http://aimlessmusing.com Occasional writings on things that interest me Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:57:24 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I've come to the conclusion that the greatest threat to the  United States is ignorance. Ignorance is a term that has lots of negative connotations, so I'd like to clarify what I mean. If you followed the link, you'd see that the definition of ignorance (according to dictionary.com) is: "the state ... http://aimlessmusing.com/2009/09/19/ignorance-is-the-greatest-threat-to-the-u-s/ John Porter contacted me after he read this post and said that there were some inaccuracies that he wanted to get cleared up. I certainly don't want to be spreading incorrect information so I agreed to a conference call with him and Ben Wang. I didn't get Ben's job title, ... http://aimlessmusing.com/2009/07/26/update-on-the-lec-from-blackboard/ A brief writeup of my BBWorld09 session. The PowerPoint file is here: PowerSight Presentation from BBWorld09 What is the PowerSight Kit? What is the PowerSight Kit? It's a series of views in the database that are denormalized to make them easier to query. They include: rpt_gradebook rpt_learning_context rpt_learning_context_size rpt_member rpt_person rpt_template rpt_tracking All of these views have interesting information in them, ... http://aimlessmusing.com/2009/07/20/extracting-useful-information-from-the-powersight-kit/ In looking back over my recent blog posts, I can see where someone might get the idea that I think Blackboard is a shifty, evil company. This is far from the case... in fact, I think Blackboard has made huge progress over the past couple years. I thought I'd highlight ... http://aimlessmusing.com/2009/07/19/perceived-negativity-about-blackboard/ During the keynote, Blackboard announced that they had purchased TerriblyClever, a company that specializes in creating software applications for mobile devices for the higher education market. Specifically, they have created mobile apps that access consolidated data from disparate sources on a college campus. The app they demoed for the conference during ... http://aimlessmusing.com/2009/07/17/mobileedu/ I consider myself to have pretty deep and broad technical knowledge, but listening to Steve Feldman always leaves me wondering which key on my keyboard is the "any" key. I leave his sessions feeling like I was full after the first 15 minutes and somehow missed all the really important ... http://aimlessmusing.com/2009/07/17/performance-and-scalability-forensics/ UPDATE: See this post for updated information on this topic. This session was run by Paul Grist (Sr. Director of Solutions Marketing) and Matt Davis (Sr. Solutions Engineer). Their objective was to "provide a nucleus of a plan for you to move to BB 9(.x)". The upshot of the meeting is that ... http://aimlessmusing.com/2009/07/17/upgrading-to-blackboard-learn-9-for-cevista-clients/ Is it bad that I listed Ray Henderson first in the title of this post? I think Ray is a breath of fresh air in the Blackboard organization... a "green shoot" if you will (to borrow the current economic phrase). I hope he sticks around. "You can't over-communicate with your clients" ... http://aimlessmusing.com/2009/07/17/ray-hendersonmichael-chasen-keynote/ George Kroner's session (Customizing the Blackboard Virtual Learning Experience with Openness) was very interesting, although slightly slanted towards defending Blackboard's closed source strategy. Which, I suppose, is understandable; have to keep an eye on who signs your paycheck, right? :-) All kidding aside, he makes a good point about the advisability ... http://aimlessmusing.com/2009/07/15/openness-george-kroner/ Blackboard World 2009 opened with a keynote speech from Seth Godin, author of Tribes (among other things). He pointed out that, if Ben Franklin were to come back to life today, one of the only things he would recognize would be our educational system. (Personally, I think if Ben Franklin ... http://aimlessmusing.com/2009/07/14/bbworld09-opening-keynote-seth-godin/