Final post for class

So I know tomorrow is technically the last day of the class, but I decided to go ahead and do my wrap up post today since I had some time, and I did a mind map (a first for me) about what I wanted to talk about.

(So, why is a mind map a first for me? I've always written notes pretty linearly, in an outline form. It's always worked for me, and I would just write notes in the margins if something came to me "out of order." But I used Prezi the other day and loved it, and it got me thinking that maybe I ought to try a mind map. So I did.)

What I'll keep:

• I'll definitely keep GoogleReader. Love this! I've had people explain RSS to me before, but I just didn't quite get it. This  helped me get it.
• Jing: Wish I had known about this program years ago. Of course, it may not have existed years ago, but now I know it's here. Will also look into whether or not my organization already has Camtasia. If so, we'll see if that will work for me.
• Blogging. Okay, so you are going to see much less of me here, but I'll probably post if I find something cool now and then. But I'm interested in seeing if a support blog at work would be feasible, and I'm considering starting a different sort of blog once school is over in a year and half. We'll see.

 What I'll ditch:

• Some of my tech feeds on Google Reader. I cleared it out last night, and now it's time to do some unsubscribing.
• Twitter, at least temporarily. I wasn't very active on it, but I'm sort of starting to get it. I think it will continue to be an experiment for me, but on a very, very small scale. I just don't check it often enough to make it work the way it is supposed to. It is information overload, and I've got a lot of that already with school. However, I'm not ready to throw in the towel. Just hang it up for a while 

What I want to work on:

• Delicious (or the other bookmarking site that I can't remember). I'm always finding cool stuff on the web, and I need to find a better way to keep track of those sites and articles without printing them out or keeping them all starred in my Google Reader. I signed up for Delicious, but I haven't had a good chance to dive in and figure out how to really use it effectively.
• Password management. AAACCKK!  This has never been my strong suit anyway, but after this class I just sort of lost it. If nothing else, some of my passwords are in dire need of a reset anyway, so this will be a chance to clean them up. 
• Podcasts: This is something else that I didn't dive into the way I wanted to. Part of it is that I haven't yet figured out how to "dock" my iPod Touch to my in-home or car stereo. My daughter would pull earbuds out, and my car is the place I most often think that I'd like to listen to something other than the radio. I'll be working on some form of solution in the next couple of months.
• A System: Robin talked about a system for managing her life in "social." I don't have one yet. I'm the type of gal that reads almost every informative plaque in a museum. It's hard for me to skim, and it's hard for me to skip. If I'm going to keep any of this stuff, I need to figure out my system, and learn to filter.

What I learned: 

I learned:  

• It is important to keep your options open. 
• Don't be afraid to try something new.
• Use the tools your learners are using to reach them.
• There are lots of resources out there to teach you new tech stuff. When in doubt, call Robin!
• Technology can really be a time suck. Figure out your filters.
• Going mobile makes sense. Except when you are trying to type a long post or email. Then you need the laptop.  

So I think that's it for me. I've enjoyed reading all of you and I hope I'll see you in my reader now and then. You'll probably see me now and then too.

Happy Texting/Blogging/Podcasting/Video Editing/Learning! 

What social media does for journalism.

Photo by somegeekintn

A recent post on Mashable described some of the ways that social media is changing investigative journalism. The use of the crowd, or rather, the community (as they point out - an engaged group of people who are connected) as sources to uncover the solutions to various mysteries seems to be popping up all over.

I can see some potential for how educators could harness this, but I can imagine that it would take a significant amount of engagement to create a community that would respond to an inquiry for information. I'm imagining a teacher (or a student) putting out a research question or a class discussion topic to get input from the experts. Or a student doing research getting people to help them out by checking out the price of a gallon of milk. But first, you'd have to have the following, or at least, a responsive community.

I'm not engaged enough to feel like I have this as an option, but I can't help thinking of my other class, in which the professor described the responsive community in her LinkedIn Group, and how a student could ask a question and, because my Prof was the moderator and gave it a spotlight, it got TONS of responses. What a great way to get information fast and from the source!

Online goes offline!

This post on Mashable really strikes me as interesting, and to me, serves as a metaphor for what we're trying to accomplish in our class.

Photo by gilgongo

The post explains that placing a Quick Response bar code on everyday objects, items and products provide consumers with smartphones, iPod touches and other devices with scanning application, instant access to find, price and purchase products on the spot. The idea is that if a customer finds an item they want or need, it saves them time having to go searching for the product, pricing it out, and if you give them a good deal, well, it could lead to instant sales.

I'm already seeing some of this in myself, as I take digital photos of products I'm interested in to make decisions later. If I could scan and save, would I buy on the spot? Probably not, that isn't my nature, but maybe I would.

But back to class. Our goal in using all of these technologies, in the end, is to produce a change in behavior, an action that, due to our *fabulous* instruction online, or through web, video, or audio, will occur offline, in real life. Like the Quick Response bar code, we're hoping to influence our audience, and get them to DO something with their time and their knowledge. We're trying to find as many opportunities to do this, just like advertisers are trying to find more themselves (especially with the shrinking number of people who actually see television commercials, thanks to DVRs).

