Extensible Markup Language (XML)

Extensible Markup Language (XML)  

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a type of metadata tag, a type of folksonomy (O'Keefe, 2009). Metadata tags are attributes that describe a document's content. Rather than using the paragraph tags discussed for folksonomies, authors use metadata to place descriptive tags around layout features designed into a document. One example of a descriptive tag may be the frame for a photograph in a text. This tag creates an “address” for that frame within the document. Users and authors may then quickly search for the tag and populate the area with a different type of frame or none at all.

Consequently, XML is also both a strategy and programming language that separates presentation from content (O’Keefe, 2009). It allows users to create a macro program for presenting content on a media output device, anything from paper to computer screen, before actually creating the content.

For example, let us say a company needs to create 20 different paper-based contracts. Some of the language used in each contract is boilerplate, meaning it contains the same verbiage in the same arrangement. Rather than re-typing the same verbiage, including words, phrases, clauses, paragraphs, and punctuation, into each contract, contract by contract, the writer may simply creates a macro document with the verbiage, assign it an XML tag, and then insert the tag into the appropriate place in each contract. That XML tag then automatically pulls the macro document's verbage, character by character, into the finished contract.

XML tags also allow writers and editors to make quick changes to page elements in existing documents. Using the same example as above, let us say some of the boilerplate verbiage changes in the contracts over time. Rather than going document by document and retyping the changes, which creates a situation ripe for typos, all one need do is change the verbiage in the original macro document. Then, with one keystroke, each contract that contains the original XML tag automatically updates (populates) with the new verbiage.

Figure 6 shows an example of XML coding. For XML to work correctly, a user or author needs to encode the document properly to read the XML page elements.

XML offers many uses throughout eLearning. For example, instructional designers and educators may create document templates of XML text elements by using metadata tags. They may then upload content to populate the document. They may also make changes to one finished document as to 50.

XML is also be useful when creating and updating interactive applications. For example, let us say an instructor wants to create a Web site for an art class. Instead of typing the verbiage page by page, the instructor instead uses XML tagging.

The instructor first designs a Web-based user interfact, such as a Web index page. The instructor then creates a database of XML-tagged macro documents containing verbiage and image elements. The instructor then inserts the XML tags for those documents into the Web page. Consequently, in a few short keystrokes, the instructor created a finished Web, with the content from the XML database's macro documents (verbiage, images, framing devices, tables, etc.) populating the finished Web page. Students then view the content as they would any Web page.

Next, the instructor may poll students using a device of some sort added to the Web site through XML tagging. For example, as part of an introduction to the course, the instructor could solicit student opinions about a number of images, asking with they do or do not consider to be art. At the end of the term, the instructor would then change the images and re-poll the students to see if their opinions changed. Rather than changing the Web site's interface design, the instructor would merely delete the XML tags for the old images and add them for the new. This update then repopulates the Web site with the new images.

If permissions are set accordingly, XML may allow students to directly add or delete images. The students themselves could repopulate the Web site based on the instructor’s original interface design.

XML tagging ultimately saves time, money, and creates a truly interactive experience for both educators and students.
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O’Keefe, S. (2009, January). Web 2.0: The tipping point for XML. Intercom, 56(1), 31. 31-32. Retrieved February 15, 2009,
          from http://www.scriptorium.com/Web2TippingPointXML.pdf

Stop FB from Sharing Your Profile Info with Third Parties

Well, Facebook has done it again. It created yet another way to share your private information with third parties, as I discussed in the previous article.

This one even has Congress bothered, to the point that some Senate members sent a letter to Facebook's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, asking him to change FB's privacy settings.  Evidently, the Federal Trade Commission is also looking into the matter.

The good news is you can stop this inadvertent profile sharing today! Here's how:

1. Click Account (found in the upper right hand corner of the Home screen).

2. Click Privacy Settings.

3. Click Applications and Websites.

4. Click the Edit Settings button for Instant Personalization Pilot Program.

5. Click and uncheck the box at the bottom of the page marked "Allow select partners to instantly personalize their features with my public information when I first arrive on their websites."

6. Click the Confirm button in the window that pops open. The window says "Are you sure?"

Good luck!