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Janet Hawtin : Weblog

  • CCK08 Barbara Dieu on Jimmy Wales: Participation v control

    Posted: November 12th, 2008, 4:04pm GMT

    Barbara Dieu:

    "As Jimbo mentioned at some point, the challenge does not really come from the technology itself, which is continuously being improved to facilitate connections, networking and working together. The real obstacles to an open culture of collaboration are deeply imbued economic/social/educational processes, practices and the need to control,  which hamper these conversations and the possibility of exchange and sharing."

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  • Participatory Media and Practices

    Posted: November 12th, 2008, 3:55pm GMT by Barbara Dieu

    This week my interest and involvement with social media in education granted me another invitation to participate as an “interaction facilitator” by twittering the Roda Viva interview with Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia founder),  together with Pedro Markun (communicator and social activist) and Pedro Valente (journalist).  It also led me to the WikiBrasil event in the evening, featuring well-known figures of the São Paulo intelligentzia , who gathered to share their experience and debate open and participatory media in diverse areas.

    Update (video)

    Live Broadcasting by Ustream

    I am also taking part of the II ABCiber Symposium (Brazilian Association of Cyberculture Researchers) at PUCSP, covering a variety of related themes, studies and propositions on how these new technologies are impacting our daily lives, uses, best practices and threats.

    Though severe brainfry has set in after listening to so many people speaking, I am also having some difficulty in following the tempo of this generation C - (connected, creative and click).  So, I have forced myself to sit down this morning, set some time aside, concentrate and focus on some of the common traits I have noticed during these events:

    • the possibility to join the debate, witness knowledge being constructed openly and being shared (from many and with many) through social tools and platforms like mobiles, Twitter (+ all mashups), Flickr, blogs, livestreaming, tagging;
    • a tendency of academia and traditional journalists to monopolize the conversation, engage in a navel gazing monologue instead of encouraging and partaking a dialogic relation with the guest speaker and audience.
    • a contradiction between innovative theoretical discourse and conventional institutional practice;
    • a difficulty in bridging the gap between hope and happening, structure and agency, the material and the ideational;

    As Jimbo mentioned at some point, the challenge does not really come from the technology itself, which is continuously being improved to facilitate connections, networking and working together. The real obstacles to an open culture of collaboration are deeply imbued economic/social/educational processes, practices and the need to control,  which hamper these conversations and the possibility of exchange and sharing.

    Off to one more afternoon and evening at ABCiber and tomorrow a whole day with Práxis members at BIT (Bradesco Institute of Technology) in Campinas for a meeting and lunch with Mitchel Resnick, from  the MIT Media Lab,  with whom Bradesco partners.

  • Tweets for 2008-11-11

    Posted: November 12th, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • @fugita aproveite pois não sei quando será a próxima vez -) #
    • na ABCiber ouvindo a 2a mesa redonda do dia - por que ler para o público se podemos fazer isso nós mesmos? #
    • passando adiante: flashmob pela liberdade na Internet, contra o PL Azeredo: SP, sexta, 18h, Paulista 900, canteiro central… #
    • testing #bet tag for braztesol edutech sig twitter conversations #

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Janet Hawtin : Weblog

  • CCK08 Collapse of context v addressable, persistent, intimate expression.

    Posted: November 11th, 2008, 11:53pm GMT

    I think our habits of candour and intimacy are changing in response to the internet because it functions like a one way mirror.

    I think we still imagine a specific kind of audience for our writing, participation, or media online, but the mechanics of technology networks and the persistence of our works in public searchable space mean that the audience can be a changing thing, access over time, shifting context due to linking to the item from different related materials, and scale of response to something we have posted online are all a part of how the audience can shift, and can shift the meaning of what we have contributed.

    I feel like this is different because it feels more like a fluid collective presence than the kind of interactions we have offline. Online audience is also more likely to happen between people who have never met
    ie the correspondence itself has to carry all the meaning.

    i am self conscious about writing openly it feels like a kind of persistent live to air broadcast.
    Wesch's video of so many people taking up the meme and all doing a dance at their computers is an example of what I mean. Each dancer was contributing something frank and personal, they were all intimate moments sent to an infinite audience or no audience at all.

    For me there is a kind of directness in reading text online which shorts out for me if i read something and then the author is not online or not alive: It changes the mutability or 'in the round' ness of the text i am reading.

    Offline cultural participation in our cities is also in a changing state. A graffiti group participated in the Adelaide Fringe Arts Festival. We made throwies at a workshop which were LEDs strapped to magnets
    which you could attach to buildings to make a sign or shape. Kids and children-at-heart made them and put them around the city, meanwhile in Perth a graffiti artist was arrested.

    There is also something timeless about posting something to the web -something said once can reverberate long after a person has had a change of heart or mind. That can be expensive for future prospects because there is no division between the private person and the employable citizen in open web search.

    During the recent NZ election both parties tried to trash each others' reputations by making
    something unhelpful rank as the top link which appeared when you googled for their name.

    This would take a considerable effort so was not a small trivial mischief - they must have spent a fair bit of money or time on it. In a context like that the kinds of things which are 'close' can be very loud and some kind of impersonal or unfriendly.

    There is another aspect of intimacy which is changing and that is the tension between apparently addressing a known f2f audience and presentation where the comments are being twittered or live blogged. The presenter may not be aware of their context in this way either.

    Some face-to-face meetings are traditionally private and handled with few participants, employer, employee meetings, challenging meetings where we might be trying to negotiate for an agreed outcome or commitment between people present. These kinds of events may be diluted by the kind of partial inattention which can happen when someone'has their thoughts elsewhere' when is it important to have the audience known. How does that kind of intimacy differ? Is it still important?

