Hal Stern's thoughts on the economy, software, services, technology, and snowmen. Hal Stern: The Morning Snowman

For two decades we've heard various theories about how computers were going to change education: make us learn faster, learn more, or expose us to new educational techniques. The bottom line is that computers have served to reinforce the social side of learning -- finding people with similar questions and problems, locating specific answers to specific questions, and making it far easier to detect potential plagiarism using search techniques. While we still learn through most of the approaches that have worked since Biblical times -- small groups, discussions, subject matter experts sharing their knowledge -- technology offers us significant opportunities to improve the context for learning.

Moodle is an open source course management system -- a blend of content management and educational logistics. "Moodle" has become vernacular around our house, as both of my kids use it daily for homework, after school class discussions, and to retrieve notes that would have been on infamous purple ditto sheets in my day. The audience for course management is tough -- they're used to iPods, video on demand, wireless service, and game consoles, so anything that is slow to respond, has a funky user interface or isn't reliable is going to generate a homework excuse. "The DHCP server ate my homework" hasn't popped up yet, but it's a matter of time.

Earlier this week Stuart Sim, CTO of Moodlerooms, joined me for an Innovating@Sun podcast to talk about how they're building out Moodle instances for the most demanding consumers of all (teenagers), at maximum scale, and making money from this open source project all at the same time. Our after-school program covers the spectrum from Moodleroom's use of Niagara-based servers to why term papers might become an historical artifact once and for all.

I have always wanted to play the bass guitar. Gene Simmons from Kiss, Geddy Lee from Rush, John Camp of Renaissance, and of course Chris Squire of Yes (the latter two with their Rickenbacker axes; the former with his axe posing as bass) were my musical heroes. Twenty-seven years ago, I first attempted to learn to play, buying a very low-end Fender jazz bass look-alike with horrible action, uneven frets, and a warped neck (or at least those were my excuses for my lack of ability coupled with fret buzz). It was the week after midterms, the somewhat misplaced "fall break" during my freshman year at Princeton -- this exact upcoming week on the calendar. It wasn't the first time I'd come back to campus with more junk in tow than when I'd left.

My excuse for an amplifier was a "portable" cassette deck with the bass run into the line in, and an 1/8" plug to RCA plug cable going from line out into my stereo amplifier. Unintentional distortion, a little pre-amp control and a touch of Mr. Microphone all at the same time. A year later, partial differential equations and DeMorgan's theorem conspired to consume my practice hours, and I sold the bass to another unsuspecting (and unsuccessful) friend from the radio station. During my entire 4-string career, I learned the bass line to "I'm Free" by the Who and some of Lou Reed's "Rock and Roll."

Last year, when I was making up my list of projects in progress for Tim Marsland and Bob Brewin, incoming CTOs of software, I put "learn to play bass" in near the end, just to see if they'd read that far. Brewin asked me a few weeks ago if I ever learned to play, and I couldn't think of a good reason why I hadn't. I can find the time to practice; I have a place to practice and access to reasonable sound reinforcement. So after a few weeks of trolling around on eBay I managed to win one Steinberger-style, Hohner headless bass guitar, suitable for travel, practice in tight quarters, and aging heavy metal wannabes with fat fingers.

It arrived today, and I'm itching to get on the redeye so I can get down and get funky in NJ. Next stop: YYZ.