Great conversation with Doc Wagner...and I'm enjoying following her blog. Good topics included the concept of "free beer" vs "free puppy" Both are "free" but one comes with "strings" attached. Free content management systems (or any kind of software) has hidden costs that must be considered; including limited functionality, security, and lack of support. On the other hand, these free puppies have open sourceware that allows them to be customized and often communities grow up around them. I'm not much of a techie but it's an interesting debate.

Another good topic was hype cycle as applied to tech. I love it. I recall the joy I got when I bought my iphone at the reduced price and outrage it engendered in the early adopters. In education I've seen lots of hype around technology...from probeware to smartboards. There is that initial trigger followed by that peak of inflated expectations. Laptops were going to transform writting in the classroom, but only writing can transform writing. In my chemistry class I've found probeware often removes students from the experiment and focuses entirely on recording data. You could say I'm in a trough of disillusionment regarding probeware. However, as I modify the poorly written probeware labs to better reflect the kind of teaching and learning I try to do I will enter that slope of enlightenment that will become the legacy of my probeware curriculum.

Then there's her take on Web 3.0....the 3D web. Right now she doesn't have much to base this on. Second life is really the only good example of learning taking place in a 3D (actually it's more 2D but lets say virtual) world. Limitations exist; The avatars are clumsy, the world is graphically poor compared to our world, but it's a start......and you can fly. Personally, I think Web 3.0 is the mash-up web. Things will start to cross polinate or cross platformate. This is where the free puppy pays off. People are already talking about a mashup of google earth and second life...second earth. These existing 3-D platforms let outside programmers build their own auxiliary applications (can you say mashup) within the virtual world. I read about a colorado professor using second life as a way to get his students "inside" the weather. At the international spaceflight museum, visitors can virtually fly alongside life sized rockets. It's only a matter of time before I meet my students in the metaverse classroom......'oh the places we will go"

Ok...now I've excited myself into a daydream. I think I'll work on my podcast for awhile