Category: online interaction

Good Stuff While I was Gone

Rita Angus quote from Te Papa museum exhibitI bemoan the fact that there is so much good stuff floating by me. Thank goodness for friends and colleagues like Stephen Downes who filter and share via newsletters and Twitter. Here is a sampling of stuff that has caught my eye, and why. Most from Stephen’s OLDaily – or interestingly – found both elsewhere then seen on OLDaily, which serves as a beacon of “pointing light” for me to see something twice.

  • Howard Rheingold talks (via multiple modes) about participatory learning. (Howard tweeted this!) – note the combination of video/voice and text. How does it feel to you? I like it.
  • Jay Cross on performance support in a web 2.0 world http://informl.com/2008/08/24/whatever-happened-to-performance-support/ What I appreciate about this is the historical peek back to performance support as a bridge to understanding the value of new tools. This sort of context provides good “splainin!” (Lee LeFever has also been writing about the value of explanation.) (pointer from Stephen)
  • Stephen again pointing to this paper on mapping pedagogies and technologies – http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue56/conole/. New Schemas for Mapping Pedagogies and Technologies.
    “Gráinne Conole reflects on the implications of Web 2.0 for education and offers two new schemas for thinking about harnessing the potential of technologies.” This article interests me because of the work John Smith, Etienne Wenger and I have been doing about mapping technologies to community of practice activities. (And yes, the book IS coming along – at the designers now!) My experience is that mapping is a “first swipe” and then, context rules.
  • The continuing evolution and path of Leigh Blackall’s course “Facilitating Online Communities” – both visible on the wiki http://www.wikieducator.org/Facilitating_online_communities and in the other blogs, Google Group, etc. They are not only learning about the topic, they are figuring out what happens when you open a Polytechnic’s course and 100 people show up. It was also great to meet Leigh F2F in Wellington last week. I think I threw him off when I greeted him with a big hug. Oh, that darn American behavior! Some of the things that I’m finding interesting as I lurk include how Leigh is teaching/facilitating, the impact of a group that includes some folks I’d put both at the expert and novice range of experience with teaching and online community, how the group straddles (John Smith’s favorite word) the various technologies that Leigh has offered and of course, the amazing reflections in people’s blogs. This reinforces for me the deep value of making time for reflective practices. Slow down!
  • Again, from Leigh’s presentation at DEANZ 08 in Wellington, how his talk on “Inverted IP Policy” has helped me see the issue of IP in educational and organizational settings in a new light. I think this is also related to my earlier post today about why people contribute things to the public good. It has been interesting to see some of the blog ripples from Leigh’s talk and sharing of the content.
  • Via I don’t know where, this cool site for sharing some of the photographs of Walker Evans. http://www.afterwalkerevans.com/images7.html. Evan’s was a depression era photographer from the south and the study of his work and that of writer James Agee was a profound part of going to University in the US South for me (Duke.) More on Evan’s here.
  • From my World Cafe Girl Geek friends, a pointer to the work of Franke James – wow, great visual thinking.
  • Kerry’s “Coveritlive” coverage of the Mind of Matter seminar in Australia. I’m interested both in the subject matter of how technology is affecting our brains (and vica versa, to be honest) and the tool Kerry used, Coveritlive. I have been meaning to check that out. Stephen also pointed to this, but Kerry had also emailed a notice. This was one of those “twice pointed out” items!
  • A mention of a post on Mike Coughlan’s blog reminded me it was time to visit. Always good stuff.
  • Luis Gutierrez emailed me about Nuptial Dimension of Sustainable Development – Part 4 Solidarity, Sustainability, and Nonviolence, V4 N8 August 2008 http://pelicanweb.org/solisustv04n08.html. I haven’t read it yet, but I have been thinking a lot about alternatives to traditional development processes so I have this bookmarked to come back to. Luis was also looking to spread the word. This also connects to a George Siemen’s post about the roots of “connectivism” – I haven’t sorted it out in my brain yet, but I think there is a deep connection between what George is writing about and these alternative development paths that are intrinsically of a network nature. Also, to another article pointed out by Stephen on the relationship between learning and poverty.
  • Barry Dahl talks about the “back channel” at conferences (this time at Desire2Learn where I keynoted last year but have not been tracking this year.) In Wellington at DEANZ we talked about “that which is not always visible” but which matters. Things like twitter are starting to make the invisible visible. What are the ramifications? When is some good, but too much is destructive?

