Glogster

Bocelli’s Adelaide

Meeting spot for dinner - 7pm - Thursday 31st July 2008 - TALO types and other networked beings

Call it what you will - networking, twittermeet, ungrouping etc.

View Larger Map

Plaxo : The Pulse

[image : eschipul ]

Today, like any other day my email inbox is full of Bacn.

Today, like any other day I received 11 phone calls, 78 emails, 5 IM’s, two text messages and a host of other link spam which I’m not after although some of it makes hilarious reading despite the paradox of the desperateness inherent.

What I would like though is to use services like Plaxo that effectively centralise personal updates, who send me things by MY election, who promise not to share my details without my consent and who like any other business related profiling web 2.0 company show me who’s connecting to whom and why.

Unlike Facebook, Plaxo seems to be centralising service for purpose without all the fanfare, flashing advertisements and entertainment oriented connections. Sure, like anyone I’m keen to connect for positive practical purpose however I like to to be on my terms. I’m inbedding my services elsewhere and hopefully Plaxo will see that they can ‘out’ my profile as I’m still the same person inside as I am on the outside.

So, today like any other day, whilst I was building a website for one client, installing a Learning Management system for another and generally having fun with my youngest son Ethan , partner Jane and doing the housework in between I got to thinking about this once a week Plaxo message which I generally delete. I opened it this time, logged in, updated my profile a bit and then realised that 870 other people on my gmail list are not part of Plaxo and unlikely to know unless I email them what I’ve been up to or no offer as an E-learning & E-Business Marketing Consultant.

Hence the idea of this blog post which I’ll point to via the Plaxo message I’m sending through to those whom I’d like to re-connect with……not because I went to school with them, nor because I fancy them rather because as business goes the broader the access and connections with others the more likelihood of them returning my message and perhaps even commenting on this blog post……when I’ve worked out what code has dropped off to stop this happening.

In the meantime, please drop me a line via my email which you can find in my contact page above. Looking forward to hearing how your careers are going and how we can connect and have a great time otherwise.

Till then….I’m online.

Skype me if you get a moment to say hi !

Personal Informatics

Another take on personal informatics with more of a robotic perspective.

Microblogging Futures

A really profound slideshow or in their own words - ’social object’.

I like the analogy ; less social networks and more social objects.

Unending Rhetoric

Excerpt from an email I received today in response to my repeat request to gain access to the most important national database records which underpin the whole success of the flexible learning program being managed ( or rather mismanaged ) or perhaps re-managed by an unsaid body of corporate wisdom.

Read carefully for the resolve

Dear alexander hayes,

We are pleased to inform you that your reported Incident has been resolved.

Reference No.: INC000000291614
Summary: Website Unblock Request

Your reported Incident has been resolved with the following resolution:

Alexander,

Re http://docs.google.com <http://docs.google.com/>

Thank you for requesting that the above URL  be unblocked.

Following examination by the web filtering team it has been decided to initiate no action to unblock this site, at this stage.

Thank you for advising us about this site.

AFLF E-learning Innovations

Once again I’m back amongst the flurry of Elearning with the Australian Flexible Learning Frameworkand a host of really innovative projects which this year focus more upon engagement with industry partners and development of existing skills and knowledge base with less of an emphasis on professional development for teachers.

It will be a short stint of six weeks or so as I’m up to my neck in consultancy and it’s a fill in position until the new Project Officer and CEO’s are installed.

Some would say this is poor move on behalf of the Framework to change tack from empowering teachers year after year however I’d say it’s definetly broadened the horizons for organisations who would otherwise relegate PD to Framework intervention rather than whole heartedly endorse it as core practice within their own camp. So we may be farewelling LearnScope which will always remain a precious project for me and many others and we are moving into a new time where the catchcry could well be;

“….if teachers havent got it by now then too bad….it’s time to do business using these tools and ways of working and less about exploring…”

I’m working four days with three face-to-face with project teams and the Framework team in Sydney and one day “remote” here in Orange in my home office within which I seem to get ten times the amount of online work completed due to the lack of restrictions on my access to tools that really matter. Thats not to say I’m not getting things done on the inside rather my age old intent to make it easier on the inside for the inmates who would otherwise run through the drills and shake their heads in resignation at the everday challenge of using technology as part of teaching and learning.

I’m keen to hear from project teams and it’s business case building time. An interesting time admist a flurry of other projects I’m involved with that you’ll no doubt know about via the front end of this website.

Off Topic

It seems that my reply to a TALOian discussion has reached boiling point and my comment repeatedly deleted. So in an effort to maintain the flow and avoid building troll bridges here’s what I wrote….

“….WTF??

I’m afraid that acronym and others have been reserved for pub poetry night.

I agreethat the initial post that has prompted this discussion contains potentially flatulant and objectionable language of inference that is both Shakespearean, worrysome and of concern. That is was the point on the post. Almost exactly as GR would use and minus some other expletives that didnt make it to air begining with ‘c’.

