life of a rover

29. I just got your message baby, it’s a sight to see you fade away

30. You had something to hide, should have hidden it, shouldn’t you?

31. I’d rather be a sparrow than a snail, yes I would

32. Thinking about all our younger years, it was only you and me

33. Wanted 19 to 5, I found it hard to describe

34. I’ll buy you a diamond ring, my friend, if it makes you feel alright

35. Every single day we follow every rule that we know

36. We all came here for a party tonight and you’re gonna get left if you don’t get right

37. Hey you’ve got a lot of nerve to show your face ’round here

38. She won’t recover from her losses, she’s not chosen this path but she watches who it crosses

39. Come and gather ’round people whereever you roam and admit that the waters around you have grown

40. Baby, I’m about a thousand miles, a thousand miles from my front door

41. I sat there looking ugly, looking ugly and mean.

42. If I had a million dollars, well I’d buy you a house

43. Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road

44. Above us lay the burdens, below us lay the truth

45. I want you to want me, I need you to need me

46. Yes this is a campaign slithered entrails in the cargo bay

47. I bought my baby a red radio, he played it all day a go-go a go-go

48. Lay down your arms and surrender to me. Or lay down your arms and love me peacefully

49. She knows that the devil’s got a burning fire inside of me

50. Clever got me this far and tricky got me in

Danah Boyd on Social Networks

I finally had a chance tonight to watch Danah Boyd’s full presentation on Social Networks from this year’s Aspen Institute Festival ( http://www.aifestival.org ). If you’re at all interested in this phenomena, particularly as they’re seen by people who are growing up around and within them (i.e. “digital natives”), this is required viewing. Boyd traces the history of socializing online from the early days of Usenet, through mailing lists and Friendster to our current smorgasbord of platforms. There are a few completely eye-opening slides (which are unfortunately only sometimes shown on camera), and she presents some thought-provoking perspectives on the challenges and opportunities of this phenomenon.

It is particularly interesting to me as we consider implementing some sort of student community resource for our school. Some of her notes about the lack of interoperability between the large social networks gives me an idea for how such a niche resource might stitch together a disparate community whose students are probalby coming to us with a well-established digital presence.

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Living Room Almost Done…

So, here’s the latest video of the living room…

More pictures at my Flickr stream…

The Living Room Project

src=\”http://morphosis7.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/1214627497-hr-337.jpg\”

I\’ve been on vacation for the last week, working on remodeling the living room of our house. Its been a slow, slow process – I didn\’t finish scraping paint until last night. I won\’t go into all the details right now (it\’s late) but I did want to point folks to the photos and videos I\’ve put together of the project:

Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/morphosis7/

Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/morphosis7

I\’ll have to upload pictures to Flickr once I\’m done tonight – we finally started putting paint on the walls tonight, with the help of my sister-in-law. I think the room is coming along nicely, finally – but there\’s a lot yet to do.

A sampling of our DVD collection

• Beauty and the Beast
• The Dark Crystal
• Dumbo
• Finding Nemo
• The Incredibles
• Jungle Book
• Madagascar
• Meet the Robinsons
• The Muppets Take Manhattan
• Over the Hedge
• Pixar Short Films Collection – Volume 1
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
• Titan A.E.
• Wallace and Gromit – Three Amazing Adventures

A few thoughts as I look over this list…

First, you’d never know we have a 2-year-old.

Second, Xavier is truly my son – we had quite a number of these DVDs (Titan A.E., Dark Crystal, etc) before he was born.

Of course, there’s a ton more animated/claymation/marionette movies out there – which we’ll probably pick up eventually. Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Creature Comforts, Triplets of Belleville, and most of Pixar or Dreamworks animations are particular targets.

It should also be noted that I didn’t bother listing all the Thomas, Bob the Builder, and VeggieTales DVDs we’ve picked up – that would more than double this list. We’ve also got our share of movies like Dark City, Office Space, the Matrix, Moulin Rouge.

Anyway – just a thought that struck me, so I decided to blog. You’re welcome.

Detailed Conference Agenda | EDUCAUSE Midwest Regional Conference 2008 | EDUCAUSE

Really, I’m trying to play with Flock’s integrated “Blog This” capability – but this does sound like a pretty cool presentation. Plus, I know Diane and she’s just cool.

Detailed Conference Agenda | EDUCAUSE Midwest Regional Conference 2008 | EDUCAUSE

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