will be w/o a real Internet connection for a few weeks now probably.

wrote a list of things that need doing this evening and it's worrying long. Ergo, I am online.

New iPhone?

July so far has been a busy month and there are only two days left for it to prove otherwise. Consequently, between sessions of preparing our new help system, I've time for the occasional visit to Twitter and that's about it. (Hence the lack of recent updates on this here blog.)

Since my last post about Twitter (in which I said I'd be taking part in a new social media experiment called Infinite Summer), I've been on it quite a lot. And unlike my other forays into social networking this hasn't been one of these read- or write-only things.

In fact, I've been getting into it so much, I've been tempted to get myself an iPhone so I can play with it on the go (which lately is where I've been finding myself).

Of course, these toys and gadgets are changing so fast nowadays, I find myself resorting back to my old "deferred entry" excuses, excuses which follow this line of reasoning: if something is going to be better and/or cheaper in a few months time, might as well put your pennies in a piggy bank and wait 'til then. Which reasoning means of course that I will never ever buy any new toy or gadget, unless we hit that sometime-anticipated technological singularity while my money is still worth something. (Some have placed bets on 2012.)

All of which is one way of directing you to a report from America's Finest News Source about the new iPhone, which I must say even I am tempted to buy into.

Some more stuff about Twitter and the #infsum thing is waiting in my blogpost drafts area and it'll be there I guess until I've decided the grammar is sufficiently anal enough for all to see. Hopefully sometime in the next few days.

Bb 9 Upgrade Notes (LSBU)

Last Friday, my colleague Robyn and I went to the University of Westminster for the London BbUG (Blackboard Users' Group). It was, as usual, a nice way of catching up with friends and colleagues in other institutions and a healthy outlet for our frustrations with, ahem, certain bits of software. We also got to see a couple of presentations - one of which was given by three people from London South Bank University (LSBU).

LSBU recently upgraded to version 9 of Blackboard and it was very interesting to hear about the issues they had and were, in some cases, still experiencing.

They have a large and diverse student body; 23,500 students, half of whom are of ethnic minority. The decision to upgrade came apparently from their Vice Chancellor, and was related to recognition of the need for a student portal. Coming from the top down as it did, the upgrade was thoroughly planned; Jim Nottingham gave a glimpse of their schedule as laid out in a finely-detailed spreadsheet. This tight schedule was crucial for them, I gather, as use of the VLE continued heavily through the summer months and they were upgrading from version 7.2 (which e-portfolio users will remember had some pretty dire bugs).

Sarah Bell, who's on the e-learning team there, listed some of the bugs they are now encountering in the upgraded software, among which were (from my scribbled notes):

• Problems with course copying (something to do with admin settings and existing courses)
• Language pack issues
• Availability of courses for the TA role
• Issues with announcements
• Ample time to make cup of tea while waiting for Grade Center to load
• File exchange issues
• Problems with lists and re-ordering items in courses
• Changing colour of item titles
• Browsing received e-portfolios still limited

I wasn't really surprised by the last of those points. The interface may've changed but the functionality of the e-portfolios is much the same. In fact, that's one of the main reasons we at Reading have decided not to opt for the upgrade this summer. The biggest challenge we imagined facing, before we even hit any bugs, would be re-training staff in the new Web 2.0 "look-and-feel" with its lack of control panel, etc. The new interfaces are better, and kudos to Blackboard for finally trying to catch up with the kids, but they do leave staff who are used to clunky workarounds and web-based forms with receipts in need of some support, guidance, and general TLC.

If you see this as a problem (which we did, in terms of resourcing) then it's one more to the list, as Version 9 doesn't actually have enough change in functionality to solve any of our existing problems! Ergo, automatically, the cons outweigh the pros.

I did speak to a few of people from Blackboard at the Bb World Europe conference this year about their plans for e-portfolios. All they could tell me was that big things were on the way (which, in retrospect, sounds kind of ominous). I have not-so-secretly been hoping that they don't change e-portfolios too much as we've adjusted to the pitfalls and built our enhanced iLearn features on the back of it. If they do, it would be nice just to include some extra functions that don't interfere with the current operations (like they did with the Received Portfolios organisation): things like an ability to import e-portfolios back into Blackboard, an option to give 'write' permissions to others and an improved WYSIWYG text-editor (like the LX one). Simple additions like that would go a long way to improving the tool, whether the interface is 'clunky' or not.

The same probably goes for the rest of Blackboard - which might explain why, with the exception of LSBU and one other person I spoke to, no-one else at the Users Group is going ahead with an upgrade this year.

#infsum

This week I have decided to participate in a sort-of-new social media experiment.

Depending on which way you look at it, Infinite Summer was set up either as a challenge to or a support base for those who have had David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest on their shelves for too long and hadn't until now mustered the strength to lug it off. The "challenge" (for those that see it that way) is to read the book in three months... Well 91 days to be exact; most people began on June 21st and are set to end on September same, thus encompassing all of the summer-official, and hence the name of the experiment.

The reason this is a challenge, and the reason one might also see it as a support base or network or group, is because the book contains over 1,000 pages, a not insignificant chunk of which are endnotes. The length (or heft) of the book is often commented upon but, just in case it's not clear, it is a novel. This is a fictional book to be read for pleasure.

DFW has for a few years now been one of my favourite writers and Infinite Jest has been taking up a wedge of space on my bookshelf for about the same amount of time. I avoided reading it by absorbing everything else he'd written that I could get my hands on, thinking I'd never have the time to commit to his magnum opus. I was shocked by his suicide last year and was going to post something on this blog but didn't think what I had written was appropriate at the time.

Many others were upset too. Some like the founders of Infinite Summer were obviously more productive in their response to his passing.

The official website (http://infinitesummer.org/) is set to feature regular blog postings from writers who are reading the book alongside everyone else, commenting on their experiences with the books and making people feel perhaps a little less alone in the challenge. (As well as being long and containing endnotes, the general preconception of the book is that it's difficult.)

Meanwhile, a Twitter hashtag (#infsum) has been set up so that twitterers can comment on the book and then see each others' comments by doing a quick search.

For those who have ever participated in a book club, this may not seem that original or experimental. The first obvious difference from a 'real' book club that meets in a physical location, is that, as with most online groups, distance is no issue; people from all over the globe can alert and update each other as to their progress and interpretations. Twitter also seems to eradicate time issues; it's not exactly asynchronous as it's possible to simulate live chat via Twitter but it's also possible to (dis)engage at any moment. This has its advantages and inevitable its disadvantages.

One criticism, that could also be levelled at Twitter as a whole, is that people don't necessarily communicate but just key others into their own updates via the hashtag. This means the tool sometimes seems to facilitate something more like a support group for addicts ("It's been 7 days. I've read 63 pages. Every day is struggle" &c.) than an actual discussion, but then perhaps that's appropriate given the alleged subject matter of the book. There might also be a parallel to the upcoming "bookaholic" publicity campaign, which Jean Hannah Edelstein reported on earlier this month.

Another disadvantage might be that it encourages instantaneous judgement of the section just read every time the book is put down. Obviously people continuously form and change opinions as they read something but I wonder if Twitter will encourage people to cement those opinions without giving them more than 140 characters to reflect on them.

Having said that, Twitter is only one outlet for those taking part and many are keeping blogs on their progress. You can follow all this yourself by checking out the website (link above) or the hashtag.

I have decided to back-post my tribute for DFW written at the time of his death - you can find it here. I'll let you know if anything interesting in the way of social media experimentation comes up.

started on #infsum last night. Progress so far: pg12.

got into the office bright and early to catch up on work before the #pdprdg event. (Coffee, for once, may be required.)