Day: May 5, 2006

One of the usability issues that's been raised (thanks Ruth) is that currently you have to go actively looking to see if anything new has been added, e.g. if someone has left a comment on a blog.

Today explored the system's ability to do this. It turns out we can set up notification emails for changes to content, addition of new items… all sorts of stuff. Details
here . Have now done the set-up bit, as far as I can tell just now, so hopefully I'll get a notification when I post this blog…. Once it's working I'll post details of how to set it up.

I've learned that the
DEMOS think-tank told UK education in 2003, in an 80-page pamphlet – they needed the Exc-el approach. Pamphlet title is Education Epidemic – Transforming secondary schools through innovation networks. It rejects top-down deployment of change initiatives and provides a strong, independent, validation of the bottom-up network approach. Just one of many possible quotes:

• "The best way to spread new practices that people must choose voluntarily rather than conform to in response to central prescription is through peers. Innovations have to catch on, like best-selling books, because they seem to be what everybody is doing, or are caught from personal contact, like a virus."

It's noteable they didn't have any examples to point to. Perhaps Exc-el is the first?

I've posted the document to the Exc-el site. Its author is David H Hargreaves. (Source:
www.demos.co.uk , thanks to Demos for making it available subject to their
Demos Open access licence)

Link:
http://www.exc-el.org.uk/content/index.php/main/about_exc_el/references/education_epidemic