Howard Gheinold introduces us in the world of cooperation. He claims that new cooperation possibilities are open because of the new times they are coming. In his TED talk, or the “extended” screencast, he covers couple of human facts that are amusing and at the same time revealing. First, the prisoner’s dilemma and also the tit-for-tat. In both cases, uncommunicated people make worse choices than if they were communicated. Thus, cooperation is the way forward. I could see better ways to demonstrate the benefits of cooperation, like invention of computers or any other major scientific breakthrough.

However, if his talk did not pose any striking question to be answered and it seems just a call for help to find a path, he has at least supported the development of what it seems a nice idea: Social Media Classroom and Collaboratory (SMC) If moodle claimed to be the constructivist approach to learning management systems, SMC seems to be the learning approach to the social constructivism tools that is what we call web 2.0. The main difference between moodle and SMC is that moodle provides the same tools, blogs, wikis,…, as SMC; however, SMC put the in a greater context. In SMC those tools form part of a greater conversation, one own continuous learning. Moodle, instead, secludes them within the limits of a single course. Following the thread on learning and collaboration within the web I have got to know two other possible collaboration tools: mahara.org, again from Vasilis, and elgg from the ICT4D consortium. These three tools deserve to be considered when thinking about possible remote cooperation and learning between UoJ and UiK.

The success of the project requires cooperation and we must find the right tools. However, tools are not the panacea, we need to provide the project participants just with what is needed, and not only the latest cool gadget we download from the internet. I assume that neither UoJ and UiK have extensive web 2.0 experience, this project should build up their capabilities in that respect little by little. Problem of these tools is their reliance on internet connectivity which may not be assured at one end. A right cooperation tool in our setting should be able to overcome that difficulty by other means, mobile sms as an RSS reader?

Hole in the wall (HiW) is an interesting project that is fuelled by human natural curiosity, it also removes the role of the teacher which is quite suggesting. It still makes necessary the role of the content developer who becomes almost a remote teacher. The idea behind HiW is that a computer is placed in a public space in a way that anyone can play with it. Applications are tailored to show how the can work with the computer by practical means.

Hole in the wall has become a huge success, both in the educational and public-awareness factors. If we want to bring internet to UiK this could seriously be one approach. The benefits are the low maintenance and high visibility. While original Hole in the Wall is intended for kids, we could spark the interest on Climate Change for students at UiK and UoJ by making them collaborate through several holes that connect them and give them information about climate change. This information could be the result of the joint effort from both faculties.

For our intention, the biggest drawback of the hole in the wall is the fact that it has worked for kids and it is still to be seen if the idea can work with adults. In UiK the possibility to use it to connect to the internet is attractive and that could bring some users, but in UoJ there is not such a incentive, and new ideas for content should be developed, maybe a tit-for-tat game across continents.

If money and administrative stuff were not an issue, the way I’d like to see this happening is by creating a virtual private network (VPN) connecting UiK to UoJ. This can be achieved by installing two very small aperture terminals (VSAT) in each location and getting a data plan that connects both of them directly. VSAT’s are the fastest way to connect remote locations to the grid and are widely used in Africa. For a description on performance look here, for a possible provider here. A small antenna (~3m diameter) connects to a satellite. Improvements in the technology claim faster speeds and weather-proofness, i.e., rain nor clouds will affect. In the VPN configuration, connection to UoJ would be about 2mpbs, enabling videoconferencing, VoIP, … Another benefit is that they would also access the same journals, UoJ can access to. These two benefits make the idea quite compelling.

Other alternatives include simple VSAT to connect to the internet, which is not usually fast and depends on some remote hub to provide with reliable access. Finally, if project start is delayed we may wait for the undersea cable to provide internet to Kenya. They claim it will be 5000% cheaper for Universities!! But something must be bad with their calculations…

As I mentioned before, UiK are also low on the computer facilities. I would equip the university with some good laptops that connect via wireless.

These are just not so crazy ideas, but they need a lot of polish when it comes to affordability, sustainability, and other ilities.

Our case study responds to an actual need from a University in Kenya (UiK) and the University of Joensuu (UoJ). UoJ and UiK want to establish a link between them so expertise is shared, and staff at both sites can learn from each other strengths. The background of the project aims to improve the capacity of UiK to join the global discourse on climate change by training the staff on related issues, so relevant courses can later be taught at UiK.

