Technology and Social Action - Online Environment Development

CoPs: the next generation

Leonie Ramondt — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:20:26 +0000

Ramondt, L. (2008) Chapter 18: CoPs: the next generation In Kimble, C, Hildreth, P., (eds), Volume 2: Communities of Practice: Creating Learning Environments for Educators, London, Information age publishing, 365-391 pages, ISBN=1593118651 (bookchapter)

Adding FreeMind MindMaps to this site

alan dawson — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 21:40:59 +0000

The freely available software freemind is used to create mindmaps.

If its data files are attached to a piece of MindMap content on this web site, then the resulting mindmap will be shown.

To do this first login, then go to Create Content -> MindMap. Give your MindMap a title, type something descriptive in the body. Then go to File Attachments, and use that to upload your Freemind data file.

Redirecting on Access Denied Errors

alan dawson — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 01:40:36 +0000

Drupal gives ability to control access to content.

If a user hits some content that gives a 403 error ( access denied ) either because they have not got correct access rights,
or are anonymous it is possible to control what happens next.

This php snippet does just that.

getting stats from drupal watchdog

alan dawson — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 06:33:32 +0000

here are some simple examples of some SQL to get information from watchdog, using sql string matching...

SELECT message,timestamp FROM watchdog WHERE message LIKE '%daws%' 
AND type='user' AND message NOT LIKE 'notify%';

you get the idea...
to see how many password resets I'd asked for I'd do

SELECT hostname,message,timestamp FROM watchdog 
WHERE message LIKE '%Password%' and type='user' 
AND message LIKE '%ligh%';

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM watchdog 
WHERE message LIKE '%Password%' and type='user' AND MESSAGE LIKE '%dawson%';

Resetting a lost password

alan dawson — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:35:15 +0000

Everybody forgets passwords. It's a fact of life. But that shouldn't stop you using the web site.

Here is a walk through getting back into the site if you've forgot your password.

Change your password here

alan dawson — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:18:31 +0000

This is your user profile page after following the "request new password" process.

Type your new password in the Password fields and save.

You've just reset your password!

Creating an ULTRALAB hot seat clone in drupal

alan dawson — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:49:28 +0000

OK .. rough notes on work in progress of the hot seat software ... basically so I can remember how to do it again.

There are quite a lot of settings to get right. Some through drupal, others on a shell on the webserver ( or however you mod the files on there )

Its work in progress but at this date can be found at http://hs.technologyandsocialaction.org

Creating a Drupal module to allow individual tagging and links on user home pages.

alan dawson — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:35:15 +0000

Leonie recently asked me to add a feature to the technology and social action web site that allows participants to categorise the content on the site with their own tags. This we enabled by using the community tags module. She also asked to add a feature where a user tags would be available on their profile page. This took a little more work as this feature required a new module writing. I've just finished it.

Decision making and design

alan dawson — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 09:45:17 +0000

The recent pradsa2 workshop at University of West of England had a session on decision making. Our group decided assess the design decisions in developing this web site. I'll start putting my understanding of that process here.

Before the first workshop I perceived the site to be a place where people would come to ( ie log in ), produce content ( ie blog stuff, post forum questions ), building a corpus of examples and knowledge.

Doing some site design

AndyDearden — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 15:12:21 +0000

Start: 21 Jun 2007 - 12:00

End: 21 Jun 2007 - 17:00

Timezone: Etc/GMT+1

This is a face to face meeting to do some design work to design the technologyandsocialaction site so it is more usable & useful for the kinds of conversations we are trying to get started.