The NOSE

UCLA to Adopt Moodle

Significant news on the LMS front:

"In November, 2006, the UCLA Faculty Committee on Educational Technology decided that UCLA should converge on Moodle as the single open source platform for its common collaboration and learning environment (CCLE)...The decision to choose Moodle over Sakai as UCLA's convergence platform was based on many factors that, over time, led us to believe it to be a better match for UCLA's current needs."

To my knowledge UCLA is the first major university in the US to have adopted Moodle as its enterprise learning platform. Good news for Moodle fans.

Via EdTechPost

The Technology Difference in Learning

Does technology make a difference in learning? If so, how?

In a concise and elegant monograph ("The Myth about No Significant Difference") in Educause Review, Diana Oblinger and Brian Hawkins suggest that we reframe the question.

Torrey Pines Reserve  by TheNose.

"Learning occurs as a result of motivation, opportunities, an active process, interaction with others, and the ability to transfer learning to a real-world situation." --Oblinger, Hawkins

As a result, Oblinger and Hawkins suggest that we reframe the "technology difference" question by asking how specific technologies advance each of these modalities of learning. They conclude by posing a set of strategic questions for the CIO and members of the executive team.

V-Education: Why I am Bullish on Second Life ...

Is everyone getting on the Second Life bandwagon?

Clay Shirky has written a contrarian piece ("a story too good to check"), suggesting that Second Life is a "much-hyped" phenomenon that will go the way of Pointcast and LambdaMOO into the dustbin of Internet history.

Let me add to the Second Life hype meter.

• I believe that Second Life was the most important development in educational technology during 2006.
  
  
• Moreover, I predict that by 2010 3D Virtual Worlds will become the primary user interface for learning environments, including learning management systems.

Shirky has a point but misses the Point. Acccording to Shirky, "There's nothing wrong with a service that appeals to tens of thousands of people, but in a billion-person internet, that population is also a rounding error. If most of the people who try Second Life bail (and they do), we should adopt a considerably more skeptical attitude about proclamations that the oft-delayed Virtual Worlds revolution has now arrived."

Second Life, the particular implementation of 3D virtual worlds, might be a rounding error but the technology is here to stay and will become mainstream in education and in business far sooner than people realize.

More on point is Irving Wladawsky-Berger, who is leading the Second Life charge at IBM. In "Experimenting with Virtual Worlds in the Real Marketplace", Wladawsky-Berger writes: 

"There are tens of millions of people around the world involved in collaborative, Web 2.0 kinds of applications, including quite a large number participating in visually oriented, massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft and role-playing virtual world environments like Second Life. Something must be going on that is attracting all those people, and it is only through experimentation that we will figure out how to capture the essence of that attraction so we can transfer it to business and societal applications.  We went through a very similar experience in the early and mid 1990s trying to understand the appeal of the Internet and nascent World Wide Web so we could develop what eventually became e-business.  We are now trying to understand what v-business is all about."

Wladowsky-Berger, head of technical strategy and innovation at IBM, recently announced that virtual reality and other rich interfaces is of strategic interest to IBM and will draw increasing investments in the coming years.

The Blackboard Morality Tale

"the rich were usually mean. Not able to separate themselves from the practices that had made the money: infighting, habitual fraud, mad agility in compound deceit, and strange conventions of legitimate swindling."  Saul Bellow's Mr. Sammler's Planet

By focusing exclusively on the legal jockeying in the Blackboard Inc. case we might miss the morality tale.

This week legal activity reached fever pitch. First, Desire2Learn opened up a second front in the battle by filing for a re-examination with the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (PTO). Simultaneously, it filed for a motion in the Eastern Texas District Court to stay legal proceedings pending re-examination by the PTO. Blackboard Inc. countered by filing an Opposition to D2L's Motion to Stay. Desire2Learn then countered Blackboard's counter. Feldstein and Schmoller have provided insightful early commentary on the legal maneuvers.

Let's apply a different lens by unpacking Blackboard's Inc. "Opposition to Stay" document, not from the standpoint of the law but as a rhetorical probe into the company's objectives.