The scenario is as follows: On one hand, we have an European university with all the facilities that can be imagined. The staff are experts in climate change topics. However, they are not aware of the possibilities of educational technologies, nor e-learning tools and methodologies.

On the other hand, we have an Western African university, where there are 4 public computers for all the post-grad students (more than one thousand) and no internet connection, i.e. 0 kb/s. Staff are experts in agroforestry and have their own working computer, which are not networked. And as their partners at Joensuu they do not have experience in e-learning nor other educational technologies. However, they have expressed the need to learn how to produce material for electronic platforms.

And the question is: How can ICT facilitate the communication and educational process between two institutions? How to train both institutions in the correct use of educational technologies?

However, a precondition to first questions is: How can we setup a network at UiK consisting at least of few computers and a internet connection?

Answering these questions properly will enable proper interaction between UoJ and UiK. The ultimate goal of the project would be to stop climate change, however, for our case study it will be enough if ICT can promote cooperation rather than hinder development.

In a homage to the Spanish most acclaimed chef, Ferran Adriá, we will have a deconstructed programme where sessions (flavors) are separated and reorganized in a delicious way. If arrangements go as expected, they never do, we will have invited short talks from Sri Lanka, Spain, Ireland and Finland. See you tomorrow. If you want to take part online let me know in advance, so we can test it.

PhD Day 20th March

10:00 - 10:40 Andrés Moreno, Dr Hewagamage, Antti Rantaeskola, Francisco Moreno, you …E-learning around the world (Sri Lanka, Finland, Spain)

10:40 - 11:00 Welcoming words by Erkki Sutinen

11:00 - 11:30 Marjo Virnes, PhD in Progress: Process of data analysis in Grounded Theory (GT) study

11:30 - 11:45 Next PhD meeting discussion

11:45 - 13:00 Everybody,Lunch at Aura

13:00 - XX:XX Philip Land, Ireland, ICT for social development in Ireland: Idea seeking

If you want to discuss about the topics or the schedule itself use the comments section!

PhD progress reports

The next PhD day will be dealing PhD progress reports from at least Marjo and possibly Jussi. As there are slots available, if you want to say anything about your PhD (methods you are using, papers you are writing,…) please contact me to arrange the best way to present your message.

For those presenting, I will appreciate if they could send me something for the others to read before your presentation.

Theme of the day:E-learning

I will like to ask the participants of the PhD day and the readers of this blog, to share their experiences in e-learning in other parts of the world. How is e-learning organized in other universities? Which roles can be found in e-learning departments and e-learning platforms?…

Please, comment to this post with your experiences and reflections.

Online participation

Online participation is possible, please email amoreno@cs to arrange it. Adobe connect is the preferred method. However, skype can be considered as well if Adobe solution is not good for you, e.g., linux user.

Tentative program

PhD Day 20th March

10:15 - 10:30 Welcoming words by Erkki Sutinen

10:30 - 11:00 Marjo Virnes, PhD in Progress: Process of data analysis in Grounded Theory (GT) study

11:00 - 11:30 Philip Land, Ireland, To Be Confirmed

11:30 - 12:00 Jussi Nuutinen, a Nutting Surprise

12:00 - 13:00 Everybody,Lunch at Aura

13:00 - 13:30 Your Name Here, Free Slot

13:30 - 14:00 Andrés Moreno,E-learning in Sri Lanka, and other opportunities

14:00 - 14:15 Next PhD meeting discussion

This cute little smurf is part of the “happy smurfday” campaign. UNICEF is celebrating the 50th anniversary of smurfs in Europe, and in Helsinki the have recently gave away thousands of smurfs for people to paint, there is even a competition, check the webpage.

My plan is to have a small mini me ( o mini-yo). I still accept suggestions, but note that I have already discarded super-smurf.

This time, Spanish ministers started diplomatic talks to get them released, and luckily they were succesful. I can just wonder what would have happen if Gambia happened to have oil to distribute as in the case of fictional country Qumran.

These thoughts and the news of Saudi crown prince visiting Spain brought me some more connections with the past. Kapuściński’s Shah of Shahs narrates the events surrounding the history of the last Shah of Iran. It tells how the rise of oil prices back then made of the Shah’s living room one important place to visit for Western governors. At that time, no one cared about the state of human rights in Iran, as long as oil was flowing in the right direction. Today … history repeats.

