I feel peely wally all of a sudden. Nothing to be alarmed about - just a general feeling of lethargy and a mild sweat. It's not a hang-over. Probably lack of sleep and generally being run-down.

I doubt that my tutorials and lecture today will be the best if the peely walliness persists.

Recent developments in technology in learning have often been claimed to facilitate distant learning. I have to say that I am not enamoured by that phrase, or the connotations that it has. One alternative I considered was disembodied learning. I hadn't heard the term used before but trusty old Google threw up Disembodied Learning: How Flexible Delivery Shoots Higher Education in the Foot, Well Sort of as its first hit:

One of the great ironies in education at the moment is that increasing attention is being given to the body - how meaning is `written' on it by gender, ethnicity and class - at the same time as the new information technology provides for the body's very disappearance from learning. `Flexible delivery' writes the body out of the learning equation - or tends to. This short paper, shaped by philosophy and styled as polemic, discusses this irony. It ends up with a few worries about flexible delivery, especially the so- called `delivery' of learning, and suggests that higher education may not be as well-served by flexible delivery as is currently thought.

I have some sympathy with the tenet of that article. I am not a sociologist (IANAS ;-)) but my own experience of teaching - and commonsense - suggest that an embodied mentoring aspect to teaching and learning is A Good Thing. I like to think that real face to face mentoring situations - i.e. lectures, practicals, and tutorials, are a necessary condition for really effective teaching and learning. As a Computer Scientist that has used newsgroups and e-mail for more years than I care to remember to support teaching I know that these sorts of technologies have their place but that they cannot replace face to face situations entirely.

But, I am also critical of the constraints that such technologies impose on interactions between participants in a class. On such constraint is the poor integration of e-mail (pop/smtp) and newsgroup (nntp) with the web (http). It seems to me that e-mail or newsgroup mediated discussions are themselves disembodied from the web which, IMHO, is a superior delivery platform. Of course, you can incorporate URLs and/or HTML in e-mail and newsgroup messages but integration this ain't. It won't come as any surprise to regular readers to know that I think weblogs are an exciting (new?) development and, potentially, a great asset to disembodied learning. I like the term disembodied rather than distant in this case since it implies (to me at least) that I although I may not be in a classroom or laboratory in person, I can be there 'virtually'. I sometimes feel that 'distant' implies 'disconnect'.

Although it's unlikely that I can contribute a great deal to the underpinning (sociological) theory - remember IANAS - I am a dedicated teacher. The students that I interact with on a daily basis are (mostly ;-)) computer-literate and some are undoubtedly more active in e-mail, IRC, and newsgroup forums than I. I have always counted myself fortunate to have the opportunity to interact with generation(s) of students that are so comfortable with these sorts of technologies. They are ideal guinea-pigs!!

Time's up. Off to a tutorial. I'll get back to this thread later.

via SiT - Adam Curry's Weblog : Mobile Data Mind Bomb

I'm not crazy about the name, but the Mine is the nerds answer to Apple's iPod. Check it out though, this baby is designed to be portable storage! It helps you collect, organize and tansport up to 10 Gigabytes of data. It has special functions for your most used data, like being able to play mp3's to any audio system, showing picture slideshows on any tv set and, get this, it can email files and act as a standalone fileserver via dialup or ethernet.

As David says, Adam thinks differently. I've also long held the belief that it is your data and set-up that's important and I am critical of developments like Strathclyde's Millennium Student Project which concentrates putting a standardised laptop in (selected) students' hands. As an iBook user I am suspicious of attempts to standardise on platforms and applications - which invariably means PCs and MS Office. I would readily embrace a device that would allow me to conveniently carry around my data/setup into lecture theatres, labs, etc., without the need to lug around the iBook - although it is a nice compact and reasonably light device. But, I would require it to interwork with Macs, PC, and Un*x systems. A tall order for what is in effect a portable filestore.

Eureka! It think doesn't matter what the native filesystem is for such a device. if it has a built in web server and/or WebDAV then surely it could be used for any platform and not just Windows as [the] mine is. Ooh! I bet you Apple will come out with a product like this in the future. Let's speculate on possible names - iFile, iServe, iGather, iStore, iFetch, iNote - its a shame that most/all of these names are in use already! But not this. I hereby lay claim to be the first user of the term iJotter!! Wonder how long it will be before it registers on Google's radar.

via HtP - Java(TM) Technology & XML Downloads - Java XML Pack

The Java(TM) XML Pack is an all-in-one download of Java technologies for XML. Bundling the Java XML technologies together into a Java XML Pack ensures developers of a quick and easy development cycle for integration of XML into the Java platform.

T.H.E. Journal Online: Technological Horizons in Education | e-cheating: Combating a 21st Century Challenge

When I began teaching college English four years ago, I was enthusiastic about new opportunities for using technology in the classroom. I had visions of students learning to write essays with a computer rather than a pencil, realizing the ease of editing their work; enjoying the speed with which they could write and rewrite; discovering how to research using online databases and search engines; and submitting their work and receiving comments and grades electronically. I was not naive, though; I anticipated challenges with reluctant or skeptical students and inevitable technical problems with hardware and software. I did not, however, envision the difficulties I would encounter with electronic cheating.

Some insight into Brent's career in software:

I'm lucky in that my first lessons in good programming practices began over 20 years ago. My parents were both programmers, and I was learning BASIC on my Apple II Plus.

Many dinner conversations could be summed up with these famous words: "goto considered harmful."

I was thick-headed. I preferred goto to gosub. (I was also 12.)

This page also has a wee discussion on Cocoa versus Carbon.

Thanks to Iain for the link to TechTV | Inside the Xbox. Just photos.

There's an interesting discussion about CS instructors going on over in The Joel on Software Forum. Think I'll lurk for a bit longer.

The Register: Imagine a world without Java

Microsoft's attempt to beat Java into extinction could take some time, as this wee anecdote shows....

The Register: WinXP: log on as admin if you want to play games, MP3s? <blockquoteHome users seem to be coming badly unstuck when tangling with the new security features of Windows XP. Now it's possible for them to set up one account on their machine with administrator rights, and lesser accounts for the kids, less significant other, cat and so forth - but setting things so that the right people get access to the right programs? Hmm, tricky...

Here's the obligatory xbox.com link. Looking forward to seeing the in-depth technical details of the system.