Ed Bilodeau

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This weblog had moved: http://www.coolweblog.com/bilodeau/

# Notice (Oct 19/05): So ends my stay here on Blogger. This morning Google implemented an anti-spam 'feature' that forces me to answer a challenge phrase when I want to post to my own blog. No notice of the change, nothing. Worse is that it doesn't even work! I type the phrase, submit, "An error occured", post deleted. Damn you, Google. Chances are I will revive my blog somewhere else, sometime soon. I'll post the new coordinates here as soon as they become available. (BTW, I'm unable to post anything to my RSS stream, so I'd appreciate it if readers could spread the word and ask people to take a look at this notice)

Update (Oct 19/05, ~noon): After a frustrating few hours (and not just trying out alternatives to Blogger), I've decided that this is a good time to take a break from all this. A day? A week? Who knows. But I need to step away from it before I pass a heavy magnet over the whole mess.

Update 2: According to this post, the reason I'm seeing the CAPTCHA (challenge phrase) is that Blogger has classified my blog as spam. Thanks. User for five years and now I'm spam. I searched the Blogger site, but there is no mention of how to get the spam flag turned off. There is also no way of contacting anyone at Blogger. Wow. Spam they say I am, so spam I must be. Maybe it is time to take a break.

Monday, October 25, 2004

McGill's next course learning management system : I just attended a presentation by Laura Winer, Senior Educational Technologist here at McGill, about the status of McGill's selection of its next learning management system. The decision is down to WebCT Vista or Desire2Learn. A decision is expected before the end of November, with full implmentation expected for Fall 2005.

Here are the points that stood out for me:
  • The decision to switch was primarily driven by the fact that WebCT Campus Edition is not capable of supporting our level of usage.

  • The system is used 24/7, but support is only available 8/5. The university is looking at improving this.

  • Making course materials publically available is not high on McGill's list of requirements. The new systems do allow instructors to create guest accounts, but supporting something like MIT's OpenCourseWare is not in the works.
The presentation was streamed live and should be archived for later viewing. Once a link is avilable, I'll post it here.