Things that interest me.

I have two new courses online this semester: one that introduces HTML, CSS, Javascript, SQL and CGI. Yes, really. It’s a lot to cover, but I’m trying to do a very basic intro of each, cutting out anything at all extraneous. This will leave students with a lot more to learn to be effective, but will hopefully break through the “I can’t code” barrier quickly. The second is based on my new book, Search Engine Society.

I’m using Diigo to organize the first course. I had originally planned on using Delcious, but Diigo has a nice notes function, which lets you put sticky notes on web pages. Yes, others have done this, but I like Diigo’s implementation, and I think it will work well for a class.

I had intended to use CommentPress in the other course, placing a copy of my book up (behind a wall) for students to comment on and discuss. I’d link to CommentPress, but Institute for the Future of the Book has temporarily taken down the site. I found a copy of the files, but haven’t managed to make them work. This is either because I’m dumb, or because (and some searching of the web suggests this may be the case) because CommentPress doesn’t play well with the newest version of WordPress.

Of course, I’m not the first to notice that the two approaches share some similarities. In fact, for many courses, Diigo actually makes more sense. But I was hoping to integrate CommentPress with Seesmic to allow for a video exchange of comments. Unfortunately, that looks pretty unlikely now.

So, here is me plea. Since I don’t want to have to replicate the functionality of Diigo, it would be cool if we could do embeds in Diigo bookmarks, or otherwise integrate video comments. It would be nice if this were accomplished within the next 48 hours or so, since we are at the beginning of a semester, but otherwise, by the end of summer. Thank you very much.

Or, is there some better way to sling this together?