Creating IT Roadmaps, Pedagogical Trends

If you have stumbled upon my series of posts on technology roadmaps and you have been looking at the associated graphs you may be wondering where I have come up with all the data and labels for the trend graphs. Described here is how I have derived all this information for the Pedagogical Trends Graph. Every line on the graph shows saturation within the overall trends being analyzed. In this pedagogical graph, behaviorism is losing its saturation and almost disappearing, constructivism is losing influence and connectivism is on the increase. The lines are there to identify trends and to identify events. And yes, there are many other event that could go on all of these lines... feel free to email peter@rawsthorne.org other important events.

Behaviorism

Behaviorism could be described as teaching that is meant to alter behavior. I see teaching and learning to tests is behaviorism. Studying and the memorization required for the LSAT or SAT could be considered behaviorist approaches to learning. It is believed that behaviorism has been in decline since the early 1990s.

Constructivism

Constructivism is the idea that personal knowledge and meaning is built on a persons interaction between their experiences and their ideas. Constructivism has been the predominant approach to adult learning and only since the introduction of the internet has it been "replaced" with other emerging approaches. Its hard to say the emerging pedagogical approaches brought on since the introduction of the internet have (and will) replace constructivism. Its better to say, constructivist approaches will continue as the foundation to adult learning, though it will be blended with the learning approaches well suited to the internet and personal technology. There are a number of events along the constructivism trend that have influenced its saturation.

• Increase in self-directed - people are learning on their own and building knowledge upon their current knowledge. This self-direction supports constructivism and also open the learner to new and different approaches.
• Connected learning - the recognition that learning happens within groups of online connected people has gained acceptance. Connected learning has brought new learning theories to the fore, taking away from constructivism (or maybe better said as building upon constructivism).
• FOSS - Free and Open Source Software has steadily influenced learning systems development. Moodle is an Open Source Learning Management System (LMS) built upon contructivist learning approaches. It has influenced the integration of open source technology and pedagogical approaches. This is important when considering a technology roadmap for open source technologies are increasingly being used in the educational / learning space.
• Polling (Clickers) - The idea of audience response is becoming more proven as a pedagogical tool and is finding its way into not only the traditional classroom, but also in many online learning events.
• Drupal - another open source software system that is increasingly being used to build learning environments for adult education. The strength of Drupal is how it has been built from the ground up as a content management system with great social and collaborative features.

Self-directed

Self-directed learning combined with technology and access has shifted people from learning in institutions and with traditional approaches to seeking alternative ways of learning. What I find as interesting (and from a roadmapping perspective) is self-directed isn't so much a pedagogical approach, but the personal motivation to strive and learn new things. Whatever the motivation. There are a number of events along the self-directed trajectory that have influenced its saturation.

• Connectivism - is a learning theory for the digital age. Currently, I see this theory/approach being used by and influencing the self-directed learner. As connectivism hasn't gained traction in the traditional institutions, the majority of learners are still influenced by and studying within traditional approaches. For the time being connectivism is for the self-directed.
• Creative Commons - this content licensing approach has brought the issue of copyright into the mainstream and contributed attention to how fair-dealing / fair-use can be utilized by the independent learner.
• Progressive Inquiry - inquiry based approaches are gaining in popularity as they encourage the learner to become more involved with what they are learning. Inquiry based approaches deepen learning and provide approaches for the learner to attain mastery.
• Personal Learning Environment - is a mix of technologies that support the self-directed learner. Essentially the internet is the platform and the learner chooses the technologies and services available on the internet to create their own learning environment used to capture and progress their learning.
• Khan Academy - is an excellent example of the internet resources available to the learner at no cost using a content licensing approach that encourages the user to use and reuse the content themselves.
• Accreditation - accreditation models will grow for the self-directed learner. Badges are an example of this self-accreditation.
• Assessment - mass collaboration or a more public form of assessment without institutional involvement will emerge. In a way, assessment and accreditation is a form of reputation management.

Connectivism

Connectivism is a learning theory that was created by George Siemens. The theory is based on the premise that the digital connected world requires new learning theories. These new theories and approaches need to be grounded in  supporting the learner to interact with peers, mentors and learning resources differently as so much of this activity now occurs online. Even though George Siemens first published the theory of connectivism in 2005, a number of events occurred previous to 2005 that could be considered influential in the theories creation.