    Is it unrealistic to assume traditional characteristics of intimacy in any digital context when the pixels and
    bytes travel openly and can be simply replicated and sent on?

  • CCK08 Safe, Connectivist, Open Participative, Addressable, Intimate, Facing Death.

    Posted: November 11th, 2008, 10:15pm GMT

    One of these words is a challenge to the others.

    These opportunities feel like vital aspects of our ability to learn as a modern, connected, responsive and responsible society. But our systems for learning and our governments are risk averse. They are choosing systemic, universal, centrally scoped solutions for making the internet safe, for making school safe.

    Surely there must be a way to engage in learning and in developing skills to keep ourselves safe which  do not cost us the vitality of our opportunities to learn, share and be heard as participants in this emergent networked culture.

    Much of the interesting potential of the internet is found in being able to connect with other people, to follow a meme and find people who share your thinking and questioning, and to be able to respond honestly and as best we are able to the challenges which arise out of these journeys.

    These powerful opportunities risk being trumped by the governance of our infrastructure.
    There must be a way to move forward with a sense of due care and positive engagement, not just by  learners but also by the systems and communities which enable them.

     

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  • Tweets for 2008-11-10

    Posted: November 11th, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • Live interview with Jimmy Wales: [tinyurl.com]. Use #rodaviva to send in questions and comments. Time: [tinyurl.com] #
    • #rodaviva at the studio on the Twitter perch - Jimbo just before us - we’re about to begin #
    • send your comments and questions to #rodaviva #
    • #rodaviva music by Chico Buarque - Roda Viva has just started #
    • #rodaviva Lilian Witte Fibe opens with a short intro about Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales and his new commercial venture Wikia #
    • #rodaviva Wikiquote “A few years ago, I was just some guy sitting in front of the internet.” Jimmy Wales #
    • #rodaviva Now I send an e-mail or edit an article and it makes headlines around the world. I used to be just a guy — now I’m Jimmy Wales. #
    • #rodaviva … I used to be just a guy — now I’m Jimmy Wales. #
    • #rodaviva Otavio Dias wonders whether after obama’s election new technologies will open up democratic processes #
    • #rodaviva JW believes the challenge is how to get communities to collaborate together #
    • #rodaviva questions about the future Obama mandate and possibility hate organizations publishing on the web #
    • #rodaviva Will organizations become flatter ? the fact you have open and participatory media does not really mean the process is uniform #
    • #rodaviva wikipedia model is based on free (like in free speech) source - open software - who funds it? #
    • #rodaviva I wonder whether this model can apply to the Brazilian context, where knowledge is still very scarce and people earn money from it #
    • #rodaviva @carlaarena this is what everyone is looking forward - nothing will happen if the people do not collaborate and make it happen #
    • #rodaviva Wikipedia model relies on donations - 6 million $ a year to keep it running #
    • #rodaviva Can Internet volunteers improve journalism like we are doing now? #
    • #rodaviva Wikipedia is all about a committed community working together - not an easy task #
    • #rodaviva Lilian impressed by the size of Markun’s and Amadeu’s Asus -) has never seen or heard about it #
    • #rodaviva JW on challenge of building search engine transparente and powered by the community - not Google or Coca-like model #
    • #rodaviva is there transparency on Wikipedia? Who are the members of the cathedral? How are they chosen ? #
    • follow the #rodaviva tag on twemes #
    • #rodaviva JWales in Wikiquote : We aren’t democratic. Our readers edit the entries, but we’re actually quite snobby. #
    • #rodaviva JM Wikiquote The core community appreciates when someone is knowledgeable, thinks some people are idiots & shouldn’t be writing. #
    • #rodaviva wikiquote core community appreciates when someone is knowledgeable, and thinks some people are idiots and shouldn’t be writing. #
    • #rodaviva JW on priorities, freedom and money making #
    • #rodaviva even non-profit project needs a “business”model #
    • #rodaviva @fugita mas a wikipedia na realidade tem uma catedral que filtra e censura…não é somente o bazar beneficiente -) #
    • #rodaviva @fugita no entanto tb confio mais em algo que é rapidamente “updated” #
    • #rodaviva good article with JW on digital journalism [tinyurl.com] #
    • #rodaviva Brazilians are at the forefront in CC , open software and culture #
    • #rodaviva our society & culture is not uniform - community based organizations respect and understand local views #
    • #rodaviva belcolucci interviewing JW privately #
    • #rodaviva Cory Doctorow on copyright: [tinyurl.com] #
    • #rodaviva @cristinacost cultural awareness - easier said than done - our challenge in 21st century #
    • #rodaviva de acordo com @suzzinha…o nome da catedral é Capital #
    • #rodaviva there is a core group who knows each other and decide - who are these people? how transparent is this process? #
    • #rodaviva I like criticism but funny how some people insist only on the dark side #
    • #rodaviva wikiquote real struggle is not between the right & the left but between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks. #
    • #rodaviva what makes one thoughful and the other one jerk? I wonder. #
    • #rodaviva discourse - aristocracy, the homepage czar, meritocracy, reputation and respect come from knowledge, time involvement #
    • #rodaviva is it possible to join the inner circle of the community? how open is it to others and criticism? #
    • #rodaviva my last tweets do not seem to have been captured by twemes -( #
    • #rodaviva I find it interesting how people see the world with the new replacing the old - models co-exist! #
    • #rodaviva access to information is key - people should contribute with their local content so that others can use #
    • #rodaviva did not know there were more Wikipedia articles in Portuguese than in Spanish #
    • #rodaviva how can people with oral literacy express themselves on Wikipedia? #
    • #rodaviva end of program..I hope you have enjoyed it! #
    • @suzzinha # rodaviva boa pergunta..que infelizmente não foi feita -( fica para hoje à noite #

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  • Tweets for 2008-11-07

    Posted: November 8th, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • Nov 10th livestream transmission/twittering interview with Jimmy Wales at #rodaviva at 11:30am check your time: [tinyurl.com] #
    • An interesting film <http://tinyurl.com/misterlonely> featuring my young friend Michael-Joel Stuart <http://mjstuart.wordpress. … #

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  • Tweets for 2008-11-06

    Posted: November 7th, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • @cristinacost congrats on wonderful presentation - meant to be there but now at parents and difficult to connect on heavier platforms #

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  • Tweets for 2008-11-03

    Posted: November 4th, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu

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  • Twitter: What's in it for education?

