Category: online interaction

Reflections on Our “Drawing Together” Session

Argh, I have been wanting to finish this blog post. Work is crazy, so I can’t be as complete as I’d like to be, but I have to get this out. There is so much incubation going on in my head about visuals, and not enough time to release it all into the wild!

This past week as part of the Future of Learning in a Networked World 08 “event” we did a session on Drawing Together Online. Leigh Blackall arranged for us to use Otago Polytechnic’s (corrected – thanks Leigh) Elluminate room. Elluminate has a shared white board. Hmmm… possibilities. Could we draw on paper then take digital photos or scans and upload to Flickr? Draw together on the white board? The key was I wanted to create an irresistible invitation for everyone to draw something during our hour together.

We started off with a few ruminations and images from me. Leigh gave us a short lesson on drawing human figures then we just jumped in. And the white board became the center of attention. At first it was chaotic. Then we played with constraints. A theme. A request to work smaller and slower. We reflected on how we felt looking at the images. How we felt when we could not find space to make our mark, or when it was erased by someone else – and not being able to know quickly who it was. We talked about our inner censors, keeping us from drawing. How they came to us as childhood melted into adulthood.

I had a great time. For me, it was a wonderful session. The Elluminate Recording is here. A montage of some of our drawings is below as well as a link to Flickr: Photos tagged with drawingtogether

I invite any of the people who played together that day to share your impressions as well. Some of us said we want to do more exploration of drawing together online. YES!

1. flnw_ambivilance_2, 2. Commute, 3. flnw_coffee, 4. My Texturized Cofee Picture, 5. cogdog’s texturized coffee picture, 6. flnw_boundaries, 7. flnw_ambivilance, 8. I Need MORE COFFEE (PicNik-ed), 9. Our first collaborative drawing, 10. I Need MORE COFFEE, 11. Coffee, 12. Our first collaborative drawingOur Images

While we are thinking about visual thinking together, here is another amazing link of a video that really uses visual thinking, from Christian Nold at PopTech. follow that link to take a look at this video. (Edited to remove the embed because it kept auto-playing, driving some of us nuts.)

Ushahidi.com – Getting More Doves on the Map

Via Ethan Zuckerman’s post on internet based reporting in Kenya’s post election violence comes a link to Ushahidi.com – Kenya’s Post Election.


Report Acts Of Violence In Kenya

Ushahidi is a good example of using the power of an image to convey data. They are mapping citizen reports of violence. People can submit reports via mobile phones. They are also mapping reports of peacemaking activities, but alas, there are not many doves on the map and plenty of flames, indicating conflict. (see map below)

Here is a report from today:

My name is peter and I teach at Kisumu Day High School. I want to report that in Kisumu Thousands of students will not be able to attend school again this coming Monday. The violence and sheer police brutality that has rocked Kisumu in the last three days has rendered learning activities impossible.
Most Children and teachers are traumatized. The students and their teachers have either been displaced in the fighting or their schools are sheltering displaced people.
The schools were supposed to have opened on 14th January. This did not take place. We need guiding and counseling to be done for the kids in Kisumu who have seen dead bodies, heard gunshots and slept hungry for the last one week.
Roads in Kisumu still have huge rocks and boulders to block motorists.
Let the Ministry of education in Kenya come up with ways and means to jump start the education sector in this region.
Personally I am calling on to people who can offer counseling services to the kids to contact me on +254722612128.

Map from Ushahidi.com

Via Global Voices, Ndesanjo Macha’s also writes about Ushahidi.com Kenya: Cyberactivism in the aftermath of political violence. Ndesanjo writes about what went into the formation of the site and the value of a very simple idea put into practice.

There are a number of things at play worth noting. First in the technology community’s response – technologists primarily in Africa, but also across the world. People saw a need and responded. It is worth amplifying their work by blogging about it.

Second, it is useful amplifying positive actions. It is important to cover the news of the atrocities, but communities and individuals can also cover the things people are doing as a positive response. Acts of peace, reconciliation and relief to those cut off from food, water, jobs and family due to violence. This is something networks are good at.