• Blogging - on a regular basis has great benefit to the learner. It provides a platform for self-reflection. And due to its public nature, self-publishing to a blog increases the quality of writing and deepens learning.
• Wiki - by its nature encourages collaboration, online discussion and contribution around specific areas of knowledge. Working with others in creating and editing wiki pages is connected learning.
• Tagging - also known as social bookmarking, creates a taxonomy for individuals and, if well stewarded, learning communities.
• Social Media - the origins of facebook was in creating a platform for students to study and prepare for coursework and tests. It has grown much farther than that, much of social and collaborative media facilitates discussion and knowledge building around learning resources.
• Massive open online course (MOOC) - the MOOC is a very innovative and an amazing idea when it comes to connectivism and teaching a large network of collaborative online learners. I do believe the MOOC is still in development as a learning tool, they seem to be gaining acceptance and utility is teaching a very large network on learners.
• iPads / Tablets - being able to engage with learning resources anytime from almost anywhere will open opportunities for learning. Particularly when all your information devices (television, computer, small device) are aware of the learning occurring on each device.
• Smart phone - cell phones, smart phones, etc. offer a reach for learner engagement and collaboration that can extend the learning opportunities beyond the small devices. Bringing the smart phone into the connectivist mix is worthy of a blog post in itself. Stay tuned...
• eBooks (collaboration) - eBooks are coming of age, particularly those with social media and collaborative reading.
• Reputation Management - All that you do online becomes a part of your online reputation. Your online reputation is the persona you hold within your connectivist learning. Tools and approaches to reputation management will grow and support everyone as a learner and potential mentor.
• Badges - learning badges are the front edge of learning recognition. A good idea worth exploring... but to early of an entry to really get a deep sense of where they will end up.

Blended

Blended is blended! Utilize as many learning resources available to you from as many different sources as you can find, bring them together in one place if you can, this is blended learning. Participating in an online discussion, attending a lecture, reading an academic paper, collaborating over a wiki page, a hallway discussion and time with a friend discussing ideas from a magazine article all add up to blended learning. It has become accepted that informal learning makes up the majority of a persons learning and the online resources that support blended learning are increasing. These are some of the items that are increasing and encouraging blended learning;

• Internet - the internet is the platform for learning and it provides many possibilities to blend learning resources and to build personal learning networks with others of similar interests. The internet (and related technologies) can also blend well with traditional approaches to learning.
• Open Educational Resources (OERs) - it is the creator of the OER that learns the most. Over the last 10 years there has been considerable activity within Higher Education toward the creation and use of OER. In the long-term OER will have increasing acceptance and availability, and those who collaborate, create and reuse (rather than only consume) the OER will learn the most.
• Online conferencing - bringing together like-minded people to discuss and exchange ideas is becoming increasingly well supported through web-conferencing. The online-conference is another source for blended learning.
• DIY U - Do It Yourself University is as much a political movement as an idea that puts the responsibility and cost of an education back into the learners control. From a blended approach it is encouraging the learner to seek alternate avenues to gaining an education.
• Education as a Service (EaaS) - with the growing success of cloud computing combined with growing internationalization in higher education the discussion around Education as a Service is increasing. EaaS is a future and once available it will increase options available to blended learning. One of the key features of EaaS will be the tools available to manage the progression of a persons learning and to encourage deep learning, assessment and accreditation.
• Learning Analytics - is at the early stages of becoming an approach used within learning and education. This could potentially have a big impact on assessment and accreditation within blended (and all) learning approaches. Stay aware of learning Analytics.

Internship

The idea of an intership is to find like minded people or an individual to assist you on your learning journey. The learning internship builds upon the apprenticeship model of learning with the addition of other learning before and during the internship. It is the authors belief that the internship trend is currently decreasing and will again begin to increase once greater acceptance of the internet as a learning platform occurs within traditional learning and accreditation institutions. The two themes that influence internship are;

• Community of Practice (CoP) - the community of practice is well supported by online tools and techniques. Joining an online CoP and collaborating with others is one of the current methods of online internship.
• Super-mentor - the idea of the super-mentor comes from Curtis Bonk. I agree with his thesis on the future of learning, I see the super-mentor playing a big role in many peoples internships.

What does all this mean?

The main gestalts I get from all this reading, research and reflection are as follows;

1. Behaviorism is in decline and will remain so. As an educational practice it will flatten out and remain present as long as standardized testing remains. Sigh...
2. Constructivism may decline in how much it "saturates" pedagogical approaches to learning, though it will remain the foundation to all emerging learning approaches.
3. Self-directed learning will continue to grow as more people adapt, learn and take advantage of the approaches that are increasingly available on the internet.
4. Connectivism will become an accepted theory supporting learning in the digital world. An increasing number of tools and approaches will come available on the internet to support connectivism.
5. Blended learning will become the standard approach to learning. It will take the best from all  approaches and allow the learner to adapt them to suit their needs.
6. Internship will become increasingly available as the acceptance, approaches and people become more familiar with its importance. This will come from both the learner and mentor side of the learning relationship.

IT skills and managing your partners

Three realities to consider when running an organization;

1. Your organization is becoming increasingly dependent on Information Technology (IT).
2. Good, I repeat, Good IT professionals are becoming increasingly difficult to find.
3. Your organization should focus on what it is good at. And unless you are an IT vendor, consultancy, etc. your organization should not staff up for IT, for it would distract you from your focus.

Given these three realities this is how I see your organization manage IT.

