Open Everything : The Rolling Gallop

[ image : sridgway ]

I met Mark Pesce a couple of years back and he had been booted from one job and was courting a thousand others.

He’s right….of course.

How the f…. can we convince huge beaucratic environments to do anything more than lock down learning further and put more roadblocks in place with ICT’s ? Open the doors and maybe using the commercial brilliance of the web some say.

Here’s some more on what he is stirring up here in the land downunder.

Connected, challenging, futurist.

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 !

Goog-411

IP : Your Rights

• I paid Brian Gardner for the privelege of using his code
• I continue to attribute his contributions to the code and have not in anyway removed his construction reference in the source code anywhere only added my only inclusion as a designer and web developer
• I understand the rights of others as my contributions to the web are made under Creative Commons 3.0 or 2.5 which this site is.
• When somebody builds something then I have no issue with the look / feel being emulated….in time we all want to look different and we natuarally make changes over time
• A web site should never be static…anyone that reads my sites knows that I change the look / feel constantly
• I believe in respecting the rights and IP of those brilliant people who build stuff on the web…likewise add your name to the code and use it but ensure that your not locking people out by removing attribution to them…in fact you’ll be embraessed in years to come when people start pointing back via the Internet Archive.

The following is the email I sent back to my friend and work colleague;

Great stuff [edited]

 

Point your son to http://creativecommons.org

 

I have no issue with anyone using anything except my credit card to pretend they are me so the them is of tiny consequence. I am currently in battles with a client who wont honour the IP rights of the designer who spent weeks coding a wikispace only to have her rights dishonoured by someone who wont attribute her IP.

 

It’s all about attribution which would be good to explore with your son….about respecting the rights of the designers and not ignoring the licensing of the code never mind the pictures.

 

I’m going to blog about this today so ask your son to read my latest post.

 

I  hope it will make some sense and when I can get the comments feature fixed he will be able to reply with you in tow

MobilizeThis 2008

A short excerpt from an email I fired off this morning;

Hi,

I consider as both a part time TAFE NSW employee and consultant in the field that Diigo is an invaluable tool for communicating with teams and individual teachers.

I output my Diigo tagging into Twitter so effectively I’m NOT dating only sharing my discoveries of good educational resources or events.

I also emulate my Diigo tags in del.icio.us effectively NOT dating but sharing again and connecting core business potential with my networks there also.

My Diigo and del.icious outputs alert me via email when others have added resources to my groups.

very handy and timely seeing as I’m chained to this p-2-p time waster call email.

I am MARRIED.

The sooner we have a a database of ethically enhanced employee profiling then the sooner we can actually do business as it is being done in the millenium we live in.

ps.  I urge you to consider sending me an email that self-nominates you for a Presenter role at MobilizeThis2008 - http://mobilizethis.wikispaces.com

Your theme - send me it via email.
Your timing - somewhere between 22 - 24 th October
Online - straight from your desktop
Networked - check out the other presenters
Free - as in freedom

Perhaps your theme could be ‘Using Social NETWORKING Tools for Educational Purpose’

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.

Training

Edupunk : Oi Oi Oi !

…………………….

[ image : me in 2007 ]

It would seem our most illustrious educationalists are now engaged in a race to rhetoric to rid themselves of the web 2.0 moniker they so lovingly have coveted for so long ….for so little some would retort.

D’Arcy Norman threatens self immolation in a land of machines and Leigh Blackall quotes 1975 as being one of the best years in his short life, both it would seem  in their reference and abhorence to straight-edge geek-boys desiring dirt amongst tech-smarm and power hungry industrialised neck-bearded hegemonists.

Yet, on reflection, a trillion social bookmarks and three hundred billion lost passwords and associated personal information fields later, we now have a better picture of what we could perhaps should now be working away from…but how ?

Well, perhaps we could all get web 2.0 and 21st century ( finger down throat ) about it and address it as all good fcuking edu-mcationalists should in a list of ten ‘edupunk’ behaviours ( or considerations of reality ) that you think define our move away from reframing and bundling emerging technologies into cookie-cutter products with pre-defined application….

