Hovering Over The Delete Button

Today I re-read an email sent around from a large national organisation who are scheduling used / un-used discussion groups for deletion. Hang on a minute…did I read that right ?

Yes..I did…scheduling extensive conversations and knowledge gathering for deletion.

My reply was thus;

…….I’m amazed……. now that I’ve had time to digest the directive and the flowing gowns of tribute.

Schedule it for deletion ?

An SQL dump and an Internet archive schedule surely…..or perhaps we’ve overlooked the visions of those who seek to see that endurance also has it’s place in networked learning history.

Anything less and I’d begin questioning whether OMN was yet another fund driven acronym.

*ducks*…..you know what I’m getting at…..leave it alone…..change your policy….leave archives open and direct your efforts to sustain what will be worn in 2020 when the jargon gets a new catwalk to wander down…..”

The whole is idea is absurd……like….delete it ?

No wonder some areas of the internet are black holes to dump precious time into.

VMail

I’ve often wondered how effective commercial solutions are for Vmail as opposed or indeed competing with “free” solutions and channels like ustream.tv.

I suppose I’d better dip the toe and find out what ripples in the pond.

Here’s an example from Meredith Collins.

Ten Steps To Facilitating Online

With Nancy White’s guidance and some deep slow thinking I’ve put together a resource for more than one presentation venue on my take for facilitating successfully online today.

I’ve taken the slant of the ‘responsible orgnaisation’ positing responsibility as a collaborative and enduring exercise rather than a teacher compliant model for delivery. I hope this makes sense…please distribute far and wide for comment;

 

 

Expectations

I’m sitting here yet again contemplating why on earth humans can be so ridiculously obtuse with each other resultant in anxiety and lack of consideration.

My email this evening produced these ‘contextual’ Google advertisments in my Gmail sidebar which have pixel by pixel steadily increased from nothing as a Gmail newbie;

School speaker motivates - Leading motivational speaker to inspire your NSW high school year!
http://www.michaeldayes.com.au

Spot The Bad Boss - What makes a bad boss? Discover top staff gripes & how to address them.
www.CareerOne.com.au/BadBosses

Go figure.

With colleagues swanning on the golden pond and others buried up to their armpits in digital perma-frost it’s another night of cryptic explosions and unnecessary neck aches.

Better get used to life as a consultant.

ps. maybe I could take a leaf out  of Michael Dayes book of life.

Wimba: The Next Challenge

It could only happen to me surely….and yet I know it dosent…regularly and it frustrates the hell out of teachers trying to make a go of it and I feel for them as they seek innovation only to have really seemingly simple things stop them in their tracks.

Here I am behind the the four-walled firewall and my VoxPopping DJ dropping attempt at trying to make it into Kerry Johnson’s world has yet again been stopped. I’ll try again from the home office.

Repeat attempts x 5 mean it’s a home job…again.

That also rules out my ideas for Wimba ( with ease ) poking it’s head through the Moodle installs out here in the West. I’ve managed to get Scorm compliant tool box things happening inside and that heartens me somewhat.

Luckily also though I’ve had the opportunity to speak with Graham Wegner , Janet Hawtin and last night Kim Cofino. Some things do work and yet…..

I tried using the CallGraph program to record Kim’s great talk last night but it fell over with no recording present at the conclusion of our Skype talk…..so perhaps Kerry you could extract something from the above MP3 recordings and Vox pop it through EDNA.

There are so many challenges for educators simply with navigation through the web inside large organisations that I’m sure this contributes to the perception that ICT’s are just so close and yet so tantalisingly out of reach hence an attitude of….nice…….if only it would work for us. I’ve eluded to this a little in my presentation which will occur this Thursday in Dubbo with the CSHT& R Faculty…just a little.

Without humour it’s hard to see forward. Without the guts the it’s hard to look back proudly and know that you’ve contributed to breaking down some stereotypes and demystifying some of the fear surrounding networked learning.

Beyond delivery.

I think I’ll invest in the PrettyMay pro. audio Skype recorder. Cant afford to have conversations like this with Kim or others just not record.

Graham, Janet and Kim are all looking for the same thing in this debate. Some sensible approachs to the use of digital technologies involving our most precious asset - our children. having the guts to become a networked and global citizen celebrating difference and celebrating unity where possible.