1. Develop technology partnerships to fulfill different sectors of your IT needs; find awesome Subject Matter Experts within these partnerships (you should not have to pay a partner to develop a subject matter expertise). The different sectors could be; infrastructure, software development, accounting systems, web development, mobile... etc. How you divide up these sectors depends on how your organization is structured (and divided), and who holds the responsibilities and accountability. You may find that one of your partners provides services to more than one of these sectors (preferably your strongest and most trusted partner).
2. Get to know your partners strengths and weaknesses, meet with them face-to-face regularly. With increasing difficulty in finding good IT partners you may find that "good enough" is all you can get. So be prepared to manage each partners abilities differently... work with their strengths and manage their weaknesses. 
3. Have a trusted, highly available partner that is invested in keeping everything working together and is nimble in making fixes and enhancements to your customer facing technologies. This is where you may have an employee or small IT department as you may not be able to find a partner to make this level of commitment.
4. Seriously consider moving your customer facing infrastructure and websites (including mobile) to a hosted or cloud based environment. 
5. Have very strong IT management skills at the executive (and board) level.

Creating IT Roadmaps, Gathering Data

This is a second post in a series of posts describing a technology roadmapping exercise I am completing. All the posts in this series can be found under my roadmap label for this blog. This post focuses on the how, why and where I am gathering data, with beginnings of how I am organizing and visualizing the data.

1. Narrow the subject area and context

This roadmap will focus on adults engaging in continuing professional development and life-long learners focusing on legal education for lawyers, legal assistants, notaries and self represented litigants. In general, the audience is focusing on accessing legal materials and related learning resources published from a number of online sources, both public and private.  The context for access is usually for researching a subject of personal or professional concern over a (long and short) period of time. The assumption being that the longer the duration the greater the depth. This does not mean that short bursts of access is not seeking depth of learning.

The main threat is within two areas. Firstly, in published materials. Not in the published materials being replaced, but the customers are expecting them being available on a new device which eases access geographically and 24x7, and allows greater collaboration around the published materials so they are more relevant and up to date. Customers will increasingly seek published materials being made available in this way. Second, is with online programs, courses, workshops, etc. Blended and online learning is growing and this eases the need to travel and allocated set blocks of time to attend learning events.

2. Know your audience

The audience are adult learners with a post-secondary level of education. Their learning styles are going to be constructivist with a strong influence from connectivist approaches. Increasingly these learners are looking for alternate ways to access learning materials. These alternatives are both geographic (reducing the need to travel and access from any device any time) and the ability to access learning resources 7 x 24. When a learner leaves working on one device the next device they resume their learning has knowledge of where they left off.

Understanding the technology adoption rates for your audience is very important. The challenge is finding data defining technology adoption rates for specific audiences and the adoption rates for the different demographic groups within the audience. If you have the resources doing surveys targeted toward your audience can be very helpful. Otherwise, staying aware of technology trends and bookmarking or tagging technology adoption is a good way to gather data. I have often tag resources related to technology adoption, they fall within my "roadmap" delicious tag, follow it here; http://delicious.com/prawstho/roadmap
 
3. Acknowledge that roadmaps are visual tools

Within this roadmap there are a number of different attributes that need to be represented in a single (well, potentially multiple) visual(s). As my research of these attributes deepened they began to fall into three main categories;

Pedagogical - events, ideas, new theories, approaches that relate to teaching and learning.

• emerging and existing learning theories
• emerging approaches to online learning and teaching
• social and collaborative technologies well suited to learning

Technological - current and emerging technologies well suited to and influencing adult learning.

• personal devices and browsers
• internet and technology platforms 
• application software well applied to learning

Sectoral - subject or business sector attributes to be considered or will influence the roadmap.

• strategic plan (known initiatives)
• financial & economic
• jurisdictional issues
• threats

Suggested Reading
http://www.downes.ca/me/mybooks.htm
http://www.nmc.org/horizon-project/horizon-reports
http://criticaltechnology.blogspot.com/search/label/roadmap

Embedding Google Docs

If you want to publish (and embed) a Google doc into a blog post this is easily possible as Google docs provides the embed code. The process of embedding informs you that the underlying data will be made public and read only. Which is kind of the point of blogging about some data you have created. Here is a chart I put together for a roadmapping exercise I am currently completing.



What are my data sources for putting together this graph? It is an accumulation of a number of things; 25 years working in technology and being an educator graduate level studies in Education with a focus on Information Technology, constant monitoring of RSS feeds, blogs, online publications, a deep curiosity of the subject of educational technology and the reading a number of reports on the subject, in particular; Horizons Reports and the exemplary work of Stephen Downes.

Learning Architect

Clive Shepherd gets it! What he is speaking of is closely aligned with my idea of a Learning Systems Architect from a while back. I would say the difference between the two is my role is more technical. I really need to read the book if I am get a complete sense of Clive's Learning Architect. From what I have read so far by browsing his companies site, reviewing his new books index, and listening to the embedded video the Learning Architect designs the pedagogical approaches and recommends the technology platforms to best support the learning. The Learning Systems Architect I speak of works with Subject Matter Experts to design the pedagogical approaches and implements (builds if necessary) the technology platforms to best support the learning. I would see the Learning Architect and the Learning Systems Architect working back-to-back; where the Learning Architect is facing toward the learner and the Learning Systems Architect is facing toward the technology. Regardless of how you see things, if you are into adult education this is a good video to watch.

On a closing note, I really appreciate the way he classifies learning into four approaches; formal, non-formal, on-demand and experiential. The Learning Architect role can be read about in his new book, "The New Learning Architect". Even a browse through the index and what technologies fall into the four approaches can provide insight into learning in the near future. Thanks Clive!