Here’s my ten;

1. Resolving The Identity Crisis - I now know who I dont know because of the technologies I find myself using day to day….what was my name again and who do you want me to be ?
2. Avoiding Robotic Gesticulations - The machine is in me
3. Head Banging For A Living - I’d shave my head and bang it only its all fallen out
4. Google Maps My Arse - I’m already covered in tattoos and they still gave me a job as a pre-school teacher
5. Beazley For President - Johnny Rotten was the last Australian Prime Minister right ?
6. Networking Mayhem - My RSS reader looks like Sid & Nancy on crack
7. Avoiding Detention - I’d happily trash a classroom if I had one
8. Business Before Pleasure - Fuck capability building…lets all get pissed and feed our learners to the factory furnace
9. Convicts - We all know that with a pardon we can get to the top and mohawks are a type of Columbian bird right ?
10. Green What ? - You seriously want me to work with this haircut ?

Ah well.

Even when I grew my hair back the attitude still remained…..so I’m told. Better we get all ‘edu’ punk as long as we refrain from waving flags and chanting stupid arse slogans invented for long dead white supremist lunatics.

Oi !

Becoming A Web Daddy

[ image : stupiddata ]

Gender Bender

Usefulness & Value

I often preface my posts with an image which I garnish from the undending array of 2.5 CC at FlickrCC - just one of the best cool tools I know of. Very useful….

I link to the source and in doing so acknowledge the brilliance of the creator. I’m also showing I suppose some reverence for the time and space in which the object has transcended a limited range of visual brilliance, appreciation and allowing it to inform another way to lighten the lives of others.

That’s really what I’m after when I rant about access and useability for learners within or outside of the organisational or institutional firewall of protectionism. Concentrating on the guilt and bad feelings that come from being blocked access to new and emergent ways of working using networked communication technologies only seems to heighten my anxiety further. It’s debilitating and I’m actually beyond feeling this way so why do i contiue to engage in the debate ?

What not just give up and find ways to avoid confronting this challenge ?

I acknowledge that I feel angry and dismayed that no one in management is “getting it” but then upon reflection and consideration I realise that in fact they ( management ) in fact are getting it loud and clear …….and that carefully orchestrated planning and history have contributed to that decision making process. I also acknowledge that my expressions of dismay and helplessness are not helping to inform progressive thinking ……..rather drawing upon the vitriolic and senseless mindlessness that erupts from repeat unrequieted ( is that how you spell that word ?) access to that which makes it all easier.

Readers and my colleagues know that I often lapse into fits of sardonisim….. and feeling trapped in situations also leads me to kick-out at the constraint.

Nor am I one to sit in amongst the constraint and accept that this is the way it is and just accept it like a drone. What I’m doing is expressing how I’m FEELING…….I’m feeling trapped ( it’s a feeling and not a pretty one ) HOWEVER, in expressing it I’m seeking ways to move on and experience success, supported and encouraged, connected and really achieving creation. It’s perhaps the base human expression as Jo kay suggests that makes it possible to then contemplate the way to empower oneself which in turn empowers others by example.

The problem ( I’m now thinking…..ticking away here) is less in the fact that there is a reluctance in the education sectors to readily embrace new technologies and use them as part of the education experience, but more of a sociological value as to the affect such technologies have on the other aspects of being human and alive. Take for instance online learning for part-time educators in time poor cities with chronic shortages of beauty and health. Or, consider resource rich lock-step employees trapped in isolated communities where access and useability are seventh to the local football field. Which looks more like war and why ?

Where does openess help rather than induce introspection and anxiety of self value ? maybe pushing for an open view of what’s happening inside only add’s to the anxiety ? When does a wiki not become a wiki ? Just because it’s closed and dosent exist for public view ?

Technology I propose itself is not necessarily the challenge rather the myrid of challenges it poses for base human communication as we struggle to engage in meaningful and human-rich deep and slow experiences without interuptions. Maybe the ’social’ in social networking technology is in fact an enigma and that in fact we’d be better off analysing and informing the debates from a values assessment of technology mediated interaction without it’s “noise”.

That would then render this expression of mine …mute. Best I concentrate on what it enables rather than what it refutes. Find some connectedness amongst the humdrum and show connection in action in a world immersed in security conciousness.

