Sometimes, I describe our ministry niche as employing technology to bring Christian education as close to "the village" as possible.  Sounds simple.  But yesterday a few of us met with a family exploring membership with MAF.  Somewhere in the conversation I mused that we in Learning Technologies offer a unique blend of art, on one hand and technology, on the other.

The technology aspects show up easily.  Computers, networks, software development, audio players and cell phones from the IT side.  Curriculum development, course writing, pedagogical theory, and distance education considerations from the instructional side.  But what about art?  Are we just a coalition of baud rates and constructivism?  Or, does human creativity factor into our work as well?

As a jungle pilot I called on isolated villages every day.  And, I quickly learned the peril of ignoring social subtleties.  If I (in my 2nd language) said,  "I'm sorry I forgot to bring your mail," they heard (also in their 2nd language) "I didn't bring it on purpose and if you don't like it you can lump it!"  Kind of a bummer to realize that I'd come such a great distance only to educate them that Christians were mean, insensitive bullies.

I'm working on our next product which is a system to create digital libraries. It's going to be called Ibidem Digital Library. Ibidem is Latin for "the same place." You've probably seen its abbreviation, ibid, in bibliographies.

Well, I needed a break from coding,so I took a first pass at a logo for the product. Ibidem is apparently a contraction of some kind. It's written as ib[ide]m to indicate the contraction.

The main focus of this product is tagging digital resources with their metadata (data about the resource, e.g. author, title). When a tag is part of an XML document (which it usually is), it's indicated as <tag name>tag content</tag name>. For example: <title>Pilgrim's Progress</title>.

So I designed the logo based off of the text ib<ide>m. I kind of like the idea behind the logo, but i'm definitly not an artist. So if anyone wants to make something better, send it my way!

MAF-LT is excited to announce a new release of DEScribe!  DEScribe is a course authoring application that supports exporting to DEViewer.  This release of DEScribe includes the following improvements to the DEViewer export process:

• An automated installer for a DEViewer package can now be created during a DEViewer export.  This is a setup file that installs the DEViewer package to other DEViewer installation.
• During the exporting of a DEViewer package, if the language, domain, or type is being created, the user is prompted for information such as: Language encoding, display name, and directory names

A set of completed tickets for this release is located on the DEScribe Trac site for release 1.2.3.0.
 
For more information and to download DEScribe 1.2.3, please visit the DEScribe product page.

An April visit to the Development Associates International (DAI) Ministry Center in Colorado Springs, CO, by MAF staffers Nicholas Ivins and Brian Ward could lead to more effective distance learning through DAI’s ‘Masters of Arts in Organizational Leadership’ program.
   
DAI leadership set out to enhance the learning experience for their Masters program students.   This search lead them to consider new web-based technology products developed by MAF such as DEScribe, DEViewer, and Poodle (Portable Moodle). The next step is ...

MAF-LT is excited to announce a new release of DEScribe!  DEScribe is a course authoring application that supports exporting to DEViewer.  This release of DEScribe includes the following improvements to the DEViewer export process:

• The process of exporting a course to DEViewer has been automated.  The domain, type, and package entries are now automatically configured during the export process.  The user no longer has to manually edit the DEViewer XML to get the course to display.
• A manual DEViewer package can now be created during a DEViewer export.  This is a self-contained zip file that can be manually added to other DEViewer installs.

A set of completed tickets for this release is located on the DEScribe Trac site for release 1.2.2.0.
 
For more information and to download DEScribe 1.2.2, please visit the DEScribe product page.