Learn Baby Sign!

I haven't blogged in a while as I've been focused on my Learning Program for the other class, and of course going to class. But I finally got my video tutorial uploaded. Hope you enjoy it.



I'm not overly thrilled with the quality of the video...somewhere along the line it got pretty lossy, and I'm not quite sure where, but I'll work on that. It was actually pretty simple to film, but I learned some good tips for using Windows Movie Maker.

1. Clip, clip, clip, clip. Clip wherever you feel necessary, before and after mistakes, between scenes, between sentences, wherever it makes sense. You can then move things around, delete or duplicate as needed.
2. Transitions often shorten your video. Think about this before narrating a whole video. Adding audio, unless you are editing the video to match the music, makes more sense after you've figured out your transitions.
3. The "Narrate Video" option works like a charm if you need to do a voice-over. Just be sure you are working in a quiet area and can keep yourself quiet when you need silence, as it can only handle one overall track.

My first Prezi

I just made my first Prezi. WOW!

So much easier than Powerpoint, and feels more impressive, too. It took me much less time than the same PPT would have.

John and Virginia: don't peak! But I made my Prezi for my class presentation this weekend.

Enjoy!

I Spy: Baby's Mind through Baby Sign on Prezi

My First Video, Starring Me!

I just spent the evening making a 10-minute video with Windows Movie Maker featuring me demonstrating a number of signs. It is part of my learning program for my other class, but I just may have to send it to Robin as a replacement for my Jing videos. I'm pleased with how it came out.

It wasn't originally a part of my plan, but as I was designing this program, I realized that if any instructor were going to be able to "pick it up and go," they would need to spend some time with baby sign language. The easiest way to do that would be through a video with demonstrations that the instructor could follow and practice alongside. Sure, I could have suggested one for them to buy or borrow, but if one comes along with the instructor's manual, even better!

I just hope I have time to complete the rest of my learning program materials before Friday! Really, this only took me about 20-30 minutes to film, and about 3 hours to edit, so I don't think that's too bad at all. But I still have a lot of other stuff to do.

Thanks, Robin, for Any Video Converter. My camera outputs .mts files, and I wouldn't have known how to convert it easily so Movie Maker could use it if it wasn't for class. One weird thing, though: it slowed the video, but kept the audio the same speed. Still haven't quite figured this one out, or how to fix it. Luckily, this particular video needed to have the audio stripped anyway.

P.S. The "narrate video" feature in Movie Maker worked like a charm!

Twitter and publicity

Photo by russelljsmith

So Twitter popped back into my universe again today. One of the things my office does is help to facilitate the large concert series on campus. This series and other events on campus have seen low student attendance in the last couple of years, and we're trying to change that.

Today we had an impromptu brainstorming session, and one of the topics that came up was Twitter. At the last concert, the person who made the introduction asked all guests to please put their cell phones on silent, and explained that photography, texting and tweeting were not allowed. We're questioning that choice. While some consider texting and tweeting during a classical music performance to be quite rude, and possibly disruptive (glowing screens in a dark auditorium) we are also recognizing the possible lost opportunity by limiting those activities.

My colleagues don't get Twitter, or Facebook, or texting during a concert. I can't say I completely get it either, but I felt like I could offer insight on how Twitter worked. (I described my election night experience.) Why cut off what could possibly be a great word-of-mouth, in-the-moment marketing? Now, there may be a good chance that our audience members aren't the type to text and tweet during a concert. But if they are, if they text their friends and say "I'm at the concert, and WOW, it's awesome. You should be here" their friends could come.

So we're considering having a "texting and tweeting zone" at the next performance. We'll see what happens.

What do you think? Do you text your friends during concerts or cool events? How about tweeting?

Daylight savings...

Between Daylight savings time and my paper for my other class, I've been relatively unplugged all weekend. I'm getting to the point of being ready to be unplugged.

But I popped on today, and finally took a short look at Prezi, something I've been meaning to do all semester. I still don't have a very good handle on it, but it looks like it could be a cool alternative to Powerpoint. Much less linear and graphic - more "cinematic" if you will. I also know there is a collaborative component through Prezi Meeting, but still haven't had a good chance to explore. Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll get a better chance, and maybe I'll use it instead of PPT for my presentation for my next class. We'll see!

Clarification...

I realized today that my last post was unclear. I actually HAD set up the meeting ahead of time (earlier in the day, by several hours) but considering the time zone differences, it may still have been too short notice. It is the link that isn't available from tokbox until you actually start the call.

Just felt I had to put that out there.

First attempt at Tokbox

 
Photo by cod_gabriel

I was all excited to try TokBox today, but ended up with a letdown. Not because of Tokbox, which is very easy to sign up for and use, but circumstances rendered my call uneventful.