Rackspace Step 5: Updating the DNS

It's been a while since I posted on my work with moving all my sites over the rackspace, it's been summer and the start of the school year for my kids. The task I intermittently focused on through the summer was to move my domain name hosting over to rackspace. Its great that rackspace also provides a DNS based cloud service, and I like the management console available to manage your DNS.

 
Moving DNS servers may not be so simple
Usually you would think that changing DNS servers would be a simple, and it should be. Depending on where you start and who "controls" the ability to update, things may not go as smoothly as you would like. I mention this because without a good move of your DNS your site may disappear from the internet for a period of time. What I want to say is, "When moving your DNS it is important that you monitor the move closely". This is what happened to me and a similar series of events could happen to you;

1. I logged into my previous providers domain hosting console and changed the domain name server for the domain I was moving. I was prompted the save was successful.
2. I went back to the console to see what name servers were assigned to the domain, it was still the old names. I figured this was OK because name server changes need to be updated through-out the internet to truly complete.
3. A couple days later I logged into the domain hosting console to check the name associated with the name server of the domain. It was still set to the old name server. Naturally, I tried again to update it myself. And again I got a confirmation of the change.
4. I got busy and a few days later I checked the names again and my DNS was still pointing at the old name server. I wrote an email to tech support, sent it off and waited.
5. Almost immediately, I got confirmation of my query and was assigned a tracking number for the issue. A few days later nothing, so I phoned... I did speak to someone and they confirmed they had made the change, to the correct domain name. I was adamant about this and they confirmed the correct domain name.
6. The next morning I logged into my domain hosting console and discovered they had made the name server changes to the incorrect domain. 

There is really no point in going any further with this description, and eventually I got it all cleared up. Needless to say, all this was only confirming I was doing the right thing to be moving away from netnation as my hosting provider. Don't get me wrong, netnation has provided me with many years of very stable hosting. Its just my needs have changed and the cost savings provided by cloud based services are too strong to ignore. The main lesson learned is when making changes to things DNS related you need to monitor it very closely, particularly when their are intermediaries involved...

Suggested Reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System
http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/blog/2009/06/04/dns-the-overlooked-cloud-service/
http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/index.php/Managing_DNS

Creating Information Technology Roadmaps, Getting Started

Creating technology roadmaps can be hard. Mostly because you are trying to predict the future. And predicting the future is, well, unpredictable. So coming up with a technology roadmap for a specific subject or practice area narrows the horizon and could increase success. Gaining as much knowledge of the narrowed area by reading, reviewing and referencing as much existing information and related predictions will help greatly. Essentially, you want to gather all the applicable technology and subject area information you possibly can regarding the present and future and try to gestalt a technology roadmap.

The important factors in creating technology roadmaps are;

1. Narrow your subject area and context

This is important mostly due to narrowing the number of attributes influencing the future. The subject area is somewhat self explanatory, is it; higher education, medical, financial, legal, etc. Context would be; mobile technology for adult customers, wealth management for families, etc.

One important attribute here would be to identify any serious threat(s) to the financial health of your organization due to a disruptive technology or competitor. These unforeseen threats rarely occur if you have been doing regular roadmapping... for they should identify the threats...

2. Know your audience

The audience who will reference the roadmap is important for they will read it based on their decision making needs. The audience can be as varied as; senior management, customers, business partners even competitors.

3. Acknowledge that roadmaps are visual tools

People have become used to roadmaps being visual tools, invest the time in finding a visual representation that suits your audience. Engage your audience early, present a visual framework and get feedback. Improve the visual. This has two benefits; it assists in the audience learning how to use the roadmap and assists the creator in understanding the audience and the issues of why they need the roadmap.

4. You don't know the destination, only important attributes of the journey

When predicting the future with a technology roadmap there is no destination other than the many factors that influence the decisions you make on the journey. The technology roadmap will provide a topographical map and the roadways that are available to you when making decisions. It is assessing the current location and the things of importance around you (which will change through time) that will determine which route to take.

5. Sometimes the journey is the destination

It is having to make the decisions about the journey that are the technology decisions required by the organization. Using the roadmap to know where you are and the current surroundings is the what the technology roadmap is for. It helps in making the technology decisions right in front of you, no more. Really that is what is needed anyhow.

6. The roadmap should align with the organizations vision and strategy

The roadmap should be derived from the organizations vision and strategy. If their is no vision or strategy this should be done before the roadmapping exercise has begun.

7. The technology roadmap will influence the organizations tactical plan

Also derived from the organizations visions and strategy are the tactical plan. The tactical plan and the roadmap work together to drive the individual projects tasked with implementing the vision and strategy.

Step 1. Start writing openly about these seven factors and how they apply to your roadmapping exercise. Be open and transparent about your thinking an seeking feedback is very important. Using an internal (or privately external) blogging approach and allowing people to comment would be a great way to be open, transparent and solicit input.

Step 2. Begin to gather all the technology roadmap material you can. Search high and low, contact your vendors, contact your peers, investigate industry publications, look for other technology roadmaps. Leave no stone unturned.