    Posted: November 1st, 2008, 3:39pm GMT by Vance Stevens
    I'm responding to another post today, this one: "Actually, I'm still a bit confused as to the educational uses of twitter/twemes, etc. Any useful tutorials you could suggest?"

    Ok, Twemes is a mashup that aggregates tweets around a #hashtag. The catch is only that those tweeting have to put the #hashtag in their post somewhere. But if you are microblogging to a group, or microblogging something of interest to a group, then it's useful if your group has established early on that they will be following Twemes, so people have in the back of their minds that they can reach the group by tweeting and embedding the #hashtag in their post, and then anyone can go to the Twemes site and find all the posts to Twitter (tweets) containing that #hashtag. Another advantage to this system is that you don't have to be on Twitter to see the Twemes. You can see whatever has been #hashtagged simply by visiting http://twemes.com.

    The more interesting question is why should educators use Twitter in the first place. For some time I've been using 'twitter' as a tag in my Delicious: [delicious.com], so I had a look at the almost 100 links I've got stashed there and pulled out the ones most pertinent to education. Here they are:

    If you want an educator's perspective on Twitter from the get-go, have a look at [www.caroline-middlebrook.com]. If you want a more specific example of how Twitter helped one teacher, [educationaltechnology.ca]. There's also the inevitable Commoncraft explanation of Twitter: [www.commoncraft.com]

    My personal awakening with regard to Twitter was when I heard Jeff Utecht's presentation at the 2007 K-12 Online Conference. Jeff solicited help from his Twitter network when he started recording his presentation, and when help arrived I was able to understand how such a network works and how it would be useful to ME. You can listen and see if it strikes the same chord in you: [k12onlineconference.org]

    I'm sure I came on this next one through Twitter. The author notes that SHE came on this article through Twitter and points to another article, but you can read hers first and then go there. The point I'm making is that none of us in our distributed learning network would likely have known about this article had we not been on Twitter, so this is an example of how Twitter put the network on to something that we would not have found out about otherwise. Here's the microblog "review" post: [coolcatteacher.blogspot.com] and here's the article about using Twitter in academia: [academhack.outsidethetext.com]
    This work was also discussed in SMiELT at [dekita.org], and yet another writer has reviewed this work here: [chronicle.com] so this one made a big splash when it touched down.

    If in further doubt, entertain yourself with this ditty: [www.youtube.com]

Janet Hawtin : Weblog

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  • Tweets for 2008-10-29

    Posted: October 30th, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu

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  • Tweets for 2008-10-27

    Posted: October 28th, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • Mark Deuze on People Formerly Known as Employers [tinyurl.com] #
    • @cristinacost cannot join the chat..what is the url? #
    • @cristinacost just music and no chat? Where to go? #
    • at Emerge Sounds Bazaar on Digital Identities [tinyurl.com] #
    • @carlaarena the advantage of VoiceThread is that you can listen to it in bits, go back, comment #
    • @carlaarena which images? They are all referred to..the ones that are not, I do not remember where they came from..lol #
    • A book to read (in French if possible) - Amin Maloouf’s Identités Meurtrieres or In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong #

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  • Colloquium on Global Communication

    Posted: October 27th, 2008, 5:52pm GMT by Barbara Dieu
    Enclosure: [download]

    Elizabeth Hanson-Smith sent an invitation to members on the Webheads in Action list to participate online in the Colloquium on Global Communication for the The Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia in Moscow. I accepted to give a presentation together with Sus Nyrop from Denmark, Cristina Costa in England, Rita Zeinstejer from Argentina and Ronaldo Lima Jr and Erika Cruvinel from Brasilia. After a series of mail exchanges, I set up a wiki , where we all gradually added our information, links resources and slides. I also used the presenters’ abstracts to compose the Wordle image that appears on the front page and which Elizabeth added at the bottom on the other pages as a sort of a logo.

    As Natalie Udina (the organizer of the event in Moscow) and some of the presenters were not very familiar with the Elluminate platform in Learning Times, we set a number of rehearsal times for people to test and ask questions.

    On the day of the event (October 24th) I almost missed the session because of the heavy traffic on the ring when coming back from the countryside, but fortunately I managed to arrive almost on time. Among the people present at the conference in Moscow, there was Dr. Anastasiya Atabekova, a representative from the culture section of the US Embassy in Moscow, some members of the local government, the University Dean, the pro-rector in science and other participants from different countries from Eastern Europe.

    As my sound quality was poor and the wifi connection uneven, I have decided to record it again. While the original raw footage is archived and a bit difficult to retrieve inside  the Webheads in Action room at Learning Times, the polished and interactive recording is here for those who do not want to log in.

  • Tweets for 2008-10-24

    Posted: October 25th, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • Check out this SlideShare Presentation : Colloquium on Global Communication [tinyurl.com] #

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  • Screencasting via UTipU

    Posted: October 22nd, 2008, 12:25pm GMT by Vance Stevens
    I created my first UTipU video today. Thanks Nellie for the good tip, worked very well!