Today I have got a branch of Jeliot published in Launchpad. It is basically a mirror of the HEAD of our current CVS server.

The steps I took were:

1. Get the project files from the University server

tar cf /scracht/jeliot/CVSROOT.tar /home/proty/cvs/CVSROOT
bzip2 /scratch/jeliot/CVSROOT.tar
tar cf /scracht/jeliot/jeliot.cvs.tar /home/proty/cvs/jeliot
bzip2 /scracht/jeliot/jeliot.cvs.tar

2. copy and extract the 2 files to my home pc

mkdir ~/repo-cvs
extract to repo-cvs/CVSROOT
extract to repo-cvs/jeliot

3. Install bzr and cvs and cvsps

sudo apt-get install bzr cvs cvsps

4. Install cvsps-import plugin in bzr

cd /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/bzrlib/plugins/
bzr checkout lp:bzr-cvsps-import cvsps_import

5. Import Jeliot CVS to Bazaar!

~/repo-cvs/$ bzr cvsps-import . jeliot ../repo-bzr

6. Checkout the head from the recently created Bazaar repository

mkdir ~/jeliot-bzr-HEAD
cd ~/jeliot-bzr-HEAD
bzr checkout ../jeliot_bzr/bzr/jeliot/branches/HEAD/

7. Publish it in a test branch I created at launchpad

bzr push bzr+ssh://andresfib@bazaar.launchpad.net/
      ~andresfib/jeliot3/test

This last step may look like the easiest one, but it took a while to discover what they meant with ssh_keys :)

Now interested parties can “pull” Jeliot source code using bzr and commit their changes to a branch of their own in Launchpad. Or wait till they get commit privileges to the trunk branch, which is not yet created. As well, they can browse the code.

Next lesson: working with eclipse.

Jeliot 3 is meant to animate Java programs. Its animation and interface has gathered a number of followers during this time. In the last years people have required to change the language Jeliot understands and animates. Java is not always the preferred first language taught in schools and colleges. So people have been asking us to implement the tool to animate C, C++, python…Jeliot was designed to allow this new breed of languages, but we don’t have the resources to make it happen.

Recently, an Irish group from the Institute of Technology Blanchardstown got funding to implement a Jeliot version that animates C++, which they have named Jeliot-C. They were visiting Joensuu and met us to discuss how their development could proceed so that both of us will mutually benefit from new features implemented in Jeliot 3.

Jeliot 3 source code is hosted at a CVS server within the University of Joensuu, so outside developers wishing to collaborate only solution till now was to grab the tarball of each release from our download pages and work with that, and eventually notifying us the changes they have done. Not a very open source approach.

To facilitate Jeliot-C development and encourage new off-springs we have been thinking of moving the source code repository to some of the web services available for open source projects. From the myriad of offerings I have picked two as main competitors: Google Code Hosting and Launchpad. Moving Jeliot development to one of these options is a brave step, as we are quite used to our actual workflow on eclipse+cvs.

Google Code Hosting looks like the most simple way to move the development away from our university server. We can just upload a SVN conversion of our CVS repository and we are ready to go. As an added bonus we get a wiki and google group for the project. Any google account can be part of the development team.

Launchpad is a bit more convoluted when it comes to bring our code to its repository: Launchpad importing services require an open CVS server, which we don’t have. Alternatively we can could use SVN server, which we don’t have but we could if we were in Google Code (but then what’s the reason for Launchpad). However, Launchpad uses Bazaar as its version control system, so ideally we could have a bazaar server and push our code to Launchpad (and this is what I am trying to do at the moment).

Bazaar lacks the support that CVS and SVN have amongst developer tools. However, combined with Launchpad, it is a powerful system for managing a eco-system of developments and developers around a main trunk. where branches emerge and merge as needed.

Launchpad tools include bug tracker, questions, and blueprints ( links to features to be implemented). It lacks a wiki, but all the tools are well integrated. A blueprint, or a bug, can be associated to a branch that develops the feature.

Anyway, I have created the following Jeliot related projects in Launchpad…

• A project group (super-project) that comprises the main developments
• Jeliot 3 project
• Jeliot-C project (to get the internal project name changed, currently jeliot-old)

And you can find me in Launchpad as well.

Have a look and tell me where you think we should move Jeliot!