Category: collaboration

Academic Portfolios & Badges – Want to think together?

I’ve had a long association with the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at the University of Davis and I get the opportunity to lend a hand here and there on projects. The latest in the MacArthur Foundation funded  Digital Portfolio/Badges project that Joanna Normoyle is working on for the new Sustainable Agriculture major. The problem is this: I don’t really know much about this sort of thing. I’ve been a long time skeptic about badges, but Joanna sucked me in by asking about how we can build more reflective practices into the system and that, my friends, excites me.

So the next thing I thought was — I need to tap my network! I sent out a tweet and pretty soon some terrific people responded. Of course, this was also when I was crazy busy so I decided instead of tweeting back, I’d start this blog post with an offer. How about it @soletelee,  @openbadges, @lbraun2000, @emgollie @eknight , @kwerb, @pblhq, @dlnorman, @carlacasilli from Mozilla,  @donpresant,  @VennLibrarian and @dajbelshaw (“the badge guy for Mozilla Foundation.”) Care to jump into a little peer assist?

Joanna and I wonder if you’d like to find 30-60 minutes for a Google+ Hangout where Joanna can show you the thinking so far and just get some feedback. Are you game? If yes, leave a comment here. Joanna and I will try and find some time in the next ten days.

Update: Meeting time fixed! 

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for filling out the doodle. It looks like tomorrow, 11/27, 11:30-12:15 PST will work well.

Here’s the meeting link and talk soon!

Joanna

1. Please join my meeting, Nov 27, 2012 at 11:30 AM PST.
https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/357610317

2. Use your microphone and speakers (VoIP) – a headset is recommended. Or, call in using your telephone.

Dial +1 (805) 309-0027
Access Code: 357-610-317
Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting

Meeting ID: 357-610-317

 

GroupWorks Deck Method Mapping at NCDD2012

This past weekend I’ve been hanging out at the National Coalition for Dialog and Deliberation‘s national confab, NCDD2012. Synopsis? Amazing people. Also it was great to connect with folks I’ve met/known online and demoralizing to NOT connect with others who were there in the flesh. Not enough time or energy. 🙁

Thursday I took part in pre-conference workshop using the fabulous Group Works Deck to map out the elements of a variety of group methods and processes. (I wrote about the deck a while back here. )

As we did the exercise, I realized that I needed the narrative with the map, so took these off the cuff videos, now debuting as this week’s Monday Video.

via GroupWorks Deck Method Mapping at NCDD2012 – YouTube.

What I noticed about the mapping was the more we did it, the more discerning we became at identifying the essential “spine” of a method AND,through reflecting on the other possibilities offered by the patterns in the cards, observed new ways of “fleshing out” the method depending on context. In other words, the cards enabled us to have great learning conversations about the methods. Very cool. I plan to use the cards a lot in the coming weeks of crazy work and travel! I also deeply appreciated all the knowledge in the room. As I learned about Participatory Budgeting from John Kelly, I was getting all kinds of ideas about how to reapply the basic idea to Knowledge Sharing/Budgeting (in terms of time and attention — which seems to be a big problem in my world these days!)

At the meeting, I also was part of a fabulous team of visual practitioners who volunteered to do a visual capture of the plenaries of all three days as a unified product. Tim Corey helped us envision a 24 x 8 foot image and then we all figured out a) how to work together to b) make a coherent capture. I’ll write more about this later after our debrief, including links to all the fab people I got to work with. But it was great fun and a lovely learning laboratory.

 

Other NCDD Materials:

  • NCDD 2012 Tweets (I hope someone Storify’s them or harvests them before they are gone. It was not a huge tweeting crowd, but there are some good captures!)
  • My photos, including some not-so-great images of the giant collaborative graphic capture 8 of us worked on (better images to come)

Shahab from #CommProj12 Interviews Me About Online Facilitation

IMG_07112012_160533We are deep into week 5 of the Project Community course. The course explores the role of online communities and networks in open, innovative design engineering. (See previous posts here and our shared Faculty blog.)

Shahab, one of my co-faculty, and I did a Google hangout on online facilitation. Here is the short 12 minute version. You can find the longer 19 minute version here. I mentioned the Community Roundtable about half way in and want to share the link so viewers have an easy link to follow! The week’s reading on online facilitation is here.

via Nancy white on Online facilitation – YouTube.

Chris Corrigan on Group Size in Innovation and Open Design

In our week three of the Project Community course, we are talking about group size. While I was at the fabulous Applied Improvisation Network World Conference this last week, I got to ask the fabulous Chris Corrigan for his insights to share with the class. The fabulous payoff is in the last 2 minutes or so!

via Chris Corrigan on Group Size in Innovation and Open Design – YouTube.

The Four Fold Practice via Chris Corrigan

The Four Fold Practice « Chris Corrigan is a great bit of advice for how to mindfully work and be together. Take a look. Here are a few snippets that I really appreciated:

“None of us are smart enough to have the answers. To co-create something is to benefit from diversity and to stay in the relationship…even when you don’t know where things are going.”

“Pay equal attention to work and relationships.”