    Voila:



    I wanted to see the button that can be generated. That's it above, not that impressive. I wish it could say what it was. In any event, the video, about creating animations in PowerPoint (now I'll bet you REALLY wanna watch it !! ;-) is here: [www.utipu.com]. That link offers you a download (free, and well worth the bandwidth).

beespace

  • Tweets for 2008-10-21

    Posted: October 22nd, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • in 3 hours twittering Jana Bennett’s interview for Roda Viva [www.tvcultura.com.br] link + details of live streaming later #
    • #rodaviva about to start - make up and chatting in the backstage #
    • #rodaviva Jana Bennett - CEO BBC -one of the most influential persons in British media #
    • #rodaviva takes are repeated - Lilian mentions she is embarassed - Jana says it’s the same out there #
    • #rodaviva questions to [www.tvcultura.com.br] #
    • #rodaviva Paulo Caruso is our live cartoonist #
    • #rodaviva no other country has such a powerful conglomerate as the BBC…how can this explained? #
    • #rodaviva British has a strong news culture and the Web has helped a lot - the BBC works internationally with many partners #
    • #rodaviva Patricia Kogut - how do the new media redefine the relationship with the spectators? #
    • #rodaviva Web and TV are working together and bring young people into interaction and you can always catch up later #
    • #rodaviva Bowling Alone shows how many American institutions have lost their relationship with the public, democracy and citizenship #
    • #rodaviva Lucia Araujo is the concept public TV being relevant? #
    • #rodaviva JB - the model of the Web being free makes the appeal stronger and this makes TV free to the audience #
    • #rodaviva the international perspective is extremely important as well #
    • #rodaviva NH: in Brazil big debate on public TV - how can public TV attend such a diverse population ? #
    • #rodaviva JB - there should be a public debate and public TV is a social choice #
    • #rodaviva EB - who finances this TV- spectators, advertisers? #
    • #rodaviva JB in Britain people pay a license and this represents the bulk 95% of the money that finances it #
    • #rodaviva JB programs are not sponsored in Britain #
    • #rodaviva JB does not feel comfortable in giving advice in a foreign country - public broadcasting needs freedom and quality #
    • #rodaviva JB - independence comes from lack of political interest and not competing for commercial advertising #
    • #rodaviva people accept the license fee as it pays for this independence and quality #
    • #rodaviva The BBC has embraced some reality shows - program on fashion - teens were taken to India to understand different realities #
    • #rodaviva reality TV can be educational - all depends on what the focus is #
    • #rodaviva questions from public: do TVs share standards globally? BBC tries to find ways of doing things + efficiently and cheaply #
    • #rodaviva @fredpill isso é para a rede internacional -) #
    • #rodaviva JB well understood tradition in Britain - controversial issues are debated after the broadcast not before #
    • #rodaviva JB BBC tries to involve people in issues and not lecture them on benefits or disadvantages #
    • #rodaviva the BBC Trust may be selected thru the gvt but it is not political - what counts are their skills and not their affilitation #
    • #rodaviva in Brazil young population has migrated to games and other technologies - how has the BBC faced this challenge? #
    • #rodaviva JB - BBC has taken the TV to the Web, where the public is and combines both #
    • #rodaviva JB stresses the need to focus on young people and what their interests are - same should happen in education #
    • #rodaviva JB user-generated content by young people is inserted into the programs & allow for interactions - different tools are used #
    • #rodaviva different programs ask for different tools & different kinds of interaction - need to feel and know what works where #
    • #rodaviva LWF how has the BBC faced merchandising inside independent programs? #
    • #rodaviva JB although some products are shown for realism, care is taken not to make them that visible and rotate them - #
    • #rodaviva PK do young people want just to passively watch? JB - teens also like to chill out but enjoy quality #
    • #rodaviva Jb different types of behaviour /tastes to be expected at different times of the day #
    • #rodaviva digital TV in Britain started about 10 years ago and now all channels are digital but some homes are not (10%) #
    • #rodaviva L ..how is public value measured? #
    • #rodaviva as the BBC is not a profit-making company they try to give value to all those who pay the fee #
    • #rodaviva BBC measure each program for quality (scores to understand what people think), literacy campaigns + convergence radio, TV, Web #
    • #rodaviva differently from other countries where TV is seen as ephemeral, Britain has a strong reflection tradition on its media #
    • #rodaviva TV is as cultural object and everybody debates it on other media and at home #
    • #rodaviva make the good popular and the popular good - so programs can be smart, serious and entertaining #
    • #rodaviva JB ex smart mob on classical music : opera in railway session - giving people space and time for creativity and innovation #
    • #rodaviva international question: why BBC puts its iPlayer content behind a wall that blocks outside outside of GB. What is the rationale? #
    • #rodaviva @lezzles I think it is because the British pay a license fee for it and you do not - but you can get it on the Web for 7 days #
    • #rodaviva BBC - programs should have more to them than just spectacle #
    • #rodaviva TV as an inspirational medium - being serious and didactic does not mean that humour cannot exist - life is a mixture of things #
    • #rodaviva different countries have different infrastructure for mobiles - BBC has mostly invested on the Web - focus is good quality first #
    • #rodaviva LWF is the BBC produced for a white ageing middle class? #
    • #rodaviva JB BBC tries to cater for everyone and there are programs - not about rich and poor but regionality #
    • #rodaviva JB BBC does not abandon audiences and tries to reach out to new ones #
    • #rodaviva CA what is the ideal format to target young people? #
    • #rodaviva for JB : comedies and drama - programs which allow teens to relax, sit back and identify themselves with characters #
    • #rodaviva over #
    • @tvcultura não vi meus tweets no site de vcs. É por causa do inglês? #

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  • Roda Viva - Interactive TV experiment

    Posted: October 21st, 2008, 8:19pm GMT by Barbara Dieu

    Last night, Bel Colluci, from TV Cultura asked me (through a quick message on Gtalk) to participate in an “experiential participatory transmission” they are conducting: streaming the Roda Viva interview program raw and live footage on the Web a week before its polished taped version is shown on TV. The idea is also to get online participants to interact with the program through the Radar Cultura page and Twitter while the interviews are being carried on.

