Month: December 2008

Sueetie – .NET Open Source Online Community Development

My Vermont buddie, Dave Burke, was tantalizing me last September with the kit of open source .net tools he was blending into a community platform. Well, the cat is out of the bag. Or the chocolate is out of the wrapper… because Sueetie has arrived!

Sueetie: The Future in .NET Open Source Online Community Development – Home Page

I was VERY happy to see that Dave included a wiki, something I was begging for when he showed me his prototypes.

I also enjoyed the Manifesto:

  • Sueetie is a movement that promotes the creation of online communities using .NET Open Source software.
  • Sueetie developers are dedicated to the success of the .NET Open Source applications that comprise the Sueetie online community suite.
  • No commercial or Open Source community application ever meets the requirements of a community without additional custom development.
  • All enhancements made to .NET Open Source applications on a Sueetie project are given back to the original application community.
  • Sueetie developers write original code or leverage code from Open Source resources. Sueetie developers never use code from source-available commercial .NET products in Sueetie communities.
  • The Sueetie feature set grows with the development of each new Sueetie site, as Sueetie developers share their application code in a common Sueetie code library.
  • Sueetie development is about freedom and collaboration. All accomplished .NET developers who are dedicated to the principles of Open Source development are welcome to join the Sueetie Movement.

So if you are looking for an open source collection of online interaction/community tools rolled into a single sign on platform, check out Sueetie. Even better, contribute to it. Dave can’t do this alone… so ping all your friends who are both Open Source and .Net.

The 7 things I would never tell my mother – NOT!

Mom is in the middle with her mod friends!I have four “serious” blog posts half edited and I haven’t found the focus to complete them. So why not veer wildly…

Elana tagged me with an ever twisting blog meme “7 Things You Would Never Tell Your Mother.” I say twisted, because Yvonne DiVita  author of Dickless Marketing and the Lipsticking Blog already twisted the meme once.
Uh, well, what if your mother reads your blog? I think my mom has at least peeked at mine. Talk about social media and boundary hopping. Elana, I’m going to twist the meme again, and try and think of others to tag who have their moms as readers. Then we’ll find out if they ARE reading.

Here is the original:  The 7 Things I Would Never Tell My Mother Meme

Here is my twist: 7 Things You Want to Tell Your Mother in a Subtle Way via Your Blog

  1. My job really isn’t overthrowing small countries. Despite what my sons say at dinner time. But I do get to work with people in many countries – this year I was face to face in 7 countries and online with people from about 12 more.
  2. I do have an offline social life. I actually just went out for coffee today with a new colleague interested in online learning. And yeah, I met her online. But she lives within 20 miles. Doesn’t that count?
  3. I do get dressed for work, just not every day. While I was in Germany last month I got dressed for 8 whole days. Yes, now I’m back to warm yoga pants, sweaters and fleece. And woolly socks. It is cold in Seattle this week.
  4. My chocolate addiction is about quality, not quantity. (It is really Larry who eats the quantity in this family. Right, Larry? Naw, I don’t think you read my blog. Do ya?)
  5. My drive to contribute to the world comes from you, Mom. You were a volunteer as long as I can remember. Now I see you volunteering later in your life, and I notice how much it energizes you and keeps you young. I hope to always follow in your generous footsteps.
  6. My ability to cook a good meal comes from you. When I was younger, you were always experimenting. You come from good cooking genes from Grammy B, and added your own California flare. I remember my friends, when we moved to Pennsylvania, always thought your West Coast cooking was quite exotic!
  7. I think you are brave moving to Seattle. I appreciate that this move is as much for us, your kids, as it is for you and dad to have less house responsibility and more time to engage with life. No more house to clean. But moving here to Seattle, because we want you near one of your three kids, is a big leap. I promise, it will be a great one and all of us are standing by to make sure that happens.

Happy Holidays – send a message out to your mom on your blog. See if she reads it. And as for tagging, let’s see:

  • Jory – Because I know your mom reads your blog!
  • Bev – I know your mom has passed away, but since she was really a blogger before her time, maybe she can still get the RSS feed in heaven (or wherever you believe her spirit resides)
  • Ashley – because you are really good at expressing love online
  • Steve – I don’t know if your mom is alive (this makes this picking a bit difficult, eh) but I expect you might say something very insightful. How’s that for pressure?
  • Jim – to see how far you will stray in your blog focus these days. 🙂

E-Stuffed

Just a quick surfacing… this morning I had the good fortune to snag some of Derek Wenmouth and Margaret McLeod’s time. They were in town for a conference on the School of the Future. I asked if I could take them out a bit for breakfast and to see a bit of Seattle outside of the downtown core. This shot is looking east from the Hiram Chittenden locks, in the Ballard neighborhood. It was great to get outdoors and enjoy a rare sunny winter Seattle day.

As we chowed down on some delicious breakfast, we talked about this idea of “blended learning” and what it means to discern what medium and what approach at what point in time. How do our choices reflect the developmental and content needs of the learners? For children, how does it balance freedom and safety? How do you keep an eye on the polarity between individually driven learning and the experience of learning with others — which has more to do than just learning about something. It is about learning together and social interaction. It is a complex and interesting stew. My head was stuffed full of ideas.

This dovetails in with something that came up last week at the United Nations University meeting on e-Learning that I facilitated in Bonn – the idea that the “e-learning” is not just about classrooms and courses, but about “e-stuff” –> how tools and processes can enable us to weave in and make visible learning an any turn, in many places, formal and informal. Virginie Aimard and I want to write up this “E-Stuff Manifesto” — in our spare time. (I hope you appreciate the humor here.)

I don’t have time or mental bandwidth to capture it all now, but this is a little bookmarker for those interested in this more systemic approach. What do you think?

Don’t Vote for Me – Edublogger Awards (but vote!)

Edublogger Lifetime nomineeI’m sure you don’t really care about why I have not blogged (travel, work, need a new roof and have to get quotes and references, blah blah blah). I have about 4 posts I really want to write – and odd for me, write well and thoughtfully. I’m feeling quite inadequate. Then I see this… Lifetime achievement award 2008 The Edublog Awards. Oh my. Look who is on the list:

OK, folks, all those other folks are amazing. They really ARE focused on education, while I meander all over the place. Yes, learning is a passion. But vote for one of them. They are really amazing, generous people who have taught me a ton.

To whomever nominated you, bless your sweet heart. I am deeply appreciative and there is a big smile on my face. Being in this group of people is the best reward. But don’t vote for me — vote for one of the other fabulous people on the list.

I also have to giggle. LIFETIME! A lifetime in blogging years, eh? I think I started in 2004, but my short term memory and my lack of affinity for numbers may prove me wrong. 😉 And if you have a magic wand, do you have a way to build a free week into my life this month?