The Importance of Choice

I attended a presentation on the new new (impending) VLE at NTU yesterday.

An issue I raised (as I have done elsewhere) is whether any policy descision has yet been made about staff who currently use external sites to provide those things that the current VLE (the VLP) doens't. For instance I have a couple of blogs (this being one of them but the more active one is one I use to support a third year module) and I also use Flickr (a litle bit) and YouTube for video hosting.

Now the new VLE will support some of thes features (and I'll use them for some modules) but I don't wan to be told that it was all very well being an innovator and early adoptor but everything must now come in-house once support for such features becomes available. For some things I want to keep them external, one very good reason being that people outside of NTU can access them, and I believe this contributes to the global profile of the university. And contributes to the gloabal pool of knowledge. NTU doeosn't lose out be some of my materials being externally available but it can gain. Thoughts from colleagues most welcome.

Happy New Year! Very Peculiar Practice...

Wishing you all a Happy New Year.

The New Year is here and the new term beckons. I remember when 2008 was a date in science fiction novels... Santa was kind to me but something I'm really looking forward to is reading a couple of novels I treated myself to via Amazon just before Christmas.

A Very Peculiar Practice and A Very Peculiar Practice: The New Frontier, both by Andrew Davies. I'd lent the DVD of the first TV series (on the BBC many years ago) to a colleague and when he returned it at the end of last term it prompted me to search for the novels once again. They've been out of print for some time but Amazon gave me links to second hand copies via some kind of affiliated sellers. So everyone won.

The series should be compulsory viewing for anyone working in Higher Education.

Phil