What acts of peace or reconciliation are you amplifying on your blog? And what can we do to help Kenyans create and get more doves on the map?

Other links:

  • http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/01/08/scoble-kenya-and-opening-the-closed-stories/
  • http://mashable.com/2008/01/04/forget-kenya-lets-talk-scoble-gate/
  • http://fullcirc.com/wp/2008/01/04/what-can-we-do-for-our-friends-in-kenya/
  • http://www.mentalacrobatics.com/think/
  • http://www.kenyanpundit.com/
  • http://www.whiteafrican.com/ (specific link)
  • http://afromusing.com/blog/
  • http://www.mamamikes.com/blog/?p=22 (donation page)
  • Global Voices aggregation page on Kenya situation

    • Attention, Attention

    From Tricycle Magazine’s Daily Dharma…Attention, Attention. Do read the whole thing. It is short. Here is the quote that starts today’s message:

    There’s an old Zen story: a student said to Master Ichu, “Please write for me something of great wisdom.” Master Ichu picked up his brush and wrote one word: “Attention.” The student said, “Is that all?” The master wrote, “Attention Attention.”…

    It is not for nothing that people say “attention is the coin of cyberspace.” We have so many things we COULD pay attention to, but what DO we pay attention to. What would be wise to pay attention to.

    The wise use of attention is definitely a 21st century skill.

    Conference Call Practices for Learning and Knowledge

    My friends John Smith and Shawn Callahan have put together a great resource for communities of practice, teams and other groups who use teleconferences calls. Conference call practices to generate knowledge and record learning

    True to form in our informal network, Caren amplifies, and we continue to build on our old history .

    Pretty cool…

    Jon Lebkowsky on Friends and Tipping Points

    Jon Lebkowsky wrote this quite a while ago on WorldChanging. I had started a draft post and never got back to it. While doing a little blog-keeping today, I found it again and it is worth blogging. (Just a warning… there may be a little flood of blog posts to “catch up.”)

    Jon thinks about what we mean by “friends” online. The Value of Connections

    I have a lot of connections on Facebook – 415, to be exact. When I go there, I see quite a few friends doing interesting things, and I always have invitations to connect, join groups, join causes, etc. Facebook is a very effective social network platform, perhaps because people like me like the idea of having a place where we can connect with people we know. But the more people we connect with, the more demands there are on our limited attention, and the less truly engaged we can be with anyone.

    On the other hand, the more people I connect to on Facebook, the more who will see my stuff. So if I ever do have a cause I want supported, or a message I want to circulate, having a large network would be helpful. The downside is that it feels less social and more like the broadcast model of publishing: one to many.

    I do want more Facebook friends, but there are some significant issues to think about if I want to use the network effectively and avoid wasting my — and everyone’s — time. And there’s a distinction to be made between “social” and “mass.” As you get more and more connections you have more social overhead; as you scale up you run into an inherent limit on social media’s ability to remain social. If I value a broad attention base or large audience over effective manageable relationships, I should work from a different set of assumptions.

    I still don’t have neat boxes for these thoughts and concepts; I have more that I’ll get into within the next few weeks. Meanwhile I’d like to hear your thoughts…

    As I’ve written before, I hit some sort of volume wall the middle of last year. I’ve written about how I am now more selective on adding friends to follow on Twitter. I mostly ignore Facebook friend requests. I totally ignore Plaxo requests. Just the management of the requests has gone over the top, and I can handle a lot. The people I work with in NPOs and NGOs most likely would never even consider the work it requires to maintain a presence on one of the social networks.

    But the friends, the contacts, the network is so powerful. Where is the balancing point for any one of us?

    Oh as a little side note – an interesting self test on your online identity! I wonder what the relationship is between being “digitally distinct” and overwhelmed by maintaining that status. Oi!

    “Your online identity score is 9 out of a possible score of 10. Congratulations. You are digitally distinct. This is the nirvana of online identity. Keep up the good work, and remember that your Google results can change as fast as the weather in New England. So, regularly monitor your online identity.