Jon Udell: Turning consumers into producers

Pay close attention to the pivotal word "experience" -- as in, for example, "the user experience." It's the clue to understanding why Steve Jobs and John Mayer onstage at Macworld, mixing tracks in GarageBand, have more to do with IT's mission than you might think. The quality of experience that we deliver, through software and services, will depend on our ability to negotiate protocols and relationships in a fluid, rapidly-evolving environment. In short: to jam.

If only the folks in my IT department read Jon Udell...

I am constantly amazed at the lack of vision in most school district IT departments, and also in most cases in their curriculum departments. The thing that got me excited about the Internet in schools was not so much the ability to bring resources to the classroom. While that is a worthwhile enterprise, what really excited me was the ability for my students to share their work with others. In the 10 years that I have been publishing this is what has really excited me...

Speaking of user experience... this week coming up is going to be interesting. My teachers will be entering grades in our student information system for the first time. This is a Java based web application... As far as I can tell it was designed by frogs...