I finally upgraded the site to Drupal 6 (many modules are still rough around the edges but enough for a small site like mine) and a new theme. I've also integrated lots more content here. Hopefully, it will make things better all around but at the very least it gave me a fun holiday project to work on.

Another example of why the adoption of technologies is not dependent only on the technologies themselves but rather on the desire of the users themselves. This reminded me of two instances of extremely popular and seemingly easy-to-use Web2.0 services falling short on usability.

This report suggests that institutions should pay attention to more than just the features of a given platform. OpenSource (Sakai) and closed-source (Blackboard) systems alike relying on the Java enterprise approach are often too heavyweight for relatively small institutions. Even a basic install requires enterprise-level support. Moreover, more lightweight equivalents Moodle, Elgg and Drupal can be up and running on a single left-over machine and scale up when uptake increases.

It looks like another way to approach personalisation is through the acknowledgment of the fact that the educational routes of people today are too diverse to be manhandled into a single jacket. Portable personal e-portfolios would certainly be one such way. They do not require the personalisation of provision or even assessment but rather the personalisation of qualifications. Which is ultimately the goal of all personalised approaches.