Humor

Hello. I’m a Copycat. And I’m an Original.

Oh, BlackBoard. I really do try to give you a fair break. You just make it so hard not to. Recently I linked to some videos that highlight the new changes coming in BlackBoard NG:

http://www.blackboard.com/projectng/

Chapter 2: User Interface… Something about that looks familiar. What is it… [stares off blankly at my iGoogle page] hmmm…. not coming to me. I’m sure it will soon….

Then, a friend sends me this link to BlackBoard NG ads:

http://www.blackboard.com/projectng/ads/

While it would be so easy to mock the acting, the blank stares, the stand-ins with the look of “will this come back to haunt me when I finally land that sweet job at Google?” on their faces… that would be too easy. I mean, with as much money as BlackBoard makes, couldn’t they actually afford actors and script writers? Probably even the real PC and Mac guys?

Nah – I won’t go there. The thing that gets me is the righteous indignation that surfaced when defending “the patent.” How they so defiantly defended how innovative and original they are. And then sued Desire2Learn for a system that basically comes close to their patent (but isn’t really a down right copy). So, sue those that kind of copy you, but then blatantly copy others? Brag about being an innovative and cutting edge company, and then follow others? Hmmm…..

Matt Crosslin

Matt is currently an Instructional Designer II at Orbis Education and a Part-Time Instructor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Previously he worked as a Learning Innovation Researcher with the UT Arlington LINK Research Lab. His work focuses on learning theory, Heutagogy, and learner agency. Matt holds a Ph.D. in Learning Technologies from the University of North Texas, a Master of Education in Educational Technology from UT Brownsville, and a Bachelors of Science in Education from Baylor University. His research interests include instructional design, learning pathways, sociocultural theory, heutagogy, virtual reality, and open networked learning. He has a background in instructional design and teaching at both the secondary and university levels and has been an active blogger and conference presenter. He also enjoys networking and collaborative efforts involving faculty, students, administration, and anyone involved in the education process.

www.mattcrosslin.com

You’ve Been EduPunk’d!

I’m a little surprised by the number of people that asked me who hacked our site and messed up the header. If someone did hack the site, I think they would do more than a little graffiti. Just a little joke to let people know what a true EduPunk mentality would do :) Here’s the banner for those that missed it:

EduPunk Header

EduGeek Admin

This is an administrative account only. Messages to this account may not be monitored.

www.edugeekjournal.com/

Dilbert Blazes New Trails in Online Sharing?

As I was reading my daily dose of Dilbert, I noticed something in the new widget that displays the comic strip: a button that lets you embed the comic on your site. Like this:

I’m guessing since this is the official site, then this is totally legal. Dilbert may not be the first to do this, but it is the first time I have notice anyone that lets you actual embed their content on your own site for free. This is an interesting break through.

There are basically two types of sites that are popular on the Web: content-based sites and services-based sites. Services-based sites are usually pretty good about giving you a widget of some kind that can be embedded on your site – see the Jaiku widget at the side of this blog. Content-based sites have been pretty slow to offer tools like this. Sure – they have RSS feeds or even links to “Digg” an article or whatever – but rarely ever some type of code that lets you put their content, or a widget with their content – on your own site.

I think this could be a great bonus for educators if we see this happening more often. Just think about it – if you see a good article in an online newspaper that would be great for your course – just embed the story in your course blog instead of a link. A really sophisticated widget might even have commenting functionality.

Anyway – just a side note that I found interesting today. I need to get back to my series about the three C’s of social networking for education now….

Matt Crosslin

www.mattcrosslin.com

Been Too Long Since We’ve Had a Good BlackBoard Jab

Courtesy of Metamedia and Pete – the Adventures of Bollywood Blackboard-wala:

Ep. 1 Paying The Annual Licensing Fee

Ep. 2 Dealing with Customers Looking at the Open Source Alternative

Ep. 3 Dealing with the Patent Invalidation Ruling

Ep. 4 Confronting the Open Source Challenge

Ep. 5 Live from Blackboardwala World 2008

Ep. 6 Dealing with Customers Looking at the Open Source Alternative, Again

Ep. 7 Improving Customer Support

Ep. 8 The Patent Pledge Explained

Ep. 9 The Future of Blackboardwala

Matt Crosslin

www.mattcrosslin.com

Dilbert Puts The Smack-Down on Millennials

I think we all know a millennial like this one. Or at least a famous conference speaker that idolizes millennials so much that they come across the same way. Don’t want to break any copyright laws, so I won’t put the comic here. But click the link for a good laugh (EDIT: seems that dilbert.com now lets you embed comics in your site now):

Matt Crosslin

www.mattcrosslin.com

Where in the World is Darren Crone?

We know the whereabouts of Katrina and Erin. Erin just finished up a Master’s thesis and Katrina is on maternity leave. But what has happened to Darren? Since his favorite team suffered a crushing defeat with the Super Bowl (by not even making it there), all things EduGeeky and Darren-related have been quiet. I told him that his scathing post comparing Blackboard to Galactus might have some repercussions, but I didn’t think disappearance was one of them!

Please leave a comment if you have any proof of the where-abouts of the elusive being known as “Darren“. Due to the high number of comments that we receive (at least, I don’t know, 4 per month?), we request that photo evidence accompany any responses.

In other totally unrelated news, I updated the EduGeek look a little. The main deal was that I wanted to use an original banner image instead of a stock photo. I have found that you might have to do a ctrl-refresh to see the new image.

EduGeek Admin

This is an administrative account only. Messages to this account may not be monitored.

www.edugeekjournal.com/

Predictions for the New Year

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year to everyone! With the dawning of the new year, I thought I would share with you my top 12 predictions for 2008:

Online distance education will continue to grow. If you don’t believe this one, you are on the wrong blog. Speaking of which….
The blog will finally die out. Again, for about the 5th time? How many years have the “experts” been predicting the death of the blog now? I am not predicting that this will actually happen, I am just predicting that this will be predicted and assured by many an expert, and will, once again, not happen.
A whole slew of people will discover the terms “digital native” and “digital immigrant” and annoy me by propagating these misguided terms. They aren’t very accurate, and they ignore the concept of the “digital divide.” See the beginnings of my rant on this issue here. Which leads me to my next prediction:
I will continue my campaign to end the use of the terms “digital native” and “digital immigrant.” So there.
The RIAA will continue its “customer appreciation policy” by suing a lot of people that didn’t really need to be sued in addition to ignoring those that really do need to be sued. It’s time for the entertainment industry to finally leave behind it’s archaic systems. Please.
People will continue to predict the end of the LMS/CMS/VLE. Which, again, won’t happen. Some feel that these will be replaced by social networks. Despite the fact that Moodle is based on social networking.
People will continue to be confused over the difference between “LMS” and “CMS” and “VLE.” Can we just pick one and move on? I don’t care which one… just farkle for it and move on….
Many will continue to question the educational validity of Second Life and say things like it is falling far short of expectations. Just like they did for this little thing called the World Wide Web back in the 90s. Wonder what became of that crazy idea….
Many will continue to “prove” how bad the iPhone is. Because they are jealous of those that have one. I know I am.
Everyone will continue to try and take down Google. And they will still fail. But many will try.
Microsoft will make a ton of money. Because we are all still forced to use their products every day. Not that this is a bad thing, as long as we can still get the funny Mac commercials.
EduGeek Journal will continue to add features that we forget to actually use. Like the podcast, Geek Chat, EdTech TV, etc. You can’t blame us for trying, right? We do all have real jobs, after all…