e-Clippings (Learning As Art)

Bodington: Open Source VLE

I am just starting to look into this. The description on the site is:

"Bodington is a free open source Virtual Learning Environment/Learning Management System in use at Universities and Colleges worldwide. The Bodington project exists to provide an open source environment to support learning, teaching and research. It is particularly suitable for complex, multi-disciplinary and large organisations and for inter institutional collaboration. It delivers controlled access using open standards."

And by "starting to investigate" what I really mean is I am reading through Michael Feldstein's multi-part (Part 1, Part 2)of Bodington now.

Want the Course in Open Source? Learn from the best....

You know people talk about being lifelong learners and yeah that's me to an extent...but what I'd really like to be is a lifelong student. I really dig the dynamics of a class (a good one) and getting pushed to stretch by a sharp teacher. Unfortunately the bills must be paid so its off to work we go but fortunately there are still those moments when you might not be able to get back into class but you can follow what a probably great class is doing.

Mitch Kapor (dude created a little app called Lotus 1-2-3, anybody who wasn't alive when the first Star Wars [Episode 3 for all my geek brethren] came out might not remember it, but trust me, it was a big deal) is teaching a class this fall in the Schools of Information and of Law at a littl e known public school called the University of California at Berkeley.

The course is titled "Open Source Development and Distribution of Digital Information: Technical, Economic, Social, and Legal Perspectives" and while we can't sit in the actual class, if you ever wanted to learn about open source, then this syllabus will keep you reading for a while. Thenn you can impress all your friends!

"What Corporate Projects Should Learn from Open Source" (O'Reilly)

(Story Link)

I really like this story because it responds to a question I get asked almost every time I bring up open source - how can that work in a corporate setting? Well the authors lay ot out quite nicely, I mean look at the work conditions they describe:

"no budget, a widely geographically distributed team, and a completely volunteer workforce in which people take on only the roles and responsibilities that they feel like taking on, and put in only as much time as they want to devote."

Ever felt like you were there before? While the whole article is worth the read, here are the principles which they say will work on every project team - corporate or open source:

• Tell the truth all the time
• Trust the team
• Review everything, test everything
• All developers are created equal
• The fastest way through the project is to do it right

"Lloyds of London to offer insurance for corporate open source users" (BoingBoing)

(BoingBoing Link)

This is great. Lloyd's of London is now offering to insure companies that use open source software against copyright and patent infringement lawsuits. Anybody want to contact them and see if they'll include protection for e-Learning companies from bottom-feeding scum like IP LEarn?