Private Directories with Movable Type

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This past week was a good example of why I like weblogs. Will Richardson started a discussion about student publishing that was picked up by serveral other folks. With comments and trackback the conversation took off. Greg Ritter over at Ten Reason's Why has listed a nice chronology of the discussion. This morning Matt Jadud wrote to me to suggest...

The fastest way to hide your content on the webserver (password protect it, etc.) will be to do it via an .htaccess file... (assuming you're running Apache)

I have been able to have MT save the alternate index file in the seperate directory, now will look into what Matt has suggested. Over the weekend I'll work to set up a demo...

Bloggers at NECC

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This past year, I have been on leave from Portland Public Schools, and have had the opportunity to work in Intel's education web group. The folks in the group are interested in learning more about the use of weblogs in education and have offered to sponsor an informal birds of a feather type meeting at NECC (National Education Computing Conference) in Seattle. I'm hoping to get an idea of the number of folks that are going to NECC and would also be interested in getting together on Monday evening (June 30, 2003) for an informal gathering of webloggers.

If you plan on attending NECC and would like to hook up with others, please let me know via a comment, trackback or email. Once I get a better idea of those interested, I'll finalize the location and then post more information.

A Web Server on your phone...

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Erik and Mark Baard: May 2003 Archives The personal server runs as a Web server on Intel's 400MHz XScale processor, and connects to PCs and wireless "information beacons" via Bluetooth and wi-fi. The device also takes advantage of the motes radio technology developed at UC Berkeley.

The personal server also makes efficient use of power: it can stream video for 4 1/2 hours without running out of juice.

Want said in a recent interview that the uptake in wi-fi, the introduction of Bluetooth into mobile phones, and the miniaturization of storage media will contribute to the commercialization of his new product. At the moment, the personal server is a stand-alone device, but Want envisions it becoming a part of mobile phones, eventually.

Student Publising and Privacy...

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Ten Reasons Why: Student Publishing and Privacy, Take Two In the past week or so several folks (James Farmer, Will Richardson, Greg Ritter) have been talking about the use of weblogs with students and the publishing of student work. Legal issues revolving around COPPA and FERPA are being discussed along with pedagogical issues.

I have been thinking of this as I work with Barbara Lüscher at Buckman Elementary and plan for the use of weblogs with her and her 5th grade students this coming fall. Am thinking that we will want to have students publish two sites. One public, and one behind a login. The public site could be for final published pieces. Pieces the student chooses to share with the public . The private site can be the site where comments are enabled to facilitate peer review, and places for drafts to be saved. Am trying to figure out how to do this in Movable Type. With the creation of an alternate index template in Movable Type, and the use of category tags, I should be able to create two sites with one blog.

One problem I haven't figured out is how to save the alternate index file into a private directory, or make it only readable behind a login. I believe LiveJournal has a feature like this. Regular posts are published to the public site, but special "friends only" posts can be enabled that only "friends" can view. Something like this in a weblogging tool would be very nice to have. Some way to designate public and private posts. Maybe I'll post something up on the LazyWeb site.

Update: Tom Hoffman adds some more to the discussion. Looks like Plone might be the tool I am looking for... Also just discovered that Movable Type will do what I want it to do. Just did a little experiment. I created two index files, one gets saved in the regular directory, one in the private directory. With a little bit of work using category tags, I should be able to create two templates. One with all of a student's posts (the private area) and one with items in the category that is published to the public site. But I still have to mess with file permissions...

New Weblog Tools: Expressions and Rantelop

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My-ExpressionsExpressions! is a hosted media blogging system that makes it easy for anyone to create and maintain their very own photo or media blog. It has been designed and developed by fellow photographers, artists and bloggers to meet your specific needs. [by way of... Ben Hammersley.com]

Hammersley also points to a new blogging tool - Rantelope a standards-compliant weblogging and content management tool written in the object oriented scripting language, python.

We intend to combine the best features of Movable Type™, Blogger™, Radio Userland, and Blosxom (as well as our own ideas!) into a single, flexible system that's easy for users and developers alike.

Oregon Writing Project...

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Oregon Writing Project While visiting a school today I saw the flyer for the upcoming Oregon Writing Project summer session at the University of Oregon -- TEACHING WRITING IN THE INTERNET ERA... Love the title... The work of folks like Joe Luft, Pat Delaney, Will Richardson, Al Delgado and others gives one an idea of what can be accomplished with the introduction of technology into the writing process.

Earlier this week Joe Luft pointed to an article in the Washington Post about student use of technology for writing... Click by Click, Teens Polish Writing (washingtonpost.com)

They write more than any generation has since the days when telephone calls were rare and the mailman rounded more than once a day.

While making the obligitory nod to those who fear that we are raising a generation of students who will submit their term papers via their phones... it was for the most part positive.

I watch my daughters IM and email with friends and think, boy it might be a pretty good time to be an English teacher... if it just wasn't such a bad time to be in education... :-)