Wiki as a personal Dashboard and more …

Maybe I have also come a bit behind the schedule. But there is so much to see, analyze and/or test in this UW so that I could spend my whole week exploring new interesting things. But there are still some other things to be done to earn a living
During last week I have started my own personal Dashboard on pbWiki and I am starting to love it. Every day I add something from my old different places an repositories and enter it to my new ‘Startpage’ of my browser.

The bike ride with Harold and Barb also gave me some new ideas and viewpoints on how to organize and get my personal development going (I still like Jay’s expression: ‘Getting better at getting better!’ – Jay, if I will be quoting it, I will certainly give the credit to you!).

Harold has given me some insight into his process of collecting, analyzing and publishing information. I am not sure if I recall all the steps but shall make use of his generous offer to contact (Skype!) him whenever I feel that he could help me. I think that this attitude I feel throughout the whole un-program represents a very high service level and we should all motivate our escorts by making use of it!

We had also discussed tracking of quotes: If I include a link to another WordPress blog this link should be seen on the other blog as a comment. So let us just test that with Eddie:

PLUS as an exercise for myself and to document the process for Eddie who has posted on his Blog

“… and added a file to my edit and those items are no where to be seen. … “

I will now add a pdf file out of an actual project we are working on and add a link to it on this post:

Visual Moderation by Stephan Ulrich / Teachforce (document in German, English version not available yet) – Visual Moderation

I shall now document the process on our Informl Wiki. See you …

What has been of value to me so far in the UnWorkshop?

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 …

Conferencing – Features and Quality

I am referring to our Skypecast Aug 8, 2006.

Conferencing has come to be more than pure phone conferencing. When I hear statements starting with: “This is XYZ speaking” I do not feel we are in the age of web-based communication:

What I do like about Skypekast:

• It is free
• You can see the participants-list
• You can see if you have been muted and can ask for the Mic to be opened by the host
• It can be accessed from different platforms (I heard that someone had been connected from a Mac)

What I would like to see improved in Skypecast:

• Why does the system not show ‘Who is speaking’?
• Voice quality (refer to the short mp3 redorcing)
• Distinction between Skype and Skypecast (two tools with such a similar name – but seem to be completely different and still using the same software on my computer)

What have been your obserbations?

P.S.: I am also testing the ‘Uload File’ function of this tool by adding a short mp3 file I have created as a recording using Audacity. (Upload did not work: “File type does not meet security guidelines. Try another.) My solution: I did upload the file to my Moodle server and have published the link to that URL.

P.P.S.: O.K. I am not that objective – I am partnering with Interwise as a Certified Training Partner! Interwise is offering “Unlimited Confereincing” at a fixed price (but not for free). I am open to deliver test events to show you how it works.

How about Taging linear Content (Audio/Video)?

In the recordings published on the Informl Wiki I have come across Jay’s metaphor of ‘Trees’ and ‘Leaves’ leading to a distinction I like very much: ‘Knowledge’ / ‘Meaning’.

Now coming to my observation with regard to the format the content is being delivered (Breeze Recording): Jay did publish the whole presentation on Tags (32 minutes) and the core part of it with the Trees/Leaves slide (5 minutes) as an excerpt. Thank you for that service – it will allow me to refer to just this slide.

But what could I do if during the long recording I came across an important point I would like to refer to later? Is there any way I could ‘tag’ the particular sequence (the slide in the Breeze recording, the frames in a video or the range on the time-line of an audio file)?

Thanks for your input if you know of any such possibility.

P.S.: With this post I am also using the ‘Optional Excerpt’ functionality of WordPress to find out what the displaying consequences are on the article published.

When to reply to a post – and when not?

Being new to this form of communication as a ‘publisher’ I find myself in a similar discussion as when moderating a threaded discussion in an online class:

Should I reply to comments (lead by my etiquette in a personal conversations), showing that I have seen it and appreciate reactions to my posts? Or should I rather let ‘it flow’ without further influence from my part?

What do you think? Are there any rules or directions on this issue (netiquette)? What are your experiences?

How much learning is enough?

Thanks to Jay leaving a comment on my post about our first bus-ride:

“As to missing things, well, we are beyond that stage. We will all be missing things all the time. The objective is not to learn everything; it’s to learn enough.”

I presume he is not suggesting that we should stop asking for more if we feel it would support our efforts, bring us closer to our goal or further in our undertaking.

So the question is how much is ‘enough’ learnt? My ideas on this for further discussion:

• It is enough, when we are on track to reach our goals
• It is enough, when we have reached our goals
• It is enough, when we had a conversation that leads us ahead, i.e. to find new paths worth following
• It is enough, when we have been able to contribute something and/or to get something out of it (i.e. Jay’s suggestion to always have a safety net available)
• …

Thanks for your input to this interesting topic.

P.S.: Yes, I have learnt enough on our first bus-ride. Thanks.

The Arrival – The real Questions I heard in my inner Ear:

O.K. it is past midnight now.

However I would like to reflect on the event we just had:

I have to admit: The questions I had been confronted with had been of a lower quality then expected. So:
What were the questions ‘in my inner Ear’?

• Can they hear me?
• Can I he hear them?
• Do I see the same as they are seeing?
• How can I ask for permission to speak?
• How is this going to work next time?
• Is there a better way, if we would be using our Interwise platform next time? If yes – how about Mac users?

The third question (how do I raise my hand?) has remained unsolved for me and has been preoccupying me during the whole presentation. I have tried to overcome it via the chat feature in Viewy but did either not get the attention or did not see the answer (someone promised to let me have a screen-shot on the Wiki – thanks for it in advance!).

Was this because we had two applications for visual and audio? And audio was part of an application I am using on a daily basis (Skype) and the Skypecast is somewhat different but basing on the same application?

My conclusion:

Let us take away ALL contextual elements from the first contact and just fix ALL the technical problems (the ones we did expect and the ones we did not expect). This will allow us to arrive at ease, knowing we did not miss anything PLUS knowing that next time, when the real content gets started we shall be ready!

This would reconfirm step one of Gilly Salmon’s model.

Resources:

• My Questions anticipated for the first Bus-ride
• 5-stage-model in e-tivities from Gilly Salmon

Global Bus-ride on Swiss Independence Day

My anticipated Question the little man in my ear is going to ask me tonight at 1030 pm while entering the bus:

• Who else is here?
• What are we all doing here? Where are we heading to?
• What are we expecting from the UnWorkshop?
• How is this UnWorkshop going to work?
• What makes us collaborate?
• What makes us learn?

Who can help me out and give a definition: While reading Harold’s post on “Blog References” I came acorss a word I did not hear so far: infovore?

P.S.: The Swiss Independence Day is dating back to the year 1291, where some native Swiss decided to get rid of their superiors. I wonder if our undertaking (tearing down bounderies to facilitate global collaboration) shall also have an impact for the live of people in some 700 years.

Gilly Salmon’s 5 Stage Model

In her book about e-tivities Gilly Salmon presents a 5 Stage Model I find very useful when designing arrangements for learning and collaboration:

1. Access and motivation
2. Online socialisation
3. Information exchange
4. Knowledge construction
5. Development

Let’s have a look at the UnWorkshop and find out how this model fits with the development of the activities within the group.

Two days left …

… 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?