Crowdsourcing? Collaboration? See what you think as you watch Share
netWorked Learning:connecting formal learning to the world
This morning at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am PDT (GMT -7) I shared some of my ideas about connecting the formal learning in universities to the wider, networked world to a group of learning professionals at Tartu University, in Estonia. This was part of School – From Teaching Institution to Learning Space which took place April 02 – 03, 2009 at the Estonian University of Life Sciences conference centre (Kreutzwaldi 1A, Tartu), Estonia. Edited: you can watch all the conference presentation online http://www.ut.ee/547971. (Video of my bit is now available here.)
First, there is always the challenge of plopping in to a conference – at the end no less – with no context of what has been discussed in the first few days. There were a lot of great looking sessions, both in Estonian and English. So I worried that I was duplicating, or worse, being irrelevant to the group. Second, there is the literal and figuratively the distance. I have to say, the tech team on the ground was terrific to give me video of the audience interspersed with everything else. It was the best job of a Skyped in video conference that I’ve experienced to date. During the Q&A I could easily see and hear the folks there in Tartu. My hats are off to Toomas and his technical team at the university.
The slides are below and some additional resources can be found here.
The key idea that I was hoping to put forth is that in a rapidly changing world. it is essential to connect domain learning to its context in the world – including the network of people in that domain and the diversity of the application of the domain in the world. Today’s students are going out into a world of uncertain jobs, changing financial situations and — well — a tough world. The more connected they are to that world during their higher education, the better positioned they will be to work in that world.
What do you think?
Networked Learningand Wider World Final
View more presentations from Nancy White.
Jessica’s Teleconference Call Tips
I’m beginning to feel like I live in telephone and Skype conference calls. And some are tortuous. All I can say is “Amen Sistah” to these three simple tips from Jessica Lipnack. How many multi-tasking on conference calls? 100%
1. Make the calls shorter. And shorter. And shorter. One senior exec whom I love for his discipline in this got his calls down to 15 minutes. And he’s very senior. Stars on his shoulder and all that.
2. Please, please, please listen to the “medical” experts, those who’ve treated thousands like yourselves: Always use some form of screen sharing during your calls so that everyone can focus on what you’re talking about. Imagine that you’re in a conference room together and everyone has their backs to one another and is looking out the window in different directions. How much attention are you paying to what’s being discussed? Looking at the same object is a powerful way to focus attention.
3. Close your email while you’re on your calls. Close it. Click it shut. And for those of you reading this post during your call, your browser too.
After reading this, I realized I really needed to update my old teleconferencing tips page, so here it is!
See also
- http://fullcirc.com/wp/2009/04/02/travel-budget-slashes-meeting-crunch-and-going-virtual/ and other teleconference related blog posts!
Photo Credit fLeMmA
Toby, Liz and Nancy on Online Community Relationships
Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing had Liz Strauss and I on Blog Talk Radio today. What a trip! Social Media and Social Networks internet radio show 4/2/2009 | Social Media Communities: Real Relationships or Illusions of Friendships?. Take a listen!
Edit: April 3. I’ve removed the embedded player because it auto plays. Sorry. You can click here to here it!
Travel Budget Slashes, Meeting Crunch and Going Virtual
Throughout the year I’m involved in quite a few conferences and meetings. This year, the ground is shifting. Travel budgets are being slashed (faster here than in Europe as far as I can tell) and people are starting to think more seriously about the non financial costs such as carbon emissions of the travel and the plain old wear and tear on our bodies traveling across time zones and geography.
Financially, meeting organizers have serious concerns. One US based conference coming up this Fall is seeing a 30% reduction in registrations and they feel LUCKY! One of my core communities of practice, KM4Dev, just had a call to discuss how we could meet, and scuttle our more ambitious S. Africa plan and do something more focused and less expensive because we could not get funding. Ed-Media, a conference I’ve been invited to speak at (in Hawaii – and yes, I feel both thrilled and carbon-guilty, even with offsets), sent email today announcing opening of virtual presentation submissions and participation. I say “good on ya!” Here are a few snippets from their note:
>> Virtual Presentations included in Final Call <<
http://www.aace.org/conf/edmedia/VP/
> Please forward to a colleague <
http://www.aace.org/conf/edmedia/call.htm
_______________________________________________________________
ED-MEDIA 2009World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications
June 22-26, 2009 * Honolulu, HawaiiINVITATION:
ED-MEDIA 2009 serves as a multi-disciplinary forum for the discussion and exchange of information on the research, development, and applications on all topics related to multimedia and telecommunications/distance education.ED-MEDIA, the premiere international conference in the field, spans all disciplines and levels of education and attracts more than 1,500 attendees from over 60 countries. We invite you to attend ED-MEDIA and submit proposals for presentations.
All presentation proposals are peer-reviewed and selected by three reviewers on the respected Program Committee for inclusion in the conference program, Proceedings (book and CD-ROM formats) and EdITLib (Education and Information Technology Digital Library), http://www.EdITLib.org
VIRTUAL PRESENTATIONS:
————————————-In consideration of presenters who may be unable to attend ED-MEDIA in person due to funding or time constraints, Virtual Presentations have been added to the program with the same validity (publication, certification, etc.) as the face-to-face (F2F) conference and with the capability to interact with session participants.
A limited number of presentations in these categories will be accepted:
– Virtual Brief Papers
– Virtual Posters
– Virtual Corporate ShowcasesWhy a Virtual Presentation?
————————————
* Saves money. No travel, accommodation, and restaurant costs
* Saves time. No travel or away time required.
* Allows you to participate when you schedule your time to do so.
* Same validity as the face-to-face (F2F) conference (publication, certification, etc.).
* Paper published in CD, book, and Digital Library ( http://www.editlib.org) proceedings.
* Publish and share all supporting media (PPT, video, etc.) in the proceedings.
* Capability to interact with your session
I love meeting face to face. But the reality is those of us who can are priveledged and soon, the ability to travel and gather may be even more restricted. We have to get better at “being together” using technology. That means better tools AND practices. That probably leads me to griping about the web meeting tools I have been using because they are what my clients use.
After criticizing SharePoint last week for it’s silo-creating, I have to ding Microsoft Live Meeting for it’s top down control model. There is no group chat (participants can only chat with the moderator or one other person at a time, thus no horizontal communication nor any easy ability to collectively take notes), there is no visible participant list (thus defeating any community building part of one’s agenda), and there can only be one moderator at a time, reducing the ability to agily collaborate. This is “I deliver content to you” style technology. Yes, it may integrate nicely with Office and Outlook, but what if you are not using or don’t focus on these integration issues?
Not far behind in its clunkiness is WebEx, which makes passing the control baton something of a high wire act. I have enjoyed using Elluninate more. I’ve had the best luck with their integrated VoIP and their breakout rooms, while still a bit tricky, are much easier for me than WebEx.
On the free and lower cost side, Vyew is getting higher marks from me, but I’ve not tested it with a larger group and have not taken a run at the latest version of Dim Dim. Both currently offer 20 person rooms for free!
Skype – audio and chat – is still at the core of my small group meetings, often augmented by a quality phone/Skype bridge when I have larger groups (which costs me $40/month).
However, without clear purpose and useful practices, these tools are useless. We need to make gathering time serve our purposes and to be useful, functional and ENJOYABLE. Not a torture test. Friends and colleagues in my circle have all acknowledged we need to start thinking, working and practicing together to both better understand and manipulate the tools and improve the meeting processes themselves. Clearly, I need to make time for this.
Photo credit (and yes, I’ve used this one twice!) by stephentrepreneur