December 18th, 2005 10
Obviously, the blackboard takeover of Web CT
Well… who’s to say what happens over this. It may be that the whole market gets cornered by this new giant, as they stop wasting money trying to crush each other and now go to work on the world. Blackboard’s close relationship to microsoft notwithstanding the new monolith that is the mega-LMS industry is something we’ll be watching in 2006.
9
Moodle at Athabasca and open university.
This year saw two massive online universities switch to an open source VLE. I is proof that the open source model can be attractive even to big companies, those of us that are fans of moodle and the open source industry are hoping that all goes well…
8.
Something about web 2.0 which bust out this year
2005 was, if anything, the year of the read/write web. Few websites now don’t at least give you the chance to play with their themes, if not create most of the content. This year user side apps were king, and the wisdom of the masses put to the test.
7.
Open Office 2.0 released
This application might be the biggest reason that microsoft loses its stranglehold on the desktop market. It allows for full compatability to everything that anyone uses. If the browser based app doesn’t kill all, then this will carve out a lot of market for mac and linux.
6.
rising censorship/targeting/moral panic surrounding
myspace, facebook, teen-blogging
One of the big debates this year is ‘what do we do about our students being on the internet’. While this is not new, nor is it the kind of conversation particularly restricted to the net, it just seemed everywhere we turned someone was talking about a new server blocking edublogs, or skype. Or someone talking about how a student who did something wrong ‘also had a blog’. This conversation has now become part of the common discourse.
5.
Podcasting!
Wow. Podcasting’s cool huh…
4.
The one hundred dollar laptop
While many of us are tired of hearing about this already “i want one damnit, stop talking to me about it†we are tired of it because some people were interested in talking about nothing else. How many times have each of you had someone come up to you and say “hey, there’s a hundred dollar laptopâ€. Well… hey, there’s hundred dollar laptop. ps. It doesn’t really exist.
3
Wikipedia and news reporting.
While the ‘Indian Ocean Tsunami’ actually happened on boxing day of 2004, it was harbinger of the rise of wikipedia and ‘on-the-spot’ reporting. As the cable news reporters were becoming more imbeded and centralized it stepped up and filled the need for immediate personalized news. Other events this year, like the London bombing, have only served to reinforce this. Millions of people now turn to wikipedia to both produce and consume information about what’s happening right now.
2
Firefox
On October 19, 2005, Firefox had its 100 millionth download, just 344 days after the release of version 1.0. Many of us forget that a year ago we were still telling people… hey, you gotta try this firefox thing. Another of the new solid competitors for Microsoft, firefox has now become a household name for people outside that long standing community of netscape/mozilla lovers.
1
the browser based app.
The second, and perhaps more serious, competitor to the microsoft hegemony is the browser based application. With programs like ‘writely.com’ and ‘odeo’ the desktop based app. May soon become a thing of the specialist and the uncool. This year they hit the mainstreem, and they work. We may soon be looking back on 2005 and saying… ‘man, i was still using applications… what a pain in the ass.’
I would say that Firefox would be number 1! The add on features are awesome! I bet Bill Gates uses Firefox when he is alone at home?