One of the committees I work with is a committee of students, all of whom are juniors. Junior year is when many students study abroad, so about 1/3 of my committee is abroad. This is always a huge issue, as the committee changes halfway through the year. So I decided to give TokBox a try to see if we could conference in some of our members abroad..

Signed up, signed in, sent the link...and no one joined the call. I don't know if they experienced technical difficulties, or if the time didn't work with the time zone differences, or if they just didn't have enough notice.

But I tried, and I think I'll try it again with the next meeting. I may have to do the 30-day free trial of the upgrade where you can schedule calls in advance, because that may have been part of the problem - I had to wait until I was in the room and had created the call before I could send any information.

Experiencing the Election Online

I'm not big into politics, but my husband is very interested, if not one who goes out and campaigns. He reads up on the candidates, listens to the pundits, and visits the websites.

Most of my past election night experiences have been surrounding the TV.  I remember when George H.W. Bush won. (I only remember because at the time, I was young enough that the only president I could remember to that point was Reagan.) I remember watching CBS and Dan Rather's crazy comments late into the night on Election Night, 2000.

Since 2005, when we moved to this house, we've been without any form of television channels. When Obama was elected, I think I just hopped on the computer for a minute right before bed.

Tonight, I decided to see how the election was going. I couldn't believe how fast things were updating! When I first logged in, Google was registering over 300 search results from Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. After popping on the Des Moines Register page, where they had a news feed pulling all the #ia2010 Twitter posts, I finally saw, for the first time, how Twitter provides an up-to-the-minute personalized news feed in a way that CNN or NBC could never do. One tweet (that I now can't find) even said that Election 2010 was the biggest non-sporting event on the web in history, bigger than Obama's election.

I can't help wondering...is that because more people are interested, or because more people - like me - are wired?

ETA: The Des Moines Register's site couldn't keep up! Twitter could. Interesting...

P.S. I made the graphic with help from an online Photoshop tutorial. I LOVE online tutorials.

Back in the Blogosphere and thoughts on Personal Technology

Original Photo from NASA

I've been out of commission for much of the week between my last meeting with my nonprofit board, a sick child, homework for another class, and now having a bit of a bug myself. So I probably won't say much, but I'd like to point out a trend.

I work in the event-planning/facilitation industry, and one type of events I work with is weddings. In the last two years, I've seen a significant increase in the number of couples who, instead of hiring a band or DJ, choose to bring an iPod or laptop computer loaded with mp3 files to hook into an in-room sound system. (This, of course, can be a problem for locations that don't have an in-room sound system, but luckily we can rent a portable one!) This gives them as much personalized control over their music at the wedding as they have over it when they listen at home.

We are able to personalize our playlists, our podcasts, our GoogleReader, our online shopping experience (I love Kaboodle) and now we are expecting that same sort of personalization in other parts of our lives. While it works for some things, I'm curious how it will play out when that desire for personalization bumps up against some hard-and-fast rules in certain industries.

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As an aside, I used my iPod Touch to listen to a recorded interview posted to a wiki in my other class. This stuff is being used!

GoogleDocs to the Rescue!

 After four years on the board of a local nonprofit, I’m transitioning out of my position in order to focus on school and family until I get my degree. For the last three of those years, I have been the secretary of the board, keeping meeting minutes. I’ve also been the chairperson of the planning committee for our annual book sale.

As I prepared to pass along my knowledge, and my black binder full of minutes, notes, bylaws, etc, I knew I wanted to get the electronic files into the hands of those who “come after.” I’ve been puzzling over it for some time, the last six months actually.  A flash drive could work, but what if the person didn’t have the same version of MS Office I did?

Along comes my class, and my introduction to Googledocs several weeks ago. I’ve just spent the evening uploading all my documents to a new account, connected to our organization’s email account. (Did I mention I'm the one who created the organizations first email account? We've been using email to communicate with each other for years, but not with the outside world. I'm dragging them into the digital age.) Voila! Instant knowledge transfer. Hooray!

ACK!!! Technology wins again.

GRRRRR!!!

Every once in awhile, even someone as relatively computer savvy as I am does something that just makes you want to go GRRR!

Just now, I managed to delete half of the comments people have made to my blog posts. I was trying to clear out something else, and managed to do that instead. SAD! I love all your comments, so please know that it was nothing personal. Sometimes a couple errant mouse clicks puts in you in a tough spot. Which leads me to a minor rant...

How about those times when a MISSED mouse click leaves you in a tough spot. I hate "opt out" check boxes on websites. I was running out of checks for my check book (in spite of doing most of my banking/bill pay online) so I ordered another box of checks. I missed a tiny check box opting me out of some "enhanced protection" for my checks, and ended up paying an additional $15. I tried to get out of it...but the company was unresponsive. It wasn't that much money and I'm not going to make a federal case over it, but I can tell you that I was not a happy camper. My message to the company was pretty pointed.

Have you ever been caught by those darn boxes?