Beautiful day up here in Orange after the snow fall yesterday.

No Duty Of Care

[ image removed by demand ]

An interesting ( it’s has now become more than interesting ) site with content labelled ‘No Duty Of Care: ET GOVICT2008 - A Conference on the Ethical Governance of ICT and the Role of Professional Bodies, Canberra, Australia 1 - 2 May 2008 ‘ dropped into TALO by Janet Hawtin regarding ICT’s, policy, governance and other juicy things to consider .

In the lead up to May 2nd it will be interesting to see what people dig up and tag which ultimately all informs a positive outcome for educators considering the continued use of ICT’s and networked learning.

Lucychili

…and I have kicked off an idea called ‘ Value :Two States‘ where we will be swapping creations for a year and at the conclusion meeting at either ends of the world to showcase each others creations, meet friends, networks and family etc.

The whole idea of connecting virtually has such a resonance with me at the moment with so many of my family, friends and work colleagues spread throughout this big place.

Creative expression always has for me a deeper core to it’s celebration. it’s infinetly human and a huge part of who I am and also who I struggle sometimes to be not.

This brings us together and I hope you can share in that process.

Twine or Spokeo ?

Just getting my head around the Twine RDF semantics.

Likewise Spokeo.

Connectedness

The other day there I was invited by Twitter ( Josie Fraser ) and by Gmail chat ( Mark Van Harmelen ) to join the George Siemens keynote at the 2008 Emerge Conference which as I understood had Slideshare notes ( gone down ?  )

Stephen Downes comments on the ‘inward’ nature of Twitter fish bowls and I have to agree with him. Which herd ? is also a good point.

What struck me was that across the blogsphere and micro-blogosphere there is a sense of anxiousness as to the continued foray into cross-polination of inclusion permission. Psycho-geographics of participation as Josie . Nice term !

Almost as good as ‘Architectures of Participation ‘ that Kim and I tossed around with NMC and CogDog last year.

The session was interesting but mostly from a voyeurs perspective. Talk, question, answer, talk. Lots of tools and nowhere to go. I’m kind of getting the connectivism message but it’s seeming a little black and white of late….is it just me or do we need some colour in the slides ? I’m still not convinced that a staggered head does much for the future identity drillers.

Strange…..I watched the bridge between Twitter and the event on parallel screens. It’s interesting seeing the timing dynamics between the presentation chat, Twitter and the larger > video as each stage has it’s own masters and magicians. All in all well worth the 30 min drop by.

I’ve been following this participation idea through a lot with the FLNW crowd and exploring things myself a bit however, I’m pretty well content with the dynamics of openess as a political and participatory empowerment process…….. through which ‘permission’ is often not granted but almost always dynamically generated for reason.

Take for instance my up coming presentation at the Western Institute, TAFE NSW CSHT&R Faculty Forum where I’ve forcibly re-morphed ‘Technology In Delivery’ to ‘Technology in [Delivery] Teaching & Learning. CogDog threw in his tidied desktop and lucychili let me have her ’spam’ - penguins and all.

Thanks guys…..desktops have changed so why are we still using IE6 in TAFE ?

Maybe that was my desktop Macs. confuse and amaze me.

If your a Vista refugee you’ll be able to see things in ppsx. - erk. Failing that download the ppt. or if inclined to chase the pdf. around.

So where’s the learner ? Chasing their own technology……… that we choose to shut out of our organisations ? Perhaps the heavy hand of connected[delivery]ness is really an over simplified equation. Danah must be right…it’s ‘their’ technology right…wrong…..we can plan parties using email too you know. Bah !

Let them have rock n’ roll. Sure there were fatalities but none more so than self-absorbed conservatives claiming it was work of the devil only to fall prey to it’s social evil.

Like my Twitter feed in this blog/site.

Blocked but not silent in spaces where once Twitter’s feared to mention the expletive.

All in all a good day. At least now you know how much it will cost to hire me.

School Of Everything

Got to give it to them because it works and it flows nicely as a social application and it’s just the sort of site that excites me in it’s potential.

Not so keen on the empahasis on ‘teacher’ however can understand where thats at with so many people defining themselves by the term and little by the action.