• Reasonable Royalty. Blackboard Inc. has consistently and repeatedly asserted in public forums that its intention in suing D2L is to recover "reasonable royalties." The "Opposition to D2L Document" reveals a very different story. Like mad Ahab in pursuit of the White Whale, Blackboard avows in court that it is seeking the lethal harpoon of  injunction against D2L. ["a stay would harm Blackboard by allowing Desire2Learn to avoid an injunction"; "Blackboard seeks an injunction.."; "a stay would irreparably harm Blackboard by preventing it from obtaining an injunction against Desire2Learn's infringement"; "An injunction is particularly important here.."; "obtaining an injunction against Desire2Learn.."; "Delay in Blackboard's ability to obtain an injunction..; ] Read the entire document and there is no mistake that Blackboard is seeking a mortal blow against Desire2Learn and will pursue its foe relentlessly and ruthlessly.
  
  
• The Foreign Threat. The most remarkable statement in the entire document is the following: "An injunction is particularly important here, given that Desire2Learn is a foreign, (emphasis mine) privately-held technology start-up company." No one can miss the trope. Why is it relevant to mention that D2L is a foreign company? Taken in context the sentence might be translated as: "Judge, you are a loyal American and we are an American company. If you issue a stay order, you will be responsible for loss of American jobs to a foreign competitor. Each day of delay translates into lost jobs at the hands of a foreign competitor that has stolen our intellectual property. We want an injunction (i.e. death) against an illegitimate and criminal foreign competitor." How friendly you reckon is the Eastern Texas District Count to foreigners? We don't know, but Blackboard's lawyers are not hesitating to play the xenophobic card. Also interesting is the mis-characterization of Desire2Learn as a startup company. Here is the context: "There is no reason to believe that, when the reexamination with all attendant appeals is complete, Desire2Learn will have the resources to pay a judgment for damages that accrue during the stay." This is no game. It's apparent that Blackboard will be seeking huge damages and an injunction to force a shut down of the company unless Desire2Learn capitulates and begs for mercy.
  
  
• The Secret Document. Many of us have wondered why Desire2Learn was the target and why so soon? Now we know. We learn of a sealed document filed by Blackboard and referred to as Exhibit C, "a highly confidential submission to the U.S. Department of Justice during the approval process for Blackboard's merger with WebCT, in which Blackboard sets forth in detail the competitive threat posed by Desire2Learn. This document, which was submitted before the PTO issued the '138 patent, shows that Blackboard has lost more licenses to Desire2Learn than to any other company." Not only does Blackboard take Desire2Learn seriously but sees it as the only major competitor and obstacle standing on the road to total dominance of the commerical LMS market. (The sealed document also brings to the forefront John Mayer's observations about Blackboard's possibly questionable conduct during the DOJ anti-trust review. "Professor Chiapetta reminded me that there might be a linkage to the inequitable conduct defense and possible Sherman Act (antitrust) cross-claims that Desire2Learn could bring against BlackBoard. Remember, we still don't know what or how much BlackBoard disclosed to the Department of Justice during the review of their purchase of WebCT back in January of this year.")

What is the upshot of the Blackboard morality tale? We have a company that has seized community property --- your property and mine--- and now in broad daylight is wielding our knife to cut its competitor's throat.

Blackboard Financials: Why Are Insiders Still Dumping the Stock?

On the surface Blackboard stock still looks good. The stock price has inched up a couple of points since the patent controversy began and one of the analysts (Banc of America Sec) recently upgraded from neutral to buy, setting the target price to increase to $38 per share.

So, why are Blackboard insiders still dumping the stock?  I called attention to the phenomenon ("follow the money") in August. Guess what? The trend hasn't abated. During the past six months Blackboard insiders have sold over 220,000 shares and purchased only 22. What do they know that we don't?

Even Forbes recently took notice ("five insider selling plays") listing Blackboard as one of the top five companies with significant insider dumping of stocks:  "Executives have recently unloaded a significant amount of stock at these five companies. Insider selling hardly spells doom, but it could serve as signal for those looking to take some profits or make an outright exit from a stock.")

Hardly a sign of confidence in their own company.