Video Editing

Photo by Holger.Elgaard

Our last weekend of class really focused on digital video editing using Windows Movie Maker. (So how many of you Windows XP users knew that this cool software was even  on your computer?) A pretty basic movie editor, but it gives you what you need to put together a film relatively quickly and easily. (Also see Animoto for super simple photo/video movies.)

I'd done video editing before on my computer using a software I paid for. The thing crashed all the time when using still photos. I experienced some bizarre things when using Movie Maker as well, so I think both programs have their quirks and issues.

Whether you go paid or not, it really is amazingly easy to create simple video to share with friends, family, or coworkers if needed.

The perfectionist in me tends to spend hours syncing up music and video/photos, so I'm going to leave video editing land for a while. (Though I may take advantage of it to create an instructional video for my other class! I'll let you know if that works out.)

Video FAQ

After stumbling through several failed videos where I mangled my sentences or clicked incorrect buttons, or the phone rang in the middle, through superhuman endurance (or at least stubborn determination) I managed to create a new FAQ Page for the Campus Calendar at my organization. Several of the questions have links to videos created with Jing to more directly illustrate the point.

My favorite, though, is this video explaining field mapping. To make it, I first made several screen shots of various screens with Jing, color coded them and saved them to my computer, and then pulled them into the screen during the video as needed.

This was an exciting project, and I expect there will be more questions and videos to come. In fact, I'm going to solicit them! See what I end up with.

(As an aside, the College website on which I made this page is powered by the open source software Drupal. Open source really is everywhere.)

Realistic Expectations of the Net Gen

My daughter - beyond the Net Generation?

I listened to a podcast yesterday while doing some light cleaning around my home (I'm learning, Wendy!) One thing I noticed was that I didn't pay as close of attention as I meant to (partly because I was listening on my computer, not my iPod. I'm learning, but slowly!).

The podcast was from Educause, and the comment that stuck with me was when the interviewer asked about the Millennials, the Net Generation, and their ability to take technology and run with it. Brian Hughes, the interviewee, said that educators need to be thoughtful to recognize that not all member of the Net Gen have been raised with an iPhone in their hands. While there is likely to be a certain level of technological literacy, there is also likely to be a wide array of familiarity with certain websites, applications and social media platforms.

Another post on Twitter caught my eye today as well. One of my ongoing concerns with social media has been one of privacy. I'm not generally an open person, and the idea of having my life out there for people to see - and use! - can be a bit much. The post was on the 3 P's of Privacy on the Web.  While the post wasn't super informative, it did explain that the younger generation is being asked to learn about web privacy on their own instead of with any form of friendly guidance, and maybe it is a discussion we ought to open up about more often.

With any new technology, there is a need to start from scratch, in a sense, in order to really determine where your learners are. Maybe they are ready to jump in with both feet, but perhaps the waters must be tread more carefully.

Super cool, or just too much?

One of the things I've been going over and over in my head with all this technology is the comfort and education levels of the people who use it.

I just finished reading the article with predictions of the future of learning and technology that Sheila linked to and I couldn't help thinking - especially regarding Prediction #1 about augmented reality - that it is just too much! Having that much stuff come at me at once would be overwhelming. A "digital overlay" to my life?

Original Photo by odolphie

If I take a personality assessment, like the Five Factor Model, I always fall just "left of center" closer to introvert than extrovert. I need time to myself. I value silence. Too much stimulation coming at me all at once leaves me drained. I hate televisions in restaurants, and actually carry a TV-Be-Gone in my purse. (I've never used it. Afraid I'll get in trouble.) And as cool as this technology is, and as exciting as I am about it, sometimes I feel like it is all too much noise, like the screen in the restaurant that keeps drawing my attention away from my dining companion. What does it mean for introverted learners? Or is it actually a boon for them because they can do it in their own time in the privacy of their own home or car?

I also wonder about the learning curve, both for trainers and for participants. One of the predictions in the article as that your performance at work, or maybe even at home, would be rated publicly. Imagine public 360 reviews! We've been testing a new performance review/development program at work for the last two years, and one of the biggest hurdles was the technology - getting people to fill out forms in Microsoft Word! We're super excited about a different performance recognition/review tool that lets both the employee and supervisor add information to a shared file throughout the year so the review will basically be done when review time comes. But, that also means that any staff engaged in this process have a new technology to learn.

I've probably mentioned a dozen times on this blog that I love the idea of wikis, of sharing knowledge that way instead of sending them back and forth in emails, having a repository of knowledge. Getting people past the trepidation stage into the development and participation stage seems to be difficult in some organizations.

How much does technology leave learners in the dust? Or does it make learning more accessible? Or does it depend on how it's used? (It seems like that is the answer to everything. "It depends.") I'm not sure I know the answer. What do you think?

Don't be a Twitter Quitter!

So, in my desire to try to figure out what makes people tick with Twitter, I've been reading a bit more about it. Ran across this older post on Mashable that gives some tips to help people find Twitter useful, rather than dull.