Have iconed it and added it to the sidebar and must go explore a bit.

Use the icon if you like.

LinkedIn for teachers.

School Of Everything…..good one folks.

Friends & Colleagues

It’s a hard thing to distinguish between these days and in my area of work it’s an increasingly blurred line between one and the other.

I’d just like to acknowledge the kind and considerate actions of a friend and colleague Merelyn Treanor who last weekend took me out to the Orange, NSW Australia Botanical Gardens to have a coffee and a chat. As you may well know I’ve been with my leg in ice for the last two weeks on all sorts of pain killers after a second arthroscopy.

Merelyn brought me four books to read and some beautiful cakes and croissants which I devoured at midnight…on two occasisons. How fortunate I am in friends and how fortunate I am that my work colleagues at Western Institute have shown me the same kindness picking me up on the way to work and dropping me off at home also.

With Jane away in the countryside and a house to moan in all on my own it certainly has been a solitary re-cuperation but look at all the wonderful things I’ve had happen all in 7 days.

Thank you Merelyn & Mort & Sharon.

I truly appreciate your actions and your considerations.

Diigo : The Begining

Placing Our Feet Well

Lucychili and I spent till some time late in the morning exploring “value” and other useful process oriented actions which leads up to the May 2nd event in Adelaide.

I dropped a post into the Engageme space as i think this brings that community into the discussion and others related to what it means to be living in DER.…an apt coinage by education.au. Ive started tagging things with Diigo on the area from my own and many others ( hopefully) perspective on the idea of a digital education revolution which I think is alive a well.

Today I made some breakthroughs in the nomeclature governing participation within the MECaT online Moodle project I’m Project Officer for which excites me. I didnt think I’d ever get a SCORM compliant learning object operational but with the help of Grant Casey at CLI and Toolbox Champion, Shane Dowd hey….it’s happening !

Building & Construction online. Has a certain ring to it.

You’ll notice some changes with this site. I’m done with the sardonism.

Sick of the smartarse…out with the old in with the new.

Now on with the business of connecting , creating and building things which inspire others. Feel free to drop me a link with some positive, constructive criticism.

News in the door is I’ll be guest speaking at the AFLF Induction Day for the Innovations area in 2008, down in Sydney, networked and built as a participatory event with a few suprises.

Trialling Evernote, research retained through Diigo and playing with other mashables.

Virtual Knee Surgery

Courtesy of Marg Bell who’s also suffering from a broken ankle, here’s a virtual surgery toolbox - would certainly see you getting squeamish if indeed , like me, you’ve just undergone surgery.

It looks like a great resource so I’m going to start a new online category for Virtual Resources and tag the posts by topic are which may be helpful in retracing them.

I think this would be a handy resource for e-learning learners also as an introductory step into online anything. Do you know of any resources similar ?

If so drop me a comment . I’d love to hear from you.

Just Click It Punk

[ image : graffitisearchlab ]

Courtesy of Leigh Blackall ….something to bolster the spirits on a cold autumn day here in the city of colour.

Mobile Art

[ image : chrisjordan ]

I admire the dedication of artists like Chris Jordan who have a way of taking the mundane object and connecting with it’s ‘code’ - it’s social value inherent with all it’s complex juxtapositions.

Thanks LucyChili…a very cool find.

WP 2.5 : Wrapt !

Unbelieviable difference is the main thing I have to say about the dashboard and running upgrade of Wordpress 2.5

Congratulations Matt and team !

The difference is amazing and has inspired me to ditch my previous dodgy theme and invest in a Brian Gardner product which I vote as impeccable…..beautifully coded and a pleasure to work with.

Typically I hadnt read the operating instructions ( must be a male thing ) and launched headlong into unzip mode on Bluehost.

Brian had solved my enquiry within one email with a two minute turn around as to why my plugins werent happening and it was all smooth sailing from there on in.

Ive been throwing the code around a bit and spent most of the day building new RSS , email and header images experimenting with shadows and the Neuropol font.

Dare I say it - I’m happy with this layout - static ( dynamic though ) front end page with category feeds and a funky , managable and affiliate rich three column blog.

That means I can finally get down to the real business of web design, connected learning and a whole heap of project related blogging.

Back to it. 

Clinton : How Apt