Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Unplugging from the Commercial Software Grid: A Strategic Path by Kent Brooks #heartlandconf10

These are my notes from Unplugging from Kent Brooks‘ presentation “Unplugging from the Commercial Software Grid: A Strategic Path” at the 2010 Heartland eLearning Conference hosted by the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. MY THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS ARE IN ALL CAPS. The Heartland eLearning conference is on Twitter, has a conference blog, and a Facebook fan page.

Kent’s presentation resources / links are available on his Ning. He is presenting with Prezi.

Software for Starving Students Project at WOSC

Tech director at WOSC since 1997
– some strange things have happened since then…

There is NOT one single, “killer app” / killer application
– open media
– OER
– Open Courseware

Kent is presenting with Prezi

Who has had this experience: “When I want to learn something why do I go to Google instead of taking the class at the college?”
– Jason Cole, Savannah MoodlleMoot 2004

Unplugging not Unplugged
– there is a difference
– I still like Microsoft…

We ALWAYS ask: is there a free tool equal or better to the commercial product we are interested in?

newspaperdeathwatch.com
– watch which major newspaper is going down the tubes

One slide: this is our strategic plan
– Open aggregation
– Open collaboration
– open software
– open communiation
– open instruction
– open content

WebCT would be $80K if we were not using Moodle
– response to staffing point: we would have to pay for staffing either way

We are likely going to convert our phone system to OpenPBX (now CallWeaver)

Merlot introduced me to OpenContent

Let’s discuss open source for a second…
– the hazards of open source are those typically discussed as objections by experts about commercial software….
– I argue: open source projects such as Moodle are perfectly viable from all those perspectives

Good open source projects are written at least as well as commercial products, sometimes the same folks are involved
– enthusiastic communities support them, with developers
– answering questions 24/7
– as opposed to knowledge free call centers for many commercial products
– they are transparency licensed

I argue we have the same staffing now supporting Moodle that we had supporting WebCT
– we ran those in parallel for 3 years

we started to see response times for Moodle come in faster than they would with WebCT
– because we posted questions before bedtime, and generally they were answered by the time we woke up
– that is not necessarily going to happen with every open source tool…

Anyone with enough experience in IT knows that leading, expensive commercial products are often deeply buggy, poorly supported… [legally entangled]

comes down to paid support

The Good, the bad and the Ugly
– there ARE options
– demonstrates a significant user base
– many coders posting regular updates
– backed by VCs, major company, or foundation
– uses one of the standard open source licenses (assuming that the conditions of the license do not preclude your use)

Not thinking that you have an option is the real sad view…

We run DimDim within our Moodle environment

We use OpenOffice

I would rather throw money at an instructor’s ability to create and generate content, than spend it on the “content aggregator” (in my world, that’s Moodle)

Now discussing the Software for Starving Students project at WOSC (supported out of our IT department)

Software for Starving Students: Now brought to you by Western Oklahoma State College.

Mac side is not ready yet
– Kent wants Mac users to contribute more ideas for software programs, so the Mac side of this can be more fully developed!

[KENT: HERE’S MY LIST, EVERYTHING WITH A (F) BY IT IS FREE!]

SitePal avatars can be really effective in eLearning contexts
– we’re paying for individual accounts for that particular
– we are going to buy a reseller account so we can manage our subscriptions from a single site

We’ve integrated TurnItIn into Moodle (I think of that as a content/teaching tool)

From a participant: RapidIntake
– licensed per project, not per user

MY THOUGHT: Sounds similar to Softchalk

We were at the “Textbook Evolution Conference” last week sponsored by TulsaCC

MAN I WISH I HAD KNOWN ABOUT THAT CONFERENCE!!!! SOUNDS GREAT!

Microsoft did a lot to bring consistent “menu-ing” to software applications…

http://gabrielgurley.com is giving away an Open Office textbook

Kent’s Ning and website: http://kentbrooks.ning.com

Technorati Tags:
, , , , , , ,

If you enjoyed this post and found it useful, subscribe to Wes’ free newsletter. Check out Wes’ video tutorial library, “Playing with Media.” Information about more ways to learn with Dr. Wesley Fryer are available on wesfryer.com/after.

On this day..

Posted

in

, ,

by

Wesley Fryer

Tags:

My Podcasts!