Dublin City University, moodle, podcasts

I’m just finishing up listening to the podcast of the Auricle interview of Dublin City University’s Morag Munro on their moodle migration. It’s a good listen. They’re running moodle for 13,000 students on a single server with a backup/development server standing by. They easily linked it to their authentication system and their student information system. Had I seen this when I was in Dublin last week maybe I would have looked them up? Well, probably not. I was able to not think about work for those 2 weeks which was a record.

Back to podcasting. I’m finding I’m using podcasts as tivo for radio (which is not uncommon). My habit has been to take the podcasts for FutureTense, On The Media, and The World: Technology and burn them to CD for listening in the car. It’s been great to have my favorite radio spots whenever I want them. If I was really crafty I’d get an iTrip for my iPod and just use that. But I still like the simplicity of the CD.

Indiana U students Phish for Test subjects

From the Wired Campus Blog (this one has had some good stuff!), 2 Indiana University grad students did a research study on privacy and the public sphere. Using public information, they sent customized emails to students that appeared to be from their friends directing them to a website which required authentication. Once there they authenticated with their IU logins — oops!

I find this so informative/educational for people. We always try to tell our faculty, staff, and students don’t believe the From and don’t click on web links in emails (especially if you’re not expecting them!). I was amazed to read that the students did go through their IRB — Human Subjects Committee — process. People just trust email too much.

Chronicle’s Wired Campus blog has some good items

Catching up on my RSS feeds today, I found these gems:

• MIT Students write a computer program to generate a fake jargon paper because they were sick of getting emails from the conference. Well, their paper was accepted!
• Campus listserves at UPenn are getting a bit out of control. Though our campus communication procedure is more tight now, I think it makes things students get seem more important. If they’re not buried in junk emails the important registrar or financial aid message will get noticed and read, in my opinion.

The Wired Campus blog has had some really good items. It’s worth subscribing to via RSS!

NASA is podcasting

I just read that NASA has started a podcast. Copy this link to your Podcasting software.
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Never use AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), and stop using it if you already are

I read from this blog , about the new terms of service for the chat service. Basically, you waive the right to privacy and AOL has rights to use whatever is said as it wants…..
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