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André Roberge has created three screencasts on the use of Crunchy. Crunchy is an interactive Python interpretor that runs inside the Firefox browser and can be used to create interactive Python tutorials, library documentation, demos and tests. The principle is similar to “docucentric design” which was explored by one of my PhD students. The key benefit of the Crunchy approach is that documents are just web pages with embedded tasks. It is worth investigating whether Crunchy can be combined with a wiki to add some value to my current research project....

It’s been a while since I blogged, but the reason is that I’ve been on holdiday with the in-laws in Regensburg (Bavaria: see picture) and am undergoing the always time consuming task of catching up with RSS feeds and email. Nearly three weeks worth this time! I’ve spotted a few interesting things in the feeds that deserve further investigation and commentary, for now just check out the links that are tickling my fancy....

A useful survey of the top 10 programming languages used in web development by Stephen Ward of dailybits.com has been published on ReadWriteWeb. In addition to HTML and CSS, my students have some experience of Java, JavaScript, PHP, ASP.NET/C# and SQL and they see Ruby on Rails in action. So we’re doing a good job of building up a good portfolio of marketable skills at Swansea University.

The [Swansea Learning Lab](http://learninglab.swan.ac.uk) had planned that tomorrow there would be a “lunch and learn” [E-Learning Showcase](http://swansea-learninglab.blogspot.com/2007/10/e-learning-showcase-come-and-find-out.html) at which I was going to present the “Blackboard Quest”. Unfortunately, due to lack of interest, this session has been postponed. However, as I already had the slides ready, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and share what I was going to say anyway and test-drive a nifty new Web 2....

Harvard College Extension School’s “Introduction to Computer Science” is running again. This course, run by David J. Malan, is an excellent example of the use of multimedia for distance learning. The 12 week programme (which recommenced on 17th September) is designed for adult learners and distance learning and goes from bits and bytes through algorithms, programming and the web. David invites the world to follow along by making audio and video recordings of his lectures, his notes and additional golden nuggets of content that are provided by his teaching assistants, all available through an RSS feed....