To summarize/paraphrase, tips are:

1. Don't only follow people you know.
2. Don't follow celebrities or brands unless they add to your experience.
3. Have conversations with/@ people.
4. Be yourself and say what you'd say in real life. (Think of Robin's advice: use Twitter when you wish you had a neighbor to share something with.)
5. Go mobile. If you only tweet at your computer, you're missing the real action.

My first Jing video

Original photo by horiavarlan

Made a video today with Jing, and sent it on its way to a user via email. Here are a few lessons I learned:

1. You have three options for sharing the video, but may choose only one. Today I decided to save the video to my computer so it would be easy to use later and maybe upload directly to a webpage rather than use it as a link. But then I thought "Wouldn't it be nice to use the link, too, for quick-needs occasions and to avoid sending huge files via email?"  When I went back to my history to see if I could grab a link on Screencast.com,  I could only save the file again. No link. So be thoughtful about how you'd like to use your video. (This is why the video isn't here. It's at work, not on my home laptop.)
2. Turn off your automatic email pop-up. In the middle of a longer video I was making for my project, my email popped up with a message. While the alert sound could have been easily dismissed, the fact that the pop-up was in the video was distracting. So either turn it off, or make sure the frame doesn't include wherever it pops up.
3. Editing would be nice.  I had pretty good videos when I'd flub something or realize that there was a better way to do something. Starting from scratch isn't the easiest. Could definitely see where you'd consider a software you'd have to pay for.

Twitter & Gadgets = So much to learn!

 

I'm on Twitter. I sort of get Twitter. But in reality I really don't yet understand Twitter or how best to utilize it. (I keep going back to the idea that sometimes it takes being connected to really see the value in something, and until you really, really dig in, you aren't connected enough.)

So, since I don't really get it, I thought I'd look up some tips. Found this post about using Twitter effectively. While it didn't give me the type of tips I was looking for, I it did have a huge list of cool tools that I'll be trying to add to the wiki in the coming week.

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On a completely different tangent, my husband bought me the iPod Touch. Still not sure how I feel about it - trying to type on it is awful. It hates my fingernails, and the "keys" are too small. Guess I just prefer buttons. :) But it is synced up with my work calendar, which is something that I've been frustrated with for a while, and he's downloaded a Facebook app, a Twitter app, and an app that teaches you about the stars in the sky.

Adventures!

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So, back to tweeting. Any of you have any tips for using Twitter?

Podcasts and learning

Image by derrickkwa

Just finished listening to Robin's Top 5 podcast about tips for using Google. Was glad I did as the other day I was desperately trying to locate Google's Wonderwheel but couldn't remember what it was called or where to find it. (Kept ending up on the page with all the cool tools, like Google Alerts and Voice, but had forgotten about the search sidebar.)

Listening helped reinforce for me what some of the best uses of the technologies we have been talking about are. They are great Introducers: ways to get a preview of information into the hands of our learners before they get to us. And they are great Reinforcers: ways to quickly and easily remind learners about the learning they have already done in hopes that they will use it. (As Tom is fond of saying, Repetition, Repetition, Repetition!)

Of course, these technologies can be used for the presentation of new knowledge, but depending on the interaction level, may not be as effective as some other methods of facilitation.

Adaptation: Business Models in a Wiki World

Finished chapter 10 in Wikinomics today, and found the topic under scrutiny to be fascinating. In particular, the arguments for an against gatekeepers of content. That, supposedly, editors and television producers are ferreting out the best stuff, and sending it our way, vs. letting us determine what content is best for us.

"Traditional 'elitist' media is being destroyed by digital technologies," says Andrew Keen in his book The Cult of the Amateur, as quoted on page 273 of Wikinomics. I have to ask, is that such a bad thing? I've always had a bit of a natural dislike for anything "elitist", particularly for the sake of saying it is elite. The composer Samuel Barber (maybe it wasn't Barber, but Babbitt. I've been out of undergrad for eight years) always rubbed me the wrong way for saying that music wasn't for amateurs, that only the best and the brightest music students could understand and enjoy his music, that you had to understand music theory and his mathematics to enjoy it. I always said, Baloney (or another less polite word to that effect). Have you heard Barber's own Agnus Dei? One of the most beautiful, poignant arrangements of this sacred text I've ever heard. No, perhaps the non-musician will not be able to appreciate the intricacy of its composition, but does that make them shed any fewer tears when it touches them?

I'll get off my soapbox now, but while I generally agree that democracy is not perfect (what is the story? If two wolves and a sheep vote on what to have for lunch, than you can bet democracy will put fear into the heart of the sheep.) I do believe that there is something to be said for letting the masses vote with their mouse clicks instead of with just their $$$.

Just as radio had to adapt to television, and the telegraph was eclipsed by the telephone, so the music industry and the publishing industry, and hopefully the education industry, will either adapt the the challenges of this ever-changing web 2.0 world and incorporate its potential, or be eclipsed by it.

Old and new: the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Age of the Internet

Took a break from blogging this weekend to visit the Science Museum of Minnesota and its exhibit, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Words that Changed the World. A long drive, but it gave hubby and I two whole days without the little girl, so that was kind of nice.

