Sunday, July 09, 2006
Using XML Scripting for Business and Life
I did a presentation recently to the PESC 3rd Annual Conference (Postsecondary-education Electronic Standards Council) on XML and its application to education systems needs.
XML is now entering its 3rd phase. Phase 1 was evanglism, Phase 2 was build-out by technology vendors, the 3rd phase is seamless usage by the general public in their daily lives. Pretty much like sending a FAX - people do that - but they do not have to know about Class3 protocols and device handshaking - all that technology stuff just "happens" for them. They put the paper on the scanner platter, enter the "address" and press "send".
So my focus was showing people how to learn to use freely available tools from sites such as Google combined with open source software tools to automate your business and life tasks.
The first example uses Google's Blogger site and shows how the RSS XML underneath peoples Blogs can power group collaboration tools and then turns simple email into a group knowledge base/coordination system. I'm using this right now for a soccer team resource center. The live demonstration site shown in the presentation gives details on how to do this yourself.
Similarly you can develop sophisticated photography slideshows using XML-enabled scripts. In an education context this is great for making teaching slideshows and learning/tutorial systems with graphics and photographs. And the students themselves can build these and learn too.
On to more examples of common place tools today - like seeing how XML scripts run voice response menu systems such as 1-800-555-8355 (TELLME) street navigation directions for anywhere in the USA.
The last segment is more technology geek focused and shows how to automate information integration systems using open source XML scripting to load data to/from database systems and the associated importance of understanding context and roles to keep processes simple and clear.
The PESC presentation can be found here.
XML is now entering its 3rd phase. Phase 1 was evanglism, Phase 2 was build-out by technology vendors, the 3rd phase is seamless usage by the general public in their daily lives. Pretty much like sending a FAX - people do that - but they do not have to know about Class3 protocols and device handshaking - all that technology stuff just "happens" for them. They put the paper on the scanner platter, enter the "address" and press "send".
So my focus was showing people how to learn to use freely available tools from sites such as Google combined with open source software tools to automate your business and life tasks.
The first example uses Google's Blogger site and shows how the RSS XML underneath peoples Blogs can power group collaboration tools and then turns simple email into a group knowledge base/coordination system. I'm using this right now for a soccer team resource center. The live demonstration site shown in the presentation gives details on how to do this yourself.
Similarly you can develop sophisticated photography slideshows using XML-enabled scripts. In an education context this is great for making teaching slideshows and learning/tutorial systems with graphics and photographs. And the students themselves can build these and learn too.
On to more examples of common place tools today - like seeing how XML scripts run voice response menu systems such as 1-800-555-8355 (TELLME) street navigation directions for anywhere in the USA.
The last segment is more technology geek focused and shows how to automate information integration systems using open source XML scripting to load data to/from database systems and the associated importance of understanding context and roles to keep processes simple and clear.
The PESC presentation can be found here.
