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So you want to bring Agile into your software development process. And you are wondering where to start. That’s a tough question for each team does different things well. I always like to start anything new with teams by getting a baseline, that way we can show improvement and we can celebrate. We can also more easily identify the low hanging fruit.  Just the process of getting the baseline creates some interesting dialogue amongst the team. Anyhow, I like to keep it simple, so I took the 27 rules and practices of extreme programming, put them in a spreadsheet and made a wag of the percentage of time I actually saw the rule or practice being implemented. For one of the companies I worked with they implemented three of the rules and practices over 90% of the time. These three were; they measured project velocity (in their own way, but they measured it), their unit testing was awesome and they had really good collective code ownership. The other rules and practices implementation varied from less than 90% all the way to non-existent. That’s ok, gives room for improvement

So everytime I build a new site I start coding in straight html. And
inevitably I come to the point where I am becoming frustrated with the
lack of flexibility html has to build nice looking sites. So, I start
using CSS to get the good looking stuff done. So if your finding that you just can’t get the look
you need, start your readings / learnings in Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS). In the long run a good understanding of CSS will go a long way
for you. And while your at it review some material on good design, I’ve always found Robin Williams books to be right on!

I’ve recently done some investigation about the free blogging
servers.  There are a few so take a look around.  One thing I
find is important is that you look at a number of other blogs on the
server.  I have found porn sites on a few, so be aware. 
Choose a blog server that hosts similar content.  The two that
have jumped to the forefront are www.blogger.com and www.edublogs.org. 
Both of these will work for you… I am beginning to prefer the
edublogs.org better.  Mostly because it is focused on educational
blogging and it has two companion blog servers; learnerblogs.org for K12 students and uniblogs.org for University students.  I also like the administrative console available with edublogs…

An additional (early) step to Agile Instructional Design would be to
evaluate the most appropriate ID methodology and learning theory for
the current learning context / situation, etc…  Listen to this podcast for my rationale of this addition to AID…

I think so… When I review a number of articles and sites on
the subject of educational blogging, I believe it is now become the
cognitive framework tool du jour. I recently set up a blog for my
daughters grade five newsletter, there are free blog servers now
dedicated to K12 school students, University students and Educators in
general. Two of my courses want blogs. One asks for it directly, the
other wants a learning journal. So here we go, EduBlogging. This shift
makes total sense. We are moving toward tools for Personal Knowledge
Managment (PKM)
and Personal Learning Tools. A blog provides one place to store our
thoughts as we learn. Obviously, a blog is single layered, thinks will
change…

Last term I submitted a paper called Agile Instructional Design. I
believe this subject needs a more thorough investigation and supporting
reseach. I have added a category to my blog which will reference all my
work, musings, references toward this subject. If you have an interest
in this subject may I suggest you read the paper and subscribe to the
RSS feed.

Here is a good site about padcasting.  Take the time to listen to the podcast about podcasting…

Just needed to post a link to this site. As many of you know my
fascination with Open Source and Education.  Here is more evidence
of the traction it is gaining.  This UNESCO site
has a very rich international list of links to other open initiatives
and a great amount of reference material toward the inevitable goal of
global openness to education.  May we all have access to
education. Get’s me thinking were is the overlap with any of the end poverty initiatives…