In light of this class, it seemed ironic that I was looking at a scrap of the world's oldest copies of Genesis and Leviticus while learning about and reading about new content being created at the drop of a few typographical characters and bandwidth every few seconds. These scrolls took days, weeks, and months to create, and the handwriting is tiny.

It also brought back the value of learning in the age of the internet and the printing press. So few people were literate in those days, whereas now very few people can't read. So few people reading also meant that only a few people had the "power" or the "knowledge" to pass along. On the flip side, because so few people could read, they often didn't trust the written word, instead trusting in the oral tradition. Whereas we want something in writing, they wanted something to be "as good as its word."

What is the value of an oral tradition in a world of internet traffic and an abundance of written words?

The Need for Instant Gratification

My husband has been - unsuccessfully so far - trying to convince me that I need an iPod Touch or some sort of similar device that would allow me to connect to the Internet without firing up my laptop. I'm interested, but not ready to bite yet. Yes, it would perhaps help me survive this class more easily, but would I use it beyond this class?

Whatever the answer to that question - and I don't think I'll know the answer unless I actually get one which seems a bit of an expensive experiment - I do know that I sort of wish I had one earlier today.

Here I was, reading my chapter for class, the one I just blogged about, and I kept having moments of I-want-to-remember-to-mention-this, or some other "brilliant insight" (ha!) but I didn't have the computer on. I would have rather made several mini-blog entries instead of one long one. I'm sure the long one missed what I really wanted to say because, let's face it, the chapter had stewed and stagnated for several hours in my brain by the time I could use the computer without my 18-month-old wanting to play her favorite computer game at Kneebouncers.com.

So what do you think? (Take my poll) Should I cave to my husband's thoughts and get a device? (BTW: I still haven't completely figured out how to use my cell phone and it gets left at the house more often than it actually stays in my purse.)

"The Computer is Not a Box, the Computer is a Doorway"

The quote above comes from Ross Mayfield, founder of SocialText, on page 267 of Wikinomics. It is a description of how the Net Generation sees the computer, and something that I live every day, seeing the possibilities and yet feeling held back by the slow change that happens in any large organization with an established set of norms.

This chapter really hit home for me. I'm someone who desires and values organizational transparency, and who strives to always innovate or at the very least improve upon the processes I see around me. As I read about Geek Squad  and how "a continuous process of innovation and improvement ... keeps the agents motivated to perform at their highest levels" (p. 242), I couldn't help but think of myself and Daniel Pink's Drive. In Drive, Pink explains that Autonomy (being able to feel as if you have at least some control over yourself), Mastery (the continuous process of incremental improvement) and Purpose (what you're doing has meaning) are the motivating factors for most of the best achievers, not money.

The idea of wikis in the workplace, repositories of knowledge and innovation that don't just die in someone's in-box, is hugely appealing. How often have you spent days emailing back and forth to solve a problem, and then promptly forget how it was solved the next time it comes up? How many listserves are you subscribed to where the same questions come up repeatedly? How great to have a wiki to go to!

So what does "the computer is not a box" mean to me?  It means that I'm not confined by my computer, by massive in-boxes ("email itself is breaking" say Tapcott and Williams, after years of being used as the primary collaboration tool, it is no longer efficient, p. 252). Instead, I'm set free by my computer, by being able to talk freely and frankly with the president of my organization or the janitor who cleans my office, or the team that I work with all the time who lives on the other side of the planet. We can all build on each others ideas.

And I'm able to teach others, through sharing my knowledge in wikis, with video, through blogs. I'm not sure what my organization would do if I started a professional blog, and yet maybe that would be an interesting thing to ponder.

Our Instructional video

My mother-in-law will be staying with our daughter in the near future, and we thought it would be helpful for her to know some of the signs that Leah uses on a regular basis. Leah communicates with about 30+ signs, so we grabbed some of the most important on video, did some minor editing and posted it on YouTube and sent to my MIL.





Thought that was a pretty great use of technology to help MIL do some "pre-work" before she gets to our house!

Wikinomics Chapter 7: Wisdom and creativity of the crowd

Photo by aemde

Back to Wikinomics: in chapter 7 we're introduced the concept of companies opening up their platforms for others to modify and create other applications - mashups - by combining data with many sources. Perhaps the biggest challenges to this harnessing of the "wisdom of the crowd" are

1. Allowing "the most interesting applications" which tend to violate copyrights or the rights of the people whose data is being used.
2. Creating a business model that allows "the crowd" and/or its most productive members to share in the wealth.

Obviously, the crowd benefits from its own collective wisdom, but those especially productive members wonder if they shouldn't get more, somehow. I'm curious what has been done since this book was written to make some of these things happen. I know, for instance, that Flickr has teamed up with Getty Images in order for some Flickr contributors to have their photos marketed and perhaps licensed and make some money off of it.

Have you seen other ways that platforms have shared with the crowd? And how about all the apps now available for iPads, etc. Are any of those built by the crowd, bought by Apple? Any ideas?