Yikes, this might be enough for one post. I have a list of about 20 other URLs I want to blog about. Hehe. I said today to my walking buddy, it would be nice to have a fairy godmother drop out of the sky and fund 3 months for contemplation, 3 months for catching up and three months more for writing about it!

More on replacing business travel from Jessica Lipnack

Flickr CC from linh_nganLast week I wrote about Obliterate or strategically use business travel?

Then I saw this post on Facebook by NetTeams wizardess, Jessica Lipnack. Her emphasis on the social processes resonates. It is worth a link here…

Facebook | Jessica Lipnack’s Notes

…Many reporters, for example, The New York Times’s fine one, Steve Lohr, whose article, “As travel costs rise, more meetings go virtual,” took the headline earlier this week. Nothing wrong with Lohr’s article, good, solid reporting with news for the newbies to the area: Cisco’s telepresence offering, high price tag aside, makes participants feel like they’re “there;” “companies of all sizes are beginning to shift to Web-based meetings for training and sales;” and this, worth the pull quote:

A report last month by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative, a group of technology companies, and the Climate Group, an environmental organization, estimated that up to 20 percent of business travel worldwide could be replaced by Web-based and conventional videoconferencing technology.

Twenty percent? Me thinks a lot higher. But, numbers aside, where Lohr’s article is like all the rest – and where it misses the point – is in this: Technology alone does not solve the problem. I’ve harped on about this before. Our old motto, “90% people, 10% technology,” is being drowned out by the reflexive action whereby companies/organizations throw technology into the hands that once held airline tickets.

Here are a couple of more related articles if you are interested in this topic of when and how to replace F2F meetings with virtual meetings.

July 31 Addition: As an added afterthought (I keep adding links) this is also a technology stewardship issue. Who is building the capacity to use these tools well? What does their community of practice look like!)

Photo Credit:
Uploaded on July 7, 2008
by linh.ngân

Free workshop: Facilitating online communities

The inimitable Leigh Blackall of the Educational Development Centre of Otago Polytechnic is at it again, this time with an open, wiki/blog based online facilitation workshop starting next week. Catch the news at… Facilitating online communities – WikiEducator

If you are interested in online facilitation, particularly in a teaching/learning context, don’t miss this one!

Facilitating online communities

From WikiEducator

Course blog

Facilitating Online Communities blog

Facilitation is a rare and valuable skill to have. It is a service that is often used in conferences, debates, panels and tutorials, or simply where groups of people are meeting and need someone to help negotiate meaning and understanding, and to keep everyone engaged and on task.

* Good facilitation depends on good communication skills.
* Good online facilitation depends on good online communication skills.
* Facilitating online communities… what does that involve?

This course has been developed by staff in the Educational Development Centre of Otago Polytechnic and is designed to help both formal and informal learners access and interpret models, research and professional dialog in the facilitation of online communities. After completing this course people should be confident in facilitating online and/or be able to critique and offer advice to other people in the facilitation of online communities.
The next facilitated course starts 28 July 2008.
Participation in this course is open. You will need to have regular access to the Internet and be comfortable with independently completing tasks. To join simply introduce yourself to the discussion page and include an email address that can be use to add you to an email forum for the course.

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?

The World Cafe Community – Virtual Cafes?

There is a very interesting conversation buzzing around in various locations online about how to do World Cafes online. I am feeling tortured, because I’d like to be fully participating, but due to the “to do list” I’m watching from the side. I think there is much more here than looking at how to do World Cafe gatherings online, but in a larger sense, how do we best utilize convening methods from our F2F practices in a distributed environment – and all the juicy questions that go along with it. For me, some of the key questions include:

  • What methods can “translate” into an online space – why or why not? What do we even mean by “translate?”
  • Are we being strategic and clear about what method to use when – online or off. In other words, lets not do the “move our dysfunctional offline meetings into the online space.” The bottom line is creating interactions that matter – online or off.
  • What are the social implications?
  • What are the technical implications? Existing and potential tools (especially free or low cost tools)?

The main thread about virtual World Cafe’s is on the World Cafe’s community space here –> The World Cafe Community – Virtual Cafes?. Some other side shoots and resources:

Truly, I’d love a month to research this sort of thing and things like useful patterns and practices in online events… and so many other things. Maybe in December…. 🙂