    The whole setup in the studio consists of a mobile unit : a laptop connected to the Internet, a mini DV video camera, a tripod, a photo camera. Live transmission is done through streaming using Mogulus (video), Cover it Live (multimídia chat), Flickr (photo storage), YouTube (video storage) and Twitter (live coverage). The crewman follows what happens to the guests and journalists from the moment they arrive until they leave.

    Bel confided she was happy to have been given this opening and space for action. I accepted as I was eager to check not only the environment but also the efforts that are being made in this very traditional broadcasting mode to incorporate new technologies and make it interactive - the same challenge we are facing in education. Not all schools accept experimentation and going beyond the fixed walls of their “studios”.

    The interviewee for this event was Jana Bennett, CEO of one of the largest media conglomerates in the world - the BBC. I read about her a bit before going to bed and, as I decided to tweet in English for an international audience, I sent word through the various lists and communities I belong to around the world.

    A chauffeur came to fetch me, Lucia Freitas and Bel early this morning and off we went across town to Fundação Padre Anchieta, where TV Cultura is housed. On arrival, we met Aloisio Milani, our fellow twitterer ; the other journalists who were going to interview Jana: Lilian Witte Fibe, Carmen Amorim, Patricia Kogut, Eugenio Bucci, Lucia Araujo, Nelson Hoineff and Paulo Caruso, a live cartoonist. After a scrumptious breakfast in the best Brazilian style (orange juice, coffee, pao de queijo, sandwiches, fruit and cake), we were led to the make-up room (no shiny noses or disheveled look permitted) and then to the studio .

    update - Lucia Freitas has just sent me the cartoon Paulo Caruso made of us

    Lucia, Aloisio and I sat on the perch at the top, overlooking the scene.

    It was fun but more like quick note-taking for me, as I had little audience - Vance connected but I missed him on the scrolling page and Dennis (from the Webheads) made a number of comments. I must confess I found it difficult to multi-task on so many levels: pay attention to new faces and context, what people were doing in the studio,  what journalists were asking/what Jana was answering, reporting/commenting and paying attention to what was streaming from outside and responding . I guess that like all in life,  it’s a matter of getting used to it and practicing. I would have definitely adopted another strategy had I had an audience watching the stream and asking questions or making comments, which is what happened in Portuguese. My own tweets (in English) can be found on a filtered Tweetscan (reverse chronological order), everyone else’s both on Twitter search (keyword rodaviva) and Twemes.

    Good marketing for TV Cultura and Roda Viva program - an attempt to make a TV program interactive and showing all backstage live one week before the recorded program goes on air. Twittering also provides a written record of what went on from different perspectives - which finally converged in spite of the different languages. Some blogging will divulge the event and maybe bring on more people to watch it next Monday.

    I found that many of the questions (fortunately with some good exceptions) were navel gazing, asking for advice or models for a cultural and societal context which is entirely different from the UK. Most did not really probe or unveil anything that you cannot already find on Google about Jana or the BBC annual reports.

    Jana Bennett was very much herself and emphasized the importance the BBC gives to quality programs, international partnerships, catering for the different needs/ages/tastes and how new technology is being used to interact with the audience and integrate user-generated content whenever possible. Also important - the absence of political/commercial pressure when producing and broadcasting. According to Jana, quality depends on money (95% from license fees paid by viewers who trust and endorse quality), time alloted to production, independence and autonomy for program producers who (unlike in Brazil) are free from political, commercial (and economic) pressure. A Trust Committee, with different members chosen according to their expertise (not affiliation), regulates what goes on by reflecting and discussing the choice of controversial programs AFTER they are broadcast. Differently from the American or Brazilian TV, whose use by a younger generation is declining (for lack of quality content), Jana mentions that in the UK teens enjoy TV to cool off, relax and choose their programs according to their mood and time of the day as they are made relevant to them. She gave an example of an educational “reality show” which brought together teens interested in fashion - they were taken to different production areas both in England and India, exposed to quality work and sweatshops and asked to reflect upon this experience. The American PBS series follows a similar concept (Merchants of Cool).

    It was interesting to participate in this - wondering now how we can mobilize our schools to follow a similar path, discarding the mouldy, senseless layers of bureaucracy which seem to have gripped the system and frozen it. How can we converge by giving value both to what is past and present quality and inviting young people to pave the future by contributing, innovating and creating new channels for expression and interaction . Although education and culture evolve in a slower tempo than art, fashion and commerce, once the infrastructure and governance are laid out, we should feel the change- slow but powerful. As an ancient proverb says “the journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step”. Have you taken yours?

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  • Tweets for 2008-10-20

    Posted: October 21st, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • Trebor Scholz’s cautionary note on the use of social media: [tinyurl.com] make sure it’s open and transparent! #

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  • Tweets for 2008-10-16

    Posted: October 17th, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • Good Ultralab article:mobiles in education: [tinyurl.com] #
    • Stephen Heppell chatting tonight for k12 conference online: [tinyurl.com] #
    • excellent blog post by Bill Kerr on Stephen Heppell’s keynote at Vitta: [tinyurl.com] #

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  • Tweets for 2008-10-14

    Posted: October 15th, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • 13th October 1998 I was in SF on a field trip to the West Coast with 44 teens. Documented live (Sony Mavica) at [tinyurl.com] #
    • @jeffreykeefer thank you so much for the link and very informative summary on Lyotard posted on Scope -) #
    • especial para @jasper -) [qik.com] #

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  • Instructional Design

    Posted: October 14th, 2008, 9:49pm GMT by Barbara Dieu

    Instructional Design , presented by Paula Carolei and Andrea Filatro , will be the next meeting (of a series) organized by Praxis. Once a month, actors from various institutions of the educational scene here in Sao Paulo get together f2f  to network and talk about our practice. Although we are all highly connected  and/or very much interested in new technologies, the online exchange is still incipient, centralized on a Moodle platform mostly used as a message board and list, with very little leeway for collaboration ( something I have already complained about some time ago), and which fortunately our two newcomers seem to want to challenge with a preparatory activity.