We've got wikis, yes we do. We've got wikis, how about you?

I've just gotten off another weekend of class, my first for Designing Learning Interventions. Really need to get in bed, but wanted to post and share:

Both classes I'm in this semester are using wikis. I've posted to both now. On the wiki for Emerging Technologies I've started sharing resources for cool tools I've found (or that others have found. Sorry, Wendy.) that I thought would be useful for people creating learning programs. On the other wiki, I placed a rubric for an assignment that my professor asked me to create so we could then get the input of the class. She had planned to send it via email, but had already created this other wiki so it seemed a perfect use for it, a place where we could comment, collaborate, edit and determine what worked best for us.

I'm curious to see these two wikis for two very different classes and how they unfold. I've yet to use a wiki for something and have it "work" the way it was supposed to. My past experiences have all been me adding stuff to a wiki and no one else touching it. Do you need the massive numbers of Wikipedia to make a wiki worth it? Or is it just a matter of engagement?

Off topic - Just joined delicious, after Robin's recommendation. We'll see how this goes!

YouTubeSocial: Seeing the (Learning) Possibilities

How many times have you been in a class setting and someone pulls up a video from YouTube? Film/video can be a great tool for illustrating a point, using for a case study, or for other facilitation techniques. But what happens when you are teaching an online course? 

Enter YouTubeSocial. Complete with chat capability, it makes it possible for everyone to be watching the same video at the same time and critiquing it at once. One person, presumably the facilitator/instructor, holds the "remote" and can stop, start, pause and everyone's screen does the same thing.

Social Media and Social Good

Alongside all of my thoughts about social media and privacy, and the fear-mongering that sometimes come along with that, I've been repeatedly coming across articles on Mashable! about the good that social media is doing. Look at this great infographic that Robin tweeted.

Really, I've been blown away by the sheer number of articles I've seen. (I'll admit to not getting much of a chance to read them. Will be trying to make a point of doing so soon.)  One of the things I'm very curious about is how others see this playing out.

In a way I see technology as the great leveler. Put a computer in someone's hands with the internet, and they can take open courses from MIT. Or write a blog post that gets their ailing mother attention. Or a YouTube video that lands them on the Today! Show, or use social media to try to save lives from disease.

On the other hand, what does it mean for those who can't get their hands on the technology? Who live in places where the internet sounds like magic? Or who can't afford internet in their homes, but have to rely on public libraries or schools?

I don't pretend to know the answers, and maybe the gap is much smaller than I think. But I wonder...

Amaze yourself: Record your screen! and so much more.

Photo by thekeithhall

Okay all you tech trainers out there, or folks who have had to answer the SAME computer-related question ten million times for different people. Take a few minutes to download and learn Jing. Capture what you are doing on screen, narrate it, and share it in minutes!

I have been talking about doing this for months but never got around to it. I was afraid the learning curve would just be too steep. I don't have an excuse anymore, as it is super easy to use, and free to boot!

Who knew (besides my awesome professor!) that capturing audio with Audacity would be so easy? That podcasts (if you plan a bit ahead) don't have to be huge, laborious undertakings? Obviously, many people have, as they've been doing them for awhile, but I suddenly feel a little more ahead of the curve compared to others in my workplace.

This was the weekend I've been waiting for, and I have not been disappointed. I'll admit to being intimidated by Twitter, podcasts, and the amount of information out there - and moving a little deeper into this crazy labyrinth of the web - but I'm excited as well.

Test Post

Information.

BoldUnderline.

My first "Podcast"

Not exactly stellar material, but I made it in less than 15 minutes, and I've never done any of this before.

Cogs in motion: Amazing ways to collaborate at work and in learning.

 

Photo by ralphbijker

While none of us want to be "cogs in the machine," grinding away at mindless tasks and not being valued, there is something to be said for the way cogs all work together to accomplish the end goal. Some cogs are little, some are large, and they all do their part.

Wikis are a perfect example of how cogs, no matter how large or small, can contribute to a body of knowledge. Maybe I don't know a darn thing about aerospace engineering, but I'm a stickler for good punctuation and can help proofread an article for typographical errors, then write my own about good punctuation! As a class, we'll be using a wiki to share the cool information and resources we find for using technology in learning, and hopefully lots of neat ideas of HOW to use them as well.

I also love the applications for Google docs. Imagine a committee meeting via conference call where everyone can work at once on difference aspects of a document. Or even not at once, but at least not having to send back and forth via email, trying to keep track of whatever is the most recent.

Education as a self-organizing system

Photo by TEFL International

Found on Luis Suarez's Blog, the following TED talk about children collaborating in a self-organized way really gets the juices flowing. It is such a foreign concept. Can children learn without being taught? Of course they can! Are we prepared to let them learn in this way, in their own, collaboratively curious way?

I know I struggle with my little girl, my sweet 17-month-old. I want her to learn on her own, through play, through exploring her world. At the same time, I know that she will be in school some day (or home-schooled?) and there will be certain things she HAS to learn.

