DEANZ 2008 – my place, my space, my learning

Last week I was in Wellington New Zealand, participating in the DEANZ 2008 Conference. I loved the conference theme, “my place, my space, my learning!” Oh yeah!

On the first morning I had the great opportunity to offer the kick off keynote. As usual, I firehosed my way through 90 minutes talking about stewarding technology for learning with an emphasis on PEOPLE. I tagged a few of the blog responses here along with some other DEANZ08 related links. Below are the slides that I used in the keynote. (I don’t think anyone captured audio):

Deanz2008 Stewarding Technology for Learn

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: deanz08 learning)

I also facilitated two 2-hour workshops on Monday and Tuesday about the social and technical design of online communities. The notes from some of the exercises are embedded in a simple PPT which I will post on the wiki page – which is still a bit bare because I need to put in the notes, can be found here.

The conference was at the beautiful Te Papa Tongarewa museum – an amazing multimedia, multi-dimensional national museum of Aotearoa, New Zealand. Great staff, good conference food and a wonderful location rounded out the logistics side. Fabulous educators and presenters on the content side. I will write a separate post about that, but I promised to get the slides up…

On Wednesday I got to meet with some wonderful clients of Patillo, and on Thursday, Stephen Blythe of Community Central hosted a conversation which Steven blogged about. – Dags and Dingleberries

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!

Open Sourced Bright Ideas and Micro Support

EyeBeam CFL CoverVia Emily Gertz’s tweet of a recent blog post of hers, I was led to Bright Idea Shade on mandiberg.com.

From Eyebeam OpenLab comes and open source idea for making a cover for those glare-y compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) we are all installing to save energy. But the bare bulbs are, well, unbearable. I’ll embed the video below, because it is wonderful, but I want to add some additional observations about process and values here. The light bulb information is practical and usable, but what is going on with EyeBeam OpenLabs work is what I’m focused on.

What is going on here?

  1. A problem or need is identified
  2. A solution is created (in this case, building upon a previous product)
  3. The idea is opened up an shared and…
  4. an invitation is made to offer that idea to a manufacturer to reproduce it! (Eyebeam apparently also plans to produce a DIY kit but that is not yet on their site.)

The question that then surface include:

  1. What is in this for Eyebeam? (Beyond possible sales of a DIY kit which any other manufacturer could also create) What values are being expressed – beyond valuing open source. That part is already clear. Eyebeam’s “about” page gives a 404 error, so it is hard to fully discern by just looking at their web site. It looks like a non profit organization. So I’ll make some guesses that this organization is about the application of design in support of some greater good. Thus they find willing funders to fund their work and they “give away” their ideas as the result of that work. The additional benefit is the support of the designers and artists in doing their work and advancing their own practice. Hopefully the open source values continue past their participation in Eyebeam work. As a result, Eyebeam builds a good reputation and attracts more funding. So doing good does good for the existence of the organization. Does this apply only to non profits? As a small business person, I’d say no, it applies more widely. But is it practiced? Have businesses seen the strategic value of a triple bottom line that includes public good?
  2. What motivates people to solve problems and give away the answers? Is there a certain set of characteristics that motivate people to do this? My personal guess is yes – thinks like a perspective of abundance (as in good ideas) rather than scarcity, belief in the existence of many possibilities, and some sense of optimism. But I think it is bigger than that. What else?
  3. Why aren’t more people doing this? Or are they, and it is just invisible? (And if it is too invisible, what might we do to make it visible?) What can we be doing as individuals, groups, organizations and networks to amplify the positive effects of acts like Eyebeam’s which offer solutions to us? Can we encourage this beyond a lightbulb cover to things like improving girl’s education in an African nation, or improved health practices in Palestine?

OK, so bear with me. Here is the next leap in my thinking today. Is there a link between the work of organizations like EyeBeam and the idea of micro-lending. Kiva.org has opened a window of possibility on how an ordinary person in the US can support an individual entrepreneur in a country half way around the world who would otherwise not be able to start or continue their small business which supports their family. Tune Your World is trying to support musicians in countries without the economies to support their work by getting support from people like me who can support them.

Can we micro-finance and encourage ideas that solve all sorts of problems? Is there a non-financial element of micro-support? What would it look like? Is that kind of support useful or destructive? (maybe both!)

What do you think? What do you know of going on like this that might help us explore these ideas? I ask, because I know from my experience that top down, large organization-driven solutions are not going to work for all the needs in the world. We need to identify, understand and expand other options and approaches. I want to learn more.

Now, the video, in case you have a bare CFL that is glaring you down:

CFL Cover from Eyebeam OpenLab

Production by Simon Jolly

Soundtrack by I Am Jen (iamjen.com)
SteveTouch(TM) by Steve Lambert
Project by Michael Mandiberg and the Eyebeam OpenLab
http://www.eyebeam.org/project/cfl

Flickr Photo credit:

view photos Uploaded on February 14, 2008
by mandiberg

Now, I also have a problem I just discovered. and I’m looking for some bright ideas. I got home from a three week trip to find large-ish animal doo doo in my basement and now I don’t even want to go down there to find out what left the doo doo, how it got in and how to make sure it (they) are out. Anyone in Seattle wanna come help me? Signed – chicken Nancy

humdog is gone

the moment of loss (imagoism 10)I have stacks of things circling around to be blogged after returning home from New Zealand. But then I read on Jon Lebkowsky’s blog that someone I knew on The Well had died. humdog

Carmen Hermosillo, aka humdog, was one of those people who taught me a lot. In the conversations on the Well she pushed back on my assumptions, and helped me examine online community and online interaction through new eyes. humdog was also an amazing writer and knew so much about so much, that each link would lead me to something new. She catalyzed learning for me.

Here are a few more links about Carmen/humdog

With a large and wide network, I fall away from people I know too easily. Carmen was one of them. Is it ever too late to express respect and thanks? To acknowledge our teachers? Better if said while alive, but in honoring her memory, I hope I can continue to be open to and learn from people who see the world through eyes very different from mine, and with such passion.

Later Edit:

Here is a picture of Carmen (I had never seen one) and a capture of her Second Life memorial.

Photo credit:

view photos Uploaded on July 31, 2008
by jmtimages which is in itself an memorial to another flickr member

I’m guest blogging on communities of practice

I don’t think I’ve ever been a guest blogger before, but starting today I’m doing a series on communities of practice on Darren Sidnick’s blog. I met Darren in Lisbon this summer at the EFQUEL conference. So here is the first one! (And waving to all of you from a coffee shop in Aukland, New Zealand!! Pictures soon!)
Darren Sidnick’s Learning & Technology: Communities of Practice (CoPs) with Nancy White