    As a warm-up, we were asked to brainstorm on what instructional design means to us, deconstruct it and contribute to the forum with a non-verbal representation of how we see it.  We are allowed to use images, symbolic audio-visual material or daily and concrete images of our professional space.

    This is how I represented my vision of Instructional Design using CC images I got by typing tags to Peter Shank’s  Flickr CC and uploading them to Flickr Toys Mosaic Maker. I could have used VoiceThread and some music…but then words are forbidden.

    Not sure it makes much sense without explaining but maybe you would like to give it a try. How would you interpret it? Is there anything you do not quite understand or missing from your perspective?

  • Tweets for 2008-10-10

    Posted: October 11th, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • give me line…lots of line…don’t fence me in -) ? [blip.fm] #
    • Rita just nails it down to basics … no fluff -) ? [blip.fm] #
    • @shareski both -) #
    • Oh…I’m transported to last century…and my heart just aches and aches with the king of metaphor - lovely poetry ? [blip.fm] #

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  • Stop presses! This just in ...

    Posted: October 10th, 2008, 4:44am GMT by Vance Stevens

    VANCE STEVENS has addressed at a distance delegates at a conference in Rasht, Iran. Originally planning to travel in person to the conference, Vance adapted a workshop which was never given in Sudan with intent to give it at the 6th International TELLSI Conference held at Guilan University on October 8 & 9, 2008 tinyurl.com/web20iran>.

    Until it became clear that permission to apply for a visa would not be granted by the Iran Foreign Ministry, Vance was listed in the conference program to deliver a workshop Thursday afternoon, just before the closing ceremonies tinyurl.com/tellsi2008>.

    Thanks to the efforts of MORTEZA BARIN, who was able to raise a wireless connection at the appointed time from the conference site, Vance was able to deliver his presentation from his office in UAE using a version of Elluminate provided Webheads by Learning Times. The presentation was recorded and may be viewed at tinyurl.com/uae2iran.

    Links to URLs are
    Clipping courtesy of [www.fodey.com]

    Morteza's Comment:

    Morteza has been trying to post this comment from Iran but he gets a blank page when he clicks on Comments and tries to post. He can read the comments already there but can't post from where he is in Iran. He sent me this and asked me to put it here:

    A Dream which changed into a Reality
    I was very disappointed and very worry about the tools and amount of cooperation for having a live conference at the main time according to the conference time. After two days going here and there and speaking with conference organizers finally i found a wireless internet connection the Conference main Hall. And changed our place with another person who wanted to have a presentation in that place. I was full of stress and my blood pressure went up I thought I was burning in the fire but everything changed and first connection with Vance showed me there a way to do it. At that time I asked someone to go invite Dr.Susan Marandi to come to the main Hall. But She was invited to meeting for discussing about TELLSI.I asked God to help me and
    succeed.

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  • Tweets for 2008-10-09

    Posted: October 10th, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • Listening online to the live launch of Univesp - Virtual University in Sao Paulo [www.tvcultura.com.br] #
    • @lufreitas os cursos me parecem bem quadradinhos e top down -( #
    • @lufreitas espero que não seja o velho modelo com roupas novas #
    • #univesp as tecnologias estão aí, mas o modelo é top down, e-learning fechado. Será que vão reproduzir o velho modelo com roupinhas novas? #
    • @carrapatoso #univesp Foco nos textos e não no experimental, interação e reflexão? #
    • @carrapatoso #univesp Estamos assim formando professores que vão reproduzir a forma como aprenderam - nada vai mudar nos próximos 30 anos! #

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My Connectivism Blog

  • Individual vs. group learning

    Posted: October 8th, 2008, 9:47am GMT by sasasirk
    Liked this slide from George Siemens’ week 5 presentation Group and Network, it maps together some of my ramblings from my previous post in a more clear picture; the individual vs. group approach to learning are shown not as alternatives but as extreme positions along a continuum; the former allowing for maximum learner [...]

  • My position on Connectivism… a lurker’s week 4 thoughts, not a paper

    Posted: October 4th, 2008, 5:57pm GMT by sasasirk

    Enjoyed the course so far. The idea of the need for reconsideration of a learning theory resonates with me. Being a teacher today, I feel the need to find a way to teach differently than I was taught. Kids today don’t seem to be the way generations before were… They know more and dare more, they question, comment, openly show disagreement, correct when they know better… Not all of them, but some do.

    I can’t expect to be listened to simply because I am a teacher (i.e. finished a university programme, which made me fully qualified but not quite prepared for the teaching reality). Lots of theory, little practice or modeling to stick to from my university days… still remember well one of my university profs rewarding generously students who cited word by word paragraphs from his book (the only required course reading, which included a paragraph stating we should not ask kids to learn stuff by heart). Such is life, isn’t it? There are things that make sense and things that don’t but you put up with, because at the time it’s simplest that way.

    Urgently feeling the need for better examples of good teaching practice , I went on the net, … and looking back I believe it was then that my real professional development began - when I took MY learning in MY hands. It definitely helped me feel better, more responsible, more critical, and more comfortable. Now - should I consider myself lucky to have attended so many ‘institutional’ programs in the past, which made me search elsewhere what they themselves hadn’t given me ? In every bad thing there is some good, right?

