Author: Nancy White

Virtual Love Children

yummy dummy chocolatesThis post from the sparky, smart and witty Vicki Scholtz is the best chuckle of the day for me. This post is a response to participation in the recent e/Merge 2008 which I blogged about last week.

Carnivorous Cow | Repassionated
“Maybe that’s it,” Keitu admitted. “Maybe it was exactly that notion that resonated – a kind of Woodstocky feel only with better hair and cooler clothes, and far nicer toys. But that sense of idealism, of belief, of… of passion! Somehow, although I let it go, it wouldn’t let me go!”

Bob chuckled. “You’re talking about Howard sitting barefooted under his plum tree! I wonder how many fermented plums you’ve been eating…!”

“Well,” Keitu admitted, “it makes a change from all the chocolate. Hey!” she looked up. “Do you think I could be the secret love child of Nancy White and Howard Rheingold?”

New Models for Creation and Collaboration

I’m a Joss Whedon fan. Loved Firefly. I also love musicals (please, don’t judge me! ). So when I heard about Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, I had to take a peek.

Then I wanted to know more about the Master Plan. Here is what I found:

Spread the word. Rock some banners, widgets, diggs… let people know who wouldn’t ordinarily know. It wouldn’t hurt if this really was an event. Good for the business, good for the community – communitIES: Hollywood, internet, artists around the world, comic-book fans, musical fans (and even the rather vocal community of people who hate both but will still dig on this). Proving we can turn Dr Horrible into a viable economic proposition as well as an awesome goof will only inspire more people to lay themselves out in the same way. It’s time for the dissemination of the artistic process. Create more for less. You are the ones that can make that happen.

Wow. I had no idea how important you guys were. I’m a little afraid of you.

Wait a minute – look at this. A new way to create and collaborate? Yeah, baby. While I see international NGO’s struggling to maintain ownership, get credit and other such things in order to keep the donor dollars running in, what would happen if international development was done in this model – by people both who identify themselves as “development professionals” (whatever that means) AND by anyone who had something to contribute. Give it away free for a bit, and then if it has value, sell it at a reasonable price. We fund based on usefulness and demand.

What would happen if learning had this model. Instead of lining up for a degree, what if people could offer and accept the offer of some bit of learning. How could these informal offers link up with the formal structures of certification or degrees? Should they?

What would happen if ….

To quote Whedon one more time… “Wow. I had no idea how important you guys were. I’m a little afraid of you.”

A spot of reflection – shifting from me to we

Dog in the Windo

Window Dog

The dog days of summer are here, and I want to be outside on these glorious, sunny Seattle days. With a long wet winter, we tend to be hyper aware of the magnificence of our Pacific Northwest Summers. Right now there are raspberries and strawberries ripening in my garden. Flowers. Compost to be turned, potted plants luxuriating outside, needing water. The last two days I was up on Whidbey Island, about an hour north of Seattle, sitting on a deck overlooking the water and being blissfully quiet.

Where is the reflection on my work? On my practice. For the most part, right here on this blog. So I wanted to share some of the things I’m thinking about. Today’s is about the shift from me to we.

For the last two weeks I’ve been peeking in and participating peripherally in the South African online event, e/merge. Here is a bit about e/merge for context…

e/merge 2008 – Professionalising Practices is the third virtual conference on educational technology in Africa and builds on the e/merge conferences in 2004 and 2006. e/merge 2008 will take place online from 7 – 18 July 2008 and may include associated face to face events in a number of cities. The conference is primarily designed to share good practice and knowledge about educational technology innovation within the further and higher education sectors in the region, as well as to strengthen communities of researchers and practitioners.

I have been a part the first two e/merges (2004 and 2006). In 2006 we ran a little online facilitation workshop within the event and that was what Tony Carr and I were going to do this year. But through a nice accident, we both were overwhelmed and decided to shift gears to something both simpler and emergent. We decided to host three chats during the two week event around the facilitation of the event, asking the event facilitators and hosts to join us with their thoughts and observations. IT offered not only a simpler structure, but it would provide a little bit of time for reflection within the event. Wow, slowing down!

The chats attracted the event facilitators plus other participants and have been FANTASTIC. The open format with a loose theme somehow created a safe, warm and humorous place where I felt the shift from “me to we” each time. In our last chat today, we talked about how we pay attention to and invite that shift from me to we. Some of the triggers people noticed include:

  • Being acknowledged as a contributor (in a reply, summary, etc.)
  • Getting comfortable (posting, the technology, the people)
  • Having enough space to establish an identity, then letting that go

How do you invite this transition from me to we in your facilitation, online or off? Can you share a story of when you felt or experienced this shift?

Pete Shelton’s Lessons from Teaching 2.0 to Researchers

Photo by Edmittance on FlickrPete Shelton (IFPRI of the CGIAR along with his co-blogger, Stephan Dorn) has a must read post for anyone trying to introduce “web 2” tools to their work communities. He speaks of researchers here (in international agricultural research) but I believe they apply in many other settings as well. Read the whole thing… Three lessons from a year of teaching 2.0 to researchers

  1. Focus on the job, not the tool.
  2. Researchers like hearing from other researchers, not us.
  3. Don’t assume you know what researchers need- go out and ask them!

Photo from Edmittance on Flickr