Looking back at the last two weeks since UW3 has started:

• I have seen some things I had already looked at.
• I have been able to do a closer look at Blogs (and to some extent on Wikis) and how they could be used in UnTrainings (and in trainings)
• Aggregators – so far – have been my most important progress
• Thanks to the tinned contents available ‘for free`- and without limitation’, I have been able to looking at Personal Knowledge Organization and I am very interested in this upcoming topic
• Ease of use in Webconferencing is of great value. And – should there be a solution to overcome all the distracting ‘who is making this noise?’ and ‘how can we mute/unmute?’ or ‘who is speaking?’ – even at a price, should we not go for it instead of wasting our most valuable moments in-synch?
• Communicating with our group spread over the whole ‘Village’/Globe is fascinating and inspiring to me.

My Conclusions so far:

• I have learned most, where I did have the most UnComfort (My inner question must have been: How can I make effective use of all the blogs I am interested in – so the web-based aggregators seem to me to be a great solution and I am looking forward to making effective use of it).
• I have been experimenting with a personal Snip-Snap (an interesting technology combining Blogs and Wikis from Fraunhofer Institute: http://snipsnap.org/space/start) server on my local computer but see much more potential in a web-based personal Wiki to access my treasures from any computer in the world (first steps with pbwiki done – but still some work to be done)
• One of my core tasks in my business is to support leaders/moderators of Webconferencing events to activate participants in live events. If some 10-20 people are spending 2 hours each to participate in an event, technology should not be worth it to spend any minute. Without that: It is still demanding enough to activate participants and to compete against all other events in their surroundings (incoming mails/IMs etc.) – and I think that Jay, Harold and Judy are doing a great job – what if we could get rid of technology?
• So I would still advocate for a professional solution as long as the ones ‘for free’ are payed by us in terms of time and nerves. I am ready to deliver the proof on our Interwise server (Ben Wechsler – could you mange to use a Virtual PC on your Mac?)
• Maybe the most important part: I start getting to know the people in our UW. The ones who do communicate, it is what they are communicating (blog, wiki, mail and skype) that allows me to get to understand and thus to know. Is this the beginning of the process from dormitory township to the ‘Global Village’ – our community?

Thanks to our escorts on the bus, on the bikes and between our rides and to all the passengers. I am looking forward to an even more active and interesting communication amongst us.
See you, hear you and/or read you …

… until our first Bus-ride. Being impatient and curious I have so far:

• Viewed some of Jay’s presentations on Informal Learning(*)
• Arranged for the Technology to be ready (hope it is!)
• Visited some of the Blogs form UnWorkshop alumni(**)
• Started this Blog (and again: it took me MUCH more time to find and to arrange a skin from the many themes available)

(*) I like Jay’s form of presentations on Informal Learning (recordings): The ideas I see him develop are very well structured, visualization of the content and quotations supports my understanding. Duration: The recordings and are long enough to bring the message through but short enough for me to revisit others of his presentations without any fear of losing too much time.
(**) Angelika from UnGroup2 links to an interview with Etienne Wenger on Communities of Practice (and further down you can find the recording of a full 1.5 hour lecture by Etienne Wenger on “What if we assumed that society itself is a large-scale learning system?”)

While watching the video of the interview I hear me asking: What does it help, to see the person talking in the interview? Would I have been listening to 3 of the 7 sequences if they would only have been published as audio clips? Maybe I would have downloaded all of them to listen to it on my player while commuting?

Audio and Video are sequential / linear: How important is it to see the whole (long?) sequence? Do I miss something, if I do not spend this time? What is the essence of the content transmitted?