Step 3. begin to create a visual representation of what you are finding. Be creative, seek different sources for inspiration. Publish the visual frequently to begin soliciting feedback, and developing a shared understanding. It is the feedback and shared understanding that will improve the accuracy of the roadmap.

For a growing list of references on this subject feel free to follow my roadmap tag in delicious;
http://www.delicious.com/prawstho/roadmap

Follow-up Posts
If you have read this far you may be interested in the follow-up posts I have written that actually implement what I have described here;

• Creating IT Roadmaps; Gathering Data
• Creating IT Roadmaps; Pedagogical Trends
• Creating IT Roadmaps; Technological Trends

MVC in a three-tier architecture - TRANSLATED

A month back I wrote a post on architecting web and mobile based applications. In the post I spoke very technically about the MVC pattern and three-tier architectures. One of the comments I got on the post was from a very bright friend of mine who also works on educational technology and professional development, only from a senior management perspective. His comment was in really wishing he knew what I was talking about. And after reading the post again, I agreed that for a non-technical person the post would have been difficult to understand, I also felt there was good value in translating it for the non-technical person. Explaining the MVC pattern and three-tier architectures in this way would have great value to those who want (even need) to understand the web, mobile technologies and how these are put together. So this post attempts to answers that need... and if it works out, I may rewrite a number of my posts for the non-technical person.


Model-View-Controller

The Model-View-Controller (MVC) is a design pattern used to design the user interface and activities of a software application. In other words, what does a web page or mobile application look like and how does it work. How is the software designed so pictures, words, links and buttons show up, and what happens when someone clicks on a button or a hyperlink. The individual items of Model, View and Controller each serve a purpose; the Model is the business and related data and processes, the View is what is displayed to the end user and the Controller handles the events between what is displayed and how the business responds.

• The View is what is rendered (drawn) on the screen. How it is rendered is where the software part comes in. The technology (programming) behind rendering a View (or screen full of information) includes many options and approaches. Beyond a lot of formatting and graphic design, what makes the work behind the View is that there are many screens to that the software has to render a view. These screens come from different types of computers (PCs, Mobile, Tablets, Etc.), different browsers (firefox, safari, chrome, ie), different sized screens, Etc. Writing software for these different screens takes work and isolating the code into that responsible for only rendering the View greatly simplifies what can become complicated.
• The Model is the business logic or software that collects and retrieves any data required for the View. When data needs to be retrieved from or saved to the data storage it is the model which is responsible. The model can contain a lot of complicated business logic. As an example, someone submitting a credit card transaction may have only a few data fields and one button click on the view but the amount of different business activities (or software modules) that get utilized to complete the credit card transaction can be numerous and span different computers and businesses.
• The Controller responds to user events. The events can trigger changes or activities from both the View and the Model. As a simple example; a user enters their user credentials (user name, password) and clicks the log in button. The Controller then initiates a call to the Model which in turn executes the software required to find the user name and confirm the password... the Model then returns a call to the View with the pass or fail of the log in and the View re-renders itself with either a logged in user interface or the "forgot password?" user interface.

There you have it, simply put; the View is responsible for drawing the screen, the Model is responsible for retrieving and adding / updating information and the Controller is responsible for managing the events between the View, the end-user and the Model. Once you feel comfortable with your understanding of this MVC design pattern, move of to the next section describing the three-tier architecture. Hold off asking yourself how the Model-View-Controller (MVC) fits in the three-tier architecture for now. That will be discussed later.

Three-Tier Architecture

A design / concept of the three-tier architecture was created over 20 years ago, and was initially adopted when building client-server software. The idea being the personal computers on the network were the clients and the big computers on the network were the servers. And the clients made requests to the servers, the servers talked among themselves (business logic servers and database server) figured things out and then the servers responded back to the clients. This basic idea continues. Now the clients are web browsers and other devices, and the servers are web site servers, business logic servers and database servers.

Why so many servers? Performance, security, reuse, maintainability and understandability. There are actually other reasons to implement a three-tier architecture. I see these as the primary reasons;

1. Performance, security - Any interactive website with a significant amount of traffic could not be hosted on a single computer for performance reasons. The software needs to be constructed in a way where it can span multiple servers. The best way to have software span multiple servers is to modularize the software based upon its activity. Within a three-tier architecture modules would be constructed for the specific activities of user interface rendering, business logic, database reads and database writes. Each of these modules would be optimized for its activity and implemented across servers best suited to the modules performance needs. Another powerful reason for separating modules and hosting them on different servers is for security reasons. The closer a software module is to the storage of a piece of content (data, rich-media, documents) the stronger the security needs to be. It is also important to mention the idea of a cache, when building high performance web sites it is important to utilize a cache. The main idea of a cache is that it takes frequently requested content and makes it more quickly available to the web site.
2. Reuse, maintainability - modularizing software enables reuse and increases maintainability. The idea being that many modules can call one module to perform the same activity. As an example; saving both a bill to address and a ship to address is almost exactly the same activity, this should be done through a single module. This also eases maintainability, if you need to fix or update the address saving abilities of the software it only has to be done in one module.
3. Understandability -  understanding how a website application is put together, particularly when it spans multiple servers, becomes increasingly important as time passes. People change, business approaches change, features get added and updated. Having the IT Team easily understand how to enhance and maintain a website is greatly improved when the software is well organized and built in a modular way.