Yet again, the pieces of the puzzle that seem to draw attention to themselves are TRUST - trusting in our own natural ability to learn - and CONTROL. Can (Should!?) we attempt to control what children learn?

Social Media and Privacy

One of the things I've been fascinated and afraid of with social media is the privacy issue. It is SO easy to find some less-than-desirable information about people in the cloud, and not always within their control. 

I find that some people over-share: about themselves, about their families, about their friends. And I can't help wondering how it affects their futures. I know at the college where I work, athletes in particular have been warned repeatedly about what they post on Facebook, and what their friends post about them on Facebook. NCAA rules = no underage drinking. If you go to a party and your friend takes a picture of you with a beer in hand, you could be booted from the team. One of my favorite lines from an Equifax newsletter, paraphrased: you should treat your posts on social media sites as if they were public, because increasingly, they are.

Two posts I read today discussed this issue: one from a prospective employer's perspective, and the other as a "netiquette" column about how not to be boneheaded on your friends' social media sites.

So tell me: do you "Google" prospective employees? Teenage daughters' boyfriends? The new neighbor?

Shrinking inboxes? Less clutter?

Inbox Control

Read an intriguing post from Mashable about a guy who is trying to change how we use email. Interestingly enough, he is trying to do it by using social media instead.

For all of you who are tired of your overflowing inboxes, could social media actually be the answer instead of part of the problem?  I'm very, very curious, and thus, have subscribed to Luis Suarez's blog, Thinking Outside the Inbox. I haven't gotten much of a chance to read his theories, but Tip #3 in the Mashable post got me thinking:

"So the next week, sort out the Q&A. The way to deal with that is to set up a blog offering the answers. The blog will be indexed by Google, and your answers will be available to everyone out there. This means you are no longer part of the bottle neck, and you are helping people to feed themselves with the information that they need."

I have to wonder: would people within my organization bother to seek out my blog? Our website (on which we've toyed with creating an FAQ page but have never made it) is a mess that no one ever goes to see. It has some incredibly useful information - that no one ever uses. If I could regularly blog (with some screencasts!) how to do some things on the online calendar, I might be able to eliminate a few questions from my inbox.

Clutter Control
The inbox issue is just one part of an ongoing struggle to control clutter in all of its forms, from junk mail, to bills, to knickknacks, to my daughters toys in every room and the free t-shirts I get and never wear.  So I've also subscribed to Unclutterer.com. We'll see if it helps me accomplish my goals or will just be more information I don't use.

Hey classmates - we're not the only ones!

I know several of us shared concerns about "getting sucked down the rabbit hole." We aren't the only ones.

"Why technology is so addictive" 

Just do it!

Not to steal what was, at least once, a slogan from Nike, but a post I just read at Lifehacker just made me think of it. To summarize, the post says that we are often so afraid of failure that we just don't even TRY.

Trying to make ice cream
using snow at 20 below.
Why not?  - Photo by me

The post was interesting to me in that I'm currently in this Emerging Technologies class, learning about blogs, wikis and whatnot, and Robin is pushing us to do exactly that. We are being urged to TRY things, to figure them out, to put ourselves out there. To do so is to learn. It is also to invite failure, but so often we forget that failure is also a learning experience and can lead us to bigger and better things. (Anyone seen Meet the Robinsons?)

The post also struck me because of some of the ideas it presented in the first paragraph. "You've got a web site idea, a mobile app concept, or just a loose video concept." Do I detect some mildly prosumer language here?

Copyright and Creativity?

Just watched Larry Lessig’s TED presentation on the new generation, copyright law and the creative culture.  Wow! He hit the nail on the head for how I feel about copyright Nazis. Why demonize something so creative and so (relatively) harmless as grabbing a piece of copyrighted material and making something cool with it for not-for-profit entertainment? Why make kids, and not just kids, live “against the law” as Lessig so accurately describes at the end of his presentation? Why not let common sense into the discussion? For hundreds, thousands of years, songs have been passed down from generation to generation, changed, altered. Even the Star-Spangled Banner “stole” a melody from a popular drinking song of the time!

When we make laws so restrictive that a massive number of people, a whole generation, find their natural tendency to buck the law, there is definitely something wrong there.

I’m reminded of one of my husband’s favorite web finds, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog. This mini-series, featuring Neil Patrick Harris, was produced for a song during the Hollywood writers’ strike. The producers distributed it on the web for free for a short period of time to generate interest and to show that good, really creative material can be produced inexpensively at a time when people were demanding more money, spending more money, and creating mediocre, if not awful, material. After a set period of time, the video was taken down from the web, but not before a huge following was created, a following that was encouraged to produce their own music video applications to the Evil League of Evil. The best were featured on the DVD in the special features, and anyone who sent in a video was listed in the credits. How cool is that?

My husband, both because he loved the movie and because he loved the fact that the producers were bucking the trend, decided he HAD to buy the DVD to support them.