    Such kind of learning is one’s personal choice whatever way I try to look at it. It cannot be prescribed. And I don’t think it can really be evaluated.  So in a way it’s no wonder it’s ‘officially’ accredited professional development that counts in the real world… even though it may not necessarily be as helpful as we’d like. It is more likely to open the way for pay rise, promotion, etc. So one needs to compromise, ‘waste’ valuable time doing things that ‘count’ to buy time to do things that ‘work’.

    I like seeing modeled what is being preached in CCK08. I’m a lurker, guilty of observing, following, but not responding much to threads. Much as I’m fascinated with this course (I do the readings, follow the Daily, check Google Alerts, also most of the recordings of discussions, but only on rare occasions drop a short comment on blog posts here and there). I can’t do better than this at the moment without neglecting something else that I can’t afford to or don’t want to neglect.

    As I’m writing this I realize I’m sticking to the ’structural’ part of this connectivist course missing its ‘connective’ part. One can only connect efficiently to a certain point … it’s a matter of choosing priorities. Network combination is not additive ; networks share nodes, Valdis Krebs showed in week 3. And I guess the processing power and productivity of ‘us’ nodes too are not additive: when we make new connections, the power and productivity get distributed among the active connections.

    CCK08 is huge… its ‘connectivist’ part provides a lot of views for consideration, lots of ideas to digest, allows for a lot of possibilities to interact… it’s fascinating, serendipitous, but possibly scary when measured in time and short-term efficiency …a walk in the forest, the forest that knows .

    The structural part on the other way looks more like a highway to me, there are signposts showing the way, chosen by Stephen and George whose judgment I trust. It’s funny to think that it’s the non connectivist part of the Connectivism course that I have been sticking to so far – I wonder if time constraint is the only reason or is it perhaps that I’m the kind of the learner that needs some kind of a common base before being able to jump and swim in the ocean with the rest of the fish (and dolphins and sharks and the dead)? Is perhaps this common base most efficiently reached through traditional approach? Perhaps for some participants? Perhaps for me?

    I’m fine with the tools and technology used, it’s the theoretical part that is new to me. Can I reach this common base - my lacking (non-technology related) Prerequisite Literacies, perhaps more efficiently through traditional approach ? I don’t know… I’ve been happy sticking to the structural part so far (knowing I’m missing a lot of fun in the sideways tracks but also knowing I can’t afford to wander around much, and that I’m not sure I have much to add anyway). I cannot be everywhere, so I’ve constrained myself to the highway. I guess I’m an average reader, but a rather slow writer – English is my second language, but I don’t think I could have written much more if communication was in Slovene either.

    I think I’m taking CCK08 to see if I can make more sense of what happened to me back then when I started weaving my first connections. A whole new world opened up. I wonder if CCK will help me better articulate the directions I feel need to follow, personally, professionally, …directions that I feel help me do things well, or at least help me feel better at doing them….

    Connectivism as a learning theory definitely resonate with me, can see it provide more room in the future for encouraging autonomy, diversity, individuality in class, in professional development, in general life… But much as I like being autonomous and free in the areas I like and feel comfortable in, I cannot function so everywhere. .. I see Connectivism as complementary to traditional learning. It’s good to be able to choose what works best for you in a given situation.

          

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  • Tweets for 2008-10-01

    Posted: October 2nd, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • Hog riders! Ya know Captain America rolls…listen to the primal scream, take the world in a love embrace and ex… ? [blip.fm] #
    • An interesting mix -) ? [blip.fm] #
    • 7”38′, if you can make it …just what you want to be … you will be in the end -) ? [blip.fm] #

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  • Tweets for 2008-09-30

    Posted: October 1st, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu

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  • 1st Web Curriculo

    Posted: September 30th, 2008, 3:50am GMT by Barbara Dieu

    Last week (it’s already old news), we had the 1st WebCurriculo conference, which took place at PUC SP and was blogged and streamed live. I submitted a paper about my 10-year school experience using social tools, networks and interaction  in the classroom to complement, extend and transform the curriculum. 

    This was a challenge I set out for myself . It was the first time I sent my work to a Brazilian university . Ironically, what I have been doing at school was first shown and recognized abroad instead of inside my own organization (school) - which does not even know about this paper…so closed it is inside its own processes.  The web and networking was an outward movement.  I am now coming back and trying to find my place in the local educational environment. Not easy.  Second challenge (minor and fun), believe it or not  - I had never made an academic poster before.  Incredible how fussy some people can be over standard, form and norm and how anxious you can get for fear of not being accepted if you do not “conform”.

    I had already written about my experience in Portuguese for Praxis (a 30-page ) but needed to condense it twice  - first for the submission paper: “Ferramentas Sociais, Redes e Interação”  (webcurriculo - (thanks Neli for lending me a hand) and then later for the poster. In spite of my lack of experience in this field, I managed to make one after after a quick search on the web. It was a good exercise in synthesis and visual distribution/impact.  Once it was printed, and hung,  I immediately realized I should have done it totally different.  This how one learns - set yourself a challenge, go for it, do your best, verify results, adjust, lather, rinse and repeat…or is it the other way round?  -)

    As I listened to the various presentations, I compared the reactions to mine and was reminded of the steps I have made these years towards trying to find a balance in my courses. At the language institute I first worked,  I was just an instructor, training people to develop their communication and linguistic skills in a foreign language, not really engaged in any reality but the service I was delivering.  However, when I moved to the secondary school, although the job profile was the same as before, I increasingly became an educator and as such, gradually much more aware of the social engineering  we are subjected to through the uniform, over-structured, inflexible and centralized programs imposed . While trying to implement these new technologies in the classroom , I was constantly confronted with the unresponsive wall of institutional bureaucracy.