Whilst I’m on the topic, policy ( broad sweep of hand ) seems to me to be a resultant rather than a guide in all of these discussions and helpless expressions. Process oriented action research that informs action ie. Graham Wegner seems more useful than philisophical nuances that inform policy which then governs the manner in which we re-value interaction and devolve responsibility from.

I commiserate with Kim Flintoff and find that he’s willing to openly ( humanely) express himself and suggest perhaps that he’s also not trapped by cynicsm rather seeking connectedness to remain sane and positive.

After much mirth last night Stephan Ridgway, Robyn Jay and Julie Collareda finally broke into fits of laughter at the novelty of re-positing the ridiculousness of where rhetoric is taking our organisations as a whole as they struggle to comprehend the whole change occuring from right underneath them. Not only are humans becoming more complex but the rapidity of the connections means nothing remains un-observed.

Our resolve - It’s our ability to harness survaillant as core capital rather than bork at it’s borgness.

Open up rooms in ourspace.

Turn the machine off occasionally.

Smile more readily.

Seems worthwhile to me. What do you think ?

Read Write Blah.

. .

“……some who complain in the staffroom about not being able to turn off from school when they get home……..they just want their paycheck and to keep doing things the same way they been doing it for the last 10/20 years.”

Just In Time ( Education )

On Friday of this week I was meant to be involved with a group of people presenting at the 2008 Innovation Showcase “transforming Learning Through Innovation” being held at the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre by Macro-Dimensions.

That means……I attempted to be. The image above elludes to what occured.

I arrived at “work” at 7.10am ( TAFE NSW ICVET ) in the morning to be totally prepared for both this presentation and another online as part of the SIT “Facilitating Online” workshops with teachers and other staff. True to form the slide share in Adobe Connect went wonky and I was forced yet again to run an impromtu range of activities which now in hindsight will markedly shift the way I’ll conduct the next three sessions.

Here is the presentation that I was hoping I could use;

With a shocking cold and feeling like something from an alien planet I soldiered on.

At 12.00 AM with 30 minutes to go till the next presentation I logged into the Elluminate room which usually gives you about 20 mins of run-in time. I encountered the dreaded logged out, blocked, not accessible message which frustrates the beep out of me. It’s just ridiculous that sitting in the middle of the AFLF National manangement arena that this application is blocked or not accessible particularly considering that it is the core platform used for web conferencing communication for the Framework.

Saves on lots of plane flights. However…..thats not the focus of this post.

I dont want to dwell on what didnt happen rather what did. It occured to me that even though I knew I was going to miss the session and also that there was no time to duck back to the house I was staying at to get connected and to get in so, time to be inventive.

I logged back into Adobe Connect. Set a new room with the title of the event and proceeded to record myself during the exact time when I ws meant to be live elsewhere. I may not have been able to attend but perhaps my recording can be forwarded to those involved and in effect become a usable resource for those teachers attending…..over and over again.

You can access the recording here - http://webconf.det.nsw.edu.au/p72771278/

Just goes to show that despite not having access to the session I was still able to contribute. I really appreciate being included Carole and I hope that next time I’ll be accessing this from my superfast connection here in Orange NSW Australia.

Teachers must be so disenchanted with innovators who show things happening with apparent ease then encounter things like this which can be a real turnoff. It’s a real challenge in this day and age to access things which have a marked effect on what we were once doing that consumed so much more energy to accomplish. On the other hand, this “just-in-time” education mode is bringing new dimensions to the learning landscape….so much richer and relevant in this digital age that some would say is amidst a revolution.

Incidently, it’s just started snowing outside. Brrrrrrrrrrr.

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

Alls well…..

…….that ends well and by the sounds of it at least 8 out of 10 things were covered in the Learning In The 21st Century gig hosted by education.au in Adelaide today.

Many thanks to all who attended both physically, virtually or in spirit.

Mike Seyfrang has preliminary thoughts and I’m sure Michael Coghlan and Graham Wegner will add their piece later.

Graham passed on some links also - http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=1843

Framework - http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=51520

Al upton said hello via Skype.

I was driven to Dubbo NSW and sat with three groups of educators talking about networked learning and wikispaces. The knees gradually on the mend.

So is the head

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;

 

 

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.