Building software in three-tiers provides the flexibility to organize the software to meet performance and business needs while it is operational. How the software is going to perform under user load is not always known until after the release of the software onto the internet. This is more true for web based software as performance will be determined by user traffic and users are unpredictable. Business needs will also change, so being able to alter the software with little to no impact to existing software modules is more easily done within a three-tier architecture. Well designed three-tier architectures are more easily understood and maintained than other approaches.

The MVC implemented in a three-tier architecture 

Figure 1. The MVC / 3-Tier Hybrid

How do these two come together. From a MVC perspective the View and Controller exists in the presentation tier and the model spans the business and data tiers. From a three-tier perspective this means the Model is broken into modules which are optimized based on their activity and for their ability to be reused and altered for new business opportunities. The Model will span the business and data tiers. The Controller and View exist in the presentation tier and this is also optimal for it allows the software developer to build, render and respond to user interfaces best designed for the different devices (internet browsers and mobile devices).

So how is all this best described from a non-technical perspective. We will start at the top and work our way down and back to the top again. Our scenario will include three activities. Arriving at a web site, logging into the site and adding a ship to address to a persons profile.

Scenario: A user wants to update their profile so they have separate ship to and bill to addresses.
Note: this scenario may not be as all websites handle these activities, it serves as an example to explain the MVC pattern and three-tier architecture.

Arriving at a web site
The user arrives at a website and the sites main page is displayed. The main page is rendered in the following manner;

1. Software in the Controller will determine the type of device browsing the website. Once the device / browser type is determined the Controller requests the correct View to render itself. Specific Views are built to service the different device and browser types.
2. The rendering of the View will make requests of the Model to fetch data (text, images, etc.) from the business and data tier modules. These modules will mostly fetch data from the Reads side of the data storage (see Figure 1. The MVC / 3-Tier Hybrid). For performance reasons, some websites will have these reads come from the cache. Many Views will also use style sheets and templates to help in their rendering.
3. All this activity takes only moments in a well designed website and once completed the View will be rendered and the user can view and interact with its content.

Logging into a site
After review of the sites main page, the user logs into their account. The process is managed is as follows;

1. The user types their email and password into the required text fields and clicks the associated button. This click event is intercepted by the Controller and decides the appropriate action. In most cases, some software (usually javascript) is run within the Controller to check the username and password are complete and follow some basic rules. If all is good the Controller will pass the email and password onto the Model as parameters for the email and password verification request.

2. The Model will take these parameters and make a request to a module built to handle user related requests to verify the email and password are valid.
3. The module dedicated to user requests will query the Reads side of the database modules to fetch the users password based on their email address provided in the parameter(s). 
4. If the password matches the module will pass TRUE back up to the Model, and the Model will request the View re-render itself with a valid login. This re-rendered View will often have additional menus for the user to perform additional actions not available to the non-logged in user.
5. If the password doesn't match the module will pass FALSE back up to the Model, and the Model will request the View re-render itself with an invalid login. This re-rendered View will again prompt the user for their email and password with the additional prompt of "Can't access your account?".

Adding a ship to address
Once the user has successfully logged in they will have the ability to edit their profile. The process of displaying their profile page and adding a ship to address would be as follows;

1. The profile View would make requests of the Model to fetch all the data required to render the persons profile data. This data fetching would occur via business and data tier modules built to handle the user related requests.
2. These requests would occur on the Reads side of the database modules and once completed the Model would request the View to re-render itself with all the users profile data.
3. Texts fields for the users ship to address would be presented and the user would complete the required fields. The user would then click a button to update their profile and save this new address to the database.
4. The click event is intercepted by the Controller and the appropriate action would be performed. Again, in most cases, some software (usually javascript) is run within the Controller to check the data entered follows some basic rules for accuracy.
5. The Controller would make the request of the Model to save the ship to address. The Model would make requests of the business and data tier modules specifically built to save address data.

6. The request to save this new address would occur on the Writes side of the database modules. Database writes are different than reads and this is explained in greater detail in a related post titled, "separation of database reads from writes". 
7. If the saving of data is successful two activities will occur; first, a confirmation will be sent back up to the Model, and the Model will request the View re-render itself with a confirmation of the data being successfully saved. Second, the data saved to the write side of the databases will be synchronized with the Reads side making it available for any subsequent read request.
8. If the saving of data is unsuccessful a return-code will be sent back up to the Model, and the Model will request the View re-render itself with correct error message. The user would correct the errors and the round trip of saving the data would occur again.

Why the hybrid?
Because building websites can be complicated, particularly when the site engages users and have a lot of content that can be targeted toward and created by users.  Why the hybrid of MVC and three-tiers? Two main reasons; First, because the MVC pattern does a great job of simplifying and managing the development of user interfaces over multiple devices and browsers, but it doesn't do a good job of defining how to build scalable server infrastructures. Second, The three-tier architecture does a great job of simplifying and managing the development of high performing, scalable, extensible and maintainable server infrastructures, but doesn't do a good job of defining how to build user interfaces across multiple devices and browsers. With a MVC three-tier hybrid you can utilize the best of both approaches without compromising either.