I was using the language contextually in the first post as it would read at the moment in the press ( SMH etc. ) where objection to foul mouthed antics is entirely circumstantial and culturally objectionable for those who mostly are polite……some would say complicit to atrocities and others simply accepting that in differing cultures the word ‘f…’ is used as often as any other co-joiner.

SMH topics on technology pepper this list’s dialogue, as do politic, religon, cultural affairs and a host of other one liners for use or simply slipped over as trash. I was pointing to an example of where despite all attempts to retain consideration and politeness, open lists dont necessarily lead to adjunct and breakout rooms within which any flow or dialogue goes beyond the begining of another list | group | network……it’s the personal that beats the latency as Mark suggests and how deeply we can read into ones contribution.

As Kylie suggests,

” We just have to tolerate the OT (off topic, for those not up with the
lingo)….or maybe, god forbid, enjoy the discourse. ”

Tolerance is a very tricky equation. We have seen some amazing feats of tolerance, goodwill and politeness observed in TALO over the years involving diverse nations, opinions and personal intent.

Teaching and learning online involves language ,culture , opinion and the odd ramble. By all means use OT it if it seems approriate in your own way as a signifier. Deleting it involves consultation and unravels all sorts of biases and belief systems however in some cases just downright necessary.

It takes courage to press the delete button. It would mean contemplating a shift in our bcc attitudes to anothers opinion.

I see more expletives and acronyms buried daily in an unending flow of organisational consultation rhetoric…. and if parliament is anything to go by, no wonder our humane counsel on petty matters such as popular culture in an educational technology list has such significance and why over a thousand readers and 100 contributors keep this one alive.

Some pose prettily with tight ties and shmarmy Gloweaves. Others smoke Marloboro, slug back triple-shot vodka’s and snarl around corners on hogs as halidome as papal in black.

Which ever way we look at it we need to find ways to build bridges and punch holes through into the next firewall…..”

Thread exists here.

Zest For Life

I spent some time today taking photos of flowers and other things in Orange. This photos has made it into the Zest For Life Flickr group.

The Dystopian Filter : Social Networking Pre-eclampsia

As we drove home today from the TAFE NSW Dubbo ‘Networked Delivery’ workshops on wiki’s and other networked technology demystifications I was struck with a moments silence where re-collections of the digital politic pressed on my inner too-hard-basket.

In a time when too many kids photos spoiled the broth and when the world showed it’s true colours and respectfully showed it’s Medusa like schizophrenic cocktail of opinion.

Wiki’s as dangerous spaces where teachers could say something out of turn…perhaps even link to their Facebook account , imbed a Flickr widget or heaven forbid begin a discussion which leads other people via cleverly located Google map script complete with GPS co-ordinates to their own home !

All of this occuring on a day when the TALON’s are out at education.au exploring DER and  what it means to be living and working in a networked economy tagged by Diigo, commented on and literally dissected via the myriad of social networked channels that underpin our current and dystopic quagmire of media driven fear mongering .

Perhaps rightly dystopic considering the number of ten year olds posing as pedophiles courting and grooming in the more abhorrent and frightening play-act mode of networked politic.

Kim Flintoff and I have pressed the point last year that this behavioural approach to social networking exclusion resembles a mortal morphic form entering the zone of digital pre-eclampsia…..whole sectors unsure of how to deal with the forensically oriented vivisections of organisational servitude bundled through a datastream reflecting back as painful shards of a broken connection with reality.

Bebo indeed. The meta of the morphic …..where your latest thought became someone elses party plan.

Organisations have much to fear and if the borg and bot count on any governing filter is to go by it’s hardly worth opening the ports for fear of the fumes wafting from the overheated filter. Likewise keeping count of how many Kalishnov’s are being brought into the playground is more realistic a notion than trying to monitor, maintain and moderate even 1/1000th of student opinion transmitted predominantly by mediums and modalities which site in their hip pockets.

Two for every human alive in Australia according the the last statistic.

Interestingly the governance issue arose again today in more ways than one. I have a demand notice of removal of  an image posted on a website speaking to the very topic itself open to the net - ‘no’ duty of care….how apt.

How will we take our curriculum forward when we are still squabbling over coffee cup order in the staffroom ?

When the ‘C’ between the ‘I’and the ‘T’ has got the lowest form of Shakepearen slander attached to it’s place in the acronym ?

How much longer will it take Education legal to start it’s own Bebo account to connect more substanitally to the cohort it so cleverly wants to police ?

They have a bebo account ?…..your kidding me ! Whats their username ?

….arhhh dystopia. Mildly myopic.

Seriously deluded if thinking social networking is the next rock’n'roll evil.

More musings over at http://nswlearnscope.com.

Search for pasts pantomimes by keywords

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.