    While writing this post, I dug up this drawing made by the Time Project team and compared it to a sketch late Lee Baber asked me to check some time ago. There is so much talk about different curricula.  Education surely involves some amount and  quantity - skills and competencies -  but I’d say it is mostly about quality - values and a better understanding of action and knowledge in time - Chronos and Kairos. How do you achieve it on the Web?

    1. Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes

    2. Learning and Innovation Skills

    * Creativity and Innovation Skills
    * Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Skills
    * Communication and Collaboration Skills

    3. Information, Media and Technology Skills
    * Information Literacy
    * Media Literacy
    * ICT Literacy

    4. Life and Career Skills
    * Flexibility & Adaptability
    * Initiative & Self-Direction
    * Social & Cross-Cultural Skills
    * Productivity & Accountability
    * Leadership & Responsibility

    and four 21ST CENTURY SUPPORT SYSTEMS:

    1. Standards and Assessment of 21st Century Skills
    2. Curriculum and Instruction
    3. Professional Development
    4. Learning Environments

My Connectivism Blog

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  • Tweets for 2008-09-25

    Posted: September 26th, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • welcome to twittersphere @rachelivana -) #
    • good morning (afternoon?) @fascinatenina it’s 10:00 pm (Wednesday) in São Paulo, Brazil . Welcome to twittersphere -) #
    • Ni hao @motherchina -) #

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  • Tweets for 2008-09-24

    Posted: September 25th, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • @cbsiskin brighten a dark and rainy day -) #

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  • Tweets for 2008-09-23

    Posted: September 24th, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • at PUC SP…following 1st conference on Web Curriculo and presenting a poster on 10 year work - Social Tools, Networking and Interaction #
    • @Dennis_Phoenix & @cbsiskin you always do -) #

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  • A nagging question

    Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 11:08am GMT by Barbara Dieu

    I have been increasingly invited to take part in events, conferences and even keynotes.  So far so good - it means people deem I have something to give and share.  However, with very few exceptions, I notice a recurring pattern - the invitations are one way only - not only you are not paid for the time you spend on preparing and presenting your work,  but in many cases you have to disburse money from your own savings to share your knowledge.

    While in the past big conferences were the only opportunity to meet people and share knowledge, they have now become a ripoff for independent teachers who are not funded by the institutions they work for, have a business or sell the wares of a publishing house.  Technology has facilitated access and you apparently can now “build on your social capital”  through the  web.   Increased cooperation on wiki farms with experts from different fields is a more efficient way of discussing “potential collaborative, learning, or creative applications of emerging technologies”. You can do all this from home - wonderful - saves on flights, lodging and food - and you contribute to the common good. “The primary costs are the investment of time required  for participation”.  Now,  I do not want to sound materialistic or utilitarian but haven’t you heard an expression somewhere that time is money?

    During a  recent conference on digital citizenship,  there were debates on how information networks, digital communication in an increasingly mobile scenario alter political practices and challenge us to defend and expand citizen rights. Professors Quéralto and Andoni Alonso bring to attention that we live today in an eras of strong pragmatic rationality  and would like immediate results so as to change the world. However,  we are progressively being alienated by an increasing number of activities which take time. We are now not only our own marketeers but also our own bureaucrats and have even more work in shadow time which consumes our rest, family and pleasure and does not fill the supermarket trolley at the end of the month. Knowledgeable digital educators and ” visionaries” furnish complex and specialized work in a totally abstract system which apparently does not envisage survival.

    Catherine Fitzpatrick in one of the Connectivism forum threads mentions  “One of the deep problems with Creative Commons is that it provides no easy way to say “use a copy of this if you pay me here: _”. Instead, it lays social pressure on people to make their content free and copyable for attribution only, with a vague notion that this will lead to…consulting or something. If no one can make a living from their content and the economy, if their intellectual property is always under pressure from “wanting to be free” for others to grab, they walk away. They stop making content. This has played out in Second Life with all the problems of IP and ripping of content there and people simply going out of business.”

    So the nagging question at the back of the mind persists.  Is this the price of reinventing yourself permanently, sharing and trying to remain creative, free and independent?


  • Tweets for 2008-09-21

    Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 2:59am GMT by Barbara Dieu
    • @josiefraser what’s your favourite #chutney and what do you like having it with? #
    • @MetaWeb20 how do you eat the mangoes there in Mexico? Raw or do you make sthg out of them? #
    • @josiefraser this sounds superb…I love mango #chutney with roast chicken & curried rice + pimiento jelly #
    • thanks @bgblogging ..going to make your #chutney next week…if mangoes not very ripe, double the corn syrup if you like it sweeter #
    • how you feel after a very strange night… ? [blip.fm] #
    • @JeffreyKeefer Celtic Solstice? I wonder whether I can find it on blip.fm #
    • What a miserable Sunday…raining, grey and dark -( #

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My Connectivism Blog

  • CMaps again

    Posted: September 20th, 2008, 8:07pm GMT by sasasirk

    After reading this in The Daily, it was much easier to create my CMap No.2 (not related to connectivism, basically my CMap notes for a staff meeting at school)… Working on my CMap No. 1 I too, like some other participants, wasn’t sure why there are 2 boxes to fill in when I try to link a new concept to the existing one… - one for the linking word showing relation between the two concepts and the other for the new concept.

    For No. 2 I followed the suggested steps from the paper:

    1. construct a Focus Question (the agenda)
    2. list the key concepts that apply to it: a parking lot (schedule, assessment, class materials…)
    3. construct a preliminary concept map
    4. add cross-links between concepts
    5. revise and dress-up the map

    It worked better.

          

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