Inspired Permaculturist

I've been wanting to add Leigh to my Inspired Learner series for a while. I've known Leigh for a number of years and have come to appreciate the alignment in our shared love to be in the back-country, our personal values and our slightly skew view to the world. This post is mostly about how I see Leigh as a very inspired learner, and when it comes to permaculture how he uses social media very well to deepen and enhance his learning. I believe one of the strongest elements of Leigh's work is that he has developed an exceptional understanding of how to use video to capture and explain his work. Here is one of Leigh's videos in how to build a composting hot water system, it is one video from a series of videos he has created on the subject.

The amount of time a person puts into their reflective efforts is rewarded with a deeper understanding of their subject. When writing about or putting together a piece of content (like a single or series of videos), the accompanying reflection while creating this content greatly enhances their personal learning. The idea of reflective activities deepening learning is not new [Garrison, D. R. (1997). Self Directed Learning: Toward a Comprehensive Model.] And the idea that participatory video deepens learning is also gaining more and more acceptance, with an increasing body of research and new approaches becoming available with increasing frequency. If you want further information on how to use video, YouTube has a creators corner website to help out in learning how to be a good videographer. 

So back to Leigh; he has been building up a comprehensive set of content, sources and references to support his learning in and around permaculture.His approach to this I consider exemplary.

• You can see with his use of youtube that he is building a good set of video resources; http://www.youtube.com/user/leighblackall#grid/user/3E9C6C0FC24AAB39
• You can see with his community building and course facilitation he is engaging others; http://groups.google.com/group/permaculture-design-course
• And if you follow along with his tagging, he is creating his own folksonomy with what he has found in his readings about permaculture and related topics; http://www.delicious.com/leighblackall

I believe Leigh Blackall is an inspired learner who uses many of the available social media technologies and techniques to deepen his learning by engaging others and reflecting upon what he finds along the way. Leigh is an Inspired Learner.

Learner Satisfaction for Educational Resources

I like this image. It makes sense to me. The ideas that products and premises is what attracts customers (and learners) and that processes and people is what keeps learners returning is simple and seems true to me. The attributes attached to each of these that create customer (or learner) satisfaction seem simple and well defined. For further information regarding this model review the five pillars of service quality.

I believe these apply very well to building adult education / professional development resources. As more educational resources go online being mindful of the learner is what will differentiate the resources. I see each of these four applied to learner satisfaction in the following ways;

• Products - the products (learning resources) need to be of high quality with good learner value. The brand (institution) associated with the products is as important as is product availability. All products should provide 7 X 24 access and this will grow in importance as more people study through-out their waking hours. Having access to high quality resources will attract people to the learning resources.
• Premises - the premises (whether online or physical) need to be easily accessible and very understandable. Access is also about finding what you need, quickly. I increasingly believe that good (subject specific) search is one of the keys to accessibility. Once the resources have been found they should be very usable and this usability should be intuitive. The resources should be interesting and engaging not only from a content perspective, also from a rich-media perspective. Usability studies would be important here. The premises (again, whether online or physical) should be very well serviced. This means they are clean and well organized, guides (virtual or otherwise) are available to assist learners find their way. The premises is often updated taking advantage of the latest technologies that will assist the learner pedagogically.
• Processes - the processes need to be complete from the learner perspective. The learning journey needs to be well defined and communicated and include the assessment / accreditation part of the journey. The learning processes need to be implemented so they suit (and adjust to) each individual learner and their learning style. The learning environments need to be continuously improved as more learners engage and complete processes. Intelligence needs to be built into the system so outcomes, learner success and depth of learning can be measured. These measures will offer guidance and the ability for processes to be improved and refined. A well articulated learning process combined with solid assessment / accreditation and continuous improvement will keep learners engaged and retain many of them as they continue on their life-long learning journey.
• People - People are key to retaining and engaging the learner. All people who engage with the learner (regardless if they are faculty, staff or peers) need to be very aware of peoples individual and group needs and adjust the products and processes to accommodate. With modern learning environments this takes technical skill, and this technical skill should not be limited to hardware and software it should also include pedagogy. For in my mind, good pedagogy is a technology. All people involved in learning must work as a team for everyone's interests, and everyone's interests must be well articulated. Everyone benefits when people learn... not only the learner, also the faculty and staff.

Is all this possible? Absolutely!

With three of my last projects that fall within technology and learner (customer) satisfaction this is how we addressed the policies within these four areas;

• We were always looking for the products that could have improved quality and would further enhance brand. Having products available 7 x 24 helped the learner greatly as we increased quality and access. Federated and faceted search assists greatly with easing access to products.
• Most of the projects focused on online and blended learning where we focused on user experience and ease of access. Having access improved within our partnership model(s) also allowed the learners access to products of a higher quality they didn't previously have access.
• Taking the learning beyond the content and building systems that assist in the measurement of learning and provide opportunities for peer mentorship is where we increase the focus as we build learning environments. Building learning environments where people join community and return on a regular basis enhances life-long learning.
• Flattening the organization, empowering front-line staff and taking a stewardship approach to learning engages people. I believe the best learning environments are peer based learning environments that use inquiry models as their foundation and leverage the technologies to encourage peoples participation and engagement.

Separation of database reads from writes

More than once I have found myself in discussions regarding the correct way to architect web applications. In a recent discussion the concepts of MVC and REST were in the mix as the discussion focused on mobile devices. In this previous post I spoke of using REST as the preferred way to build the middle tier; particularly, when the application is targeted toward mobile devices. My main rationale for this is how mobile apps are mostly stateless and have less requirements for interactions to be transactional.

CRUD (Creates, Reads, Updates & Deletes)
This previous post generated some interesting discussion from within Google+ and got me thinking about being really clear in how you architect a mobile application using REST / SOA / MVC. To start it is important understand the MVC pattern and n-tier applications and how these two fit in regards to designing and architecting a web / mobile application. Particularly important is to think about is how you architect your CRUD (Creates Reads Updates and Deletes). These need thought because not all web / mobile activities are equal from a transactional and security perspective. So lets consider each of these functions from the web / mobile application development perspective;

• CREATE - When creating (adding) data to a database particularly from a web page or mobile device performing this through a RESTful API would not be preferred, particularly when a development language / environment is available. Not to say you couldn't do it through an http POST, it's just that a fully formed development language is going to provide transactional qualities and a more robust set of language features for creating data. Also important when creating data is security and ensuring that context and permissions are enforced when creating data. Ensuring security is also easier to do with fully formed development language.
• READ - When reading (fetching) data from a database this is where the most options exist as reading data is a simple operation from a transactional, security and state perspective. And if the reads are open to the public this would really be well implemented in REST. Reads are simple from a transactional perspective for they require no record locking or transactional requirements for they are reads (of course there could be exceptions to this, but in general reads are simple from a database perspective). Reads are simple from a security perspective for databases are good at securing things particularly from a read-only perspective. And if there is private data this can be easily secured at the database level. Reads in there nature are stateless as once the data has been retrieved there is no need to maintain a connection (tightly coupled or otherwise) to the data on the source.
• UPDATE - updates are similar to CREATES in they effect change on the database and could require record locking, have transactional qualities or reference to existing data. From a RESTful perspective an UPDATE could be done through a PUT, but if the UPDATE is complicated it would be better done through the use of a robust development language / environment, rather than a RESTful approach.
• DELETE - if you are deleting a small discreet amount of data that has no dependencies a DELETE could be done through a RESTful call. This is seldom the case with web or mobile applications. Data often has other related data in the database and sometimes it is better to mark data as deleted rather than delete it completely. The status of a DELETE action is also important as it needs to complete or may leave the database in a false state. Implementing the DELETE with the ability to finalize the action by receiving a status would ensure the data remains accurate.

Action	SQL	REST	Best Practice
CREATE	INSERT	POST	Use robust programming environment rather than use of RESTful calls. Inserting data requires confirmation of success allowing the software to continue appropriately.
READ	SELECT	GET	Reads are the actions which could best be implemented using a RESTful approach, particularly if the reads can service multiple needs and access approaches.
UPDATE	UPDATE	PUT	Again, use a robust programming environment. Updates can be complicated and require reference to existing data.
DELETE	DELETE	DELETE	Use REST only when deleting discreet amounts of data.

All this discussion regarding CRUD and REST leads to a couple of simple principles when deciding what goes where from a RESTful API perspective;

1. Reads / Reporting of public data are the best candidates for REST.
2. Creation / Updates of small / discreet amounts of data which fit well within a single concise message can be candidates can be candidates for REST.
3. Larger amounts of data with some complexity are best left within a robust development environment.

Separate the reads from the writes

Most web applications (mobile or otherwise) display a massive amount of information. Getting this information from its data storage via code (software) to be displayed is where most of the activity happens. The two activities of reading data and writing (creating, updating and deleting) data are fundamentally different. With reading, the application is fetching data with the assistance of indexes, joins and optimized execution paths. When writing, the application is allocating storage, performing duplicated activities (transaction logging), assigning locks to data elements, confirming data integrity, cascading activities, updating indexes and other activities. It could be considered that database reads and database writes are opposites. And the needs of the physical servers and the application software need to be optimized for these two opposite database activities. This can be done by physically separating the databases that service these two different activities. All the writes go to a single database server, which then replicates the written data to the database server(s) dedicated to servicing the reads. The code written for the reads can also be further optimized with caching techniques.

Make a RESTful API available
To add functionality, enable the ability for people to use your data in new and interesting ways, to build traffic and to increase your partner access it is a good idea to publish data via a RESTful API. Of course you need to be mindful to what data is made available via the REST approach. If you are going to make data public be sure it should be read by the public. This kind of data is vast and could be all public government data, all product data, social information, etc. In general, all data available in a RESTful API is read data. As described above in the CRUD description, read data is most appropriate for REST.

Related Readings
http://www.infoq.com/news/2009/07/CRUDREST
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Create,_read,_update_and_delete
http://buytaert.net/scaling-with-mysql-replication
http://newitup.com/archive/2011/01/26/cqrs-in-phases-phase-1---separate-your-reads-from.aspx