Our third week of Facilitating Collaboration Using Web 2.0 has us exploring how RSS can be useful for gleaning information that we want to see. Prior to RSS Feeds one had to go to blog and news sites to see if anything new had come along. RSS feeds turn the flow around and new information comes to the user via an aggregator. Just about every Web-site has the RSS symbol and with several clicks of a mouse you can start subscribing to new content from that site.
My first RSS feed was easy to deploy right into my blog. Just look in the upper right corner and you will see the RSS feed coming over from my Posterous Photo Blog Site. In my work with the Hoofer's Sailing Club I added RSS feeds to the Wiki just by copying and pasting the RSS URL from popular sailing and windsurfing sites. Instructors now see the latest Volvo Racing results populate into the Wiki along with other sailing news.
Real-time news updates are great for a site, but what about other information? This week I have been subscribing to educational blogs and e-learning sites and I can read them at my leisure. I use Google Reader for my aggregator and I just open it up and it provides a list of anything new that has been published from my subscribed sites. I skim through the items and delve into them if I like or dismiss them as being read. I enjoy this functionality as it is like reading a magazine with only the content I care to see. A big plus is that I don't have to go to each site and wade through all the ads and surveys - allowing me to focus on the information.
Although I have been using Posterous for my Photo Blog, I created a Flickr account and uploaded some of my favorite photographs. Unlike Posterous, I now share my photos with a community of users who are free to view and comment on my pictures. Plus, I added tags and descriptions to make it easier for others to find pictures. If you would like to take a look at my Flickr site click here.
There are a few of my photos that took a lot of work to get just right. I want to share my work with others but also receive credit. I created a Creative Commons License which I will apply to a few of the pictures requiring attribution. Hey, I would be happy if someone decides to use my images - but I do want to maintain control over what people can do with them. I have a few nice close-ups of Bumblebees but I really don't want them used in an advertisement for, say, something like 'Bee-B-Gone' toxic bug spray. It just wouldn't feel right - so I limit my work to non-commercial use and keep my humble Bumblebee pics safe from such a fate.
What an interesting week as we explore and begin to use Wikis for education and organizations. As I continue my journey through the 'read/write' Web I had a reality check about Wikipedia. Often disparaged and dismissed as a source of research because 'anyone can edit' the content - Wikipedia does have a legion of followers who fact check articles to get the stories right. I examined three subject areas where I have extensive knowledge and discovered that they were all correct. Just performing this exercise seriously rehabilitated my esteem of Wikipedia. Sure, it should not be used a single, definitive source - but from now on I challenge anyone to test an area of their expertise on Wikipedia. If you find something that is incorrect or want to add to the body of knowledge - just do so. This is the era of DIY and fellow contributors on Wikipedia will review your work and you can even debate in the Discussion section.
Wikis are more than a big clearinghouse for information, they can help bring businesses and organizations together. I created a Wiki site on WetPaint.Com for the UW-Hoofer's Sailing Club Instructors and Club Administrators and it can be foundhere. I selected one of many themes available from WetPaint resulting in a dashboard user interface with tabs across the top. I added discussion categories, uploaded pictures and added an RSS feed for sailing news. I edited the home page of the site, added a welcome message and directions for accessing the discussion, photos and news tabs. Later, I went back and added hyperlinks so that anyone could click directly into those sections of the Wiki Site.
My goal for the site was suggested by the Chaper 4 reading from Will Richardson's 'Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts'. I am attempting to create an online community where members can contribute and drive the discussions and collaborations. I seeded a few categories but my hope is that this site could be a good prototype - a shakedown cruise - to see if WetPaint can be the Wiki for the Sailing Club. I do like the controls one has over who can see the site and contribute to it. The initial review by the Head of Instruction is favorable and I lobbied for rolling it out to the target community in the coming months.
Have you heard of 'Microblogging'? Well, I am blogging right now but millions of people are blogging daily with Twitter. I now have a Twitter account and anyone can tweet me at http://twitter.com/MrBrianAdams
I am trying to find value in Twitter and have created several lists that I can follow. I have a list for my MEIT Cohorts so that I can follow their microblogging. Honestly, I thought that this would be a waste of my time. However, already I have seen posts from others that contain brief reflections and very interesting links. I will give Twitter time and use it every day for a few weeks and see if any light bulbs go off in my head about how to employ it for school and professional use.
Finally, I added an RSS Feed to this blog site. If you want to see the latest 5 Photo Blogs from my Posterous site just look for them in the upper right hand corner. On that last note, this is the 'read/write' Web and I always look forward to comments about my posts.
Our first week of CEDO 535 has us delving into the use of Blogs (Web Logs) for use in schools, businesses and clubs. The course has us reading from Will Richardson's bookBlogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Blogs are a great way to support e-learning and collaboration. Blogs initially provide a one-to many format for sharing information. Blogs transform into many-to-many communication when responses and comments from others build upon the author's thoughts. An advantage of blogs is that authors and responders can post links and images that support or lend credence to their point of view.
Businesses can certainly benefit from internal company blogs that are open to all employees and external to a customer community. Markets are rapidly changing and companies should muster all the resources they have to adapt to their customer needs. Businesses exist because they have products, services, solutions and most importantly they have customers. How nice it would be if customers could blog about what they like, don't like and would like to see in a company's line of business . Blogs or forums for existing customers would allow them to become stakeholders in existing product improvement and generate ideas for new product(s).
But what good is a blog if no one elaborates on the insights or ideas expressed in a post? Businesses in this case would want to have various departments regularly review and comment back to the customer. In turn, they would link the posts and discussion threads to internal teams for reflection and review. It is critical to know your customers and such a direct pipeline to product teams would drive the business model. Via comments back to the customer, teams could seek clarification or brainstorm on business line enhancements.
So how can blogs become an effective tool supporting collaboration in an organization? At the UW-Hoofer's Sailing Club there are 1350 Club Members with over 100 lessons provided weekly by volunteer and paid instructors. UW students are annually elected to administrative positions and there is a paid Head of Instruction. Communication and innovation are two important factors to ensure that the Sailing Club runs smoothly. A Club blog could facilitate discussion categories setup by fleets and topics and permit Club leaders to post thoughts and challenges for the Club. Members could respond and share their expertise or insights and involve all in a collaborative effort.
In both business and non-profit organizations there is need for some control over what is published by contributing authors. A moderator role, In both cases, should be present to avoid unproductive comments that might be hurtful. In K-12 education there is a push to help young people develop a sense of digital citizenship। But, just because someone is over the age of 18 doesn't mean that they have mastered good judgment when making public posts that can reach a large audience over a long period of time। It is best to have moderators assigned to review and publish posts - or have the rights to hide certain posts - to help the collaborative environments work towards positive goals.
Oh, and if you are using moderators - you might want to make sure you select the right ones for the job.
I have a new found appreciation for film makers and all the upfront work that goes into making a movie. The biggest takeaway for me is to storyboard everything in advance - reflect for a few days - and then modify the storyboard before going into production. Last week in DigiTales we read about creating a Digital Storytelling toolkit and this week we read reviews on what to look for when selecting the various hardware and software components. Understanding ones' level of technical proficiency and the tools available drive what one can actually produce. I had to go back to my Pecha Kucha storyboard and change the flow due to my personal technological constraints.
I was just thinking that I needed more experience putting together rubrics. Our class has us creating a Multimedia Rubric that could be used by students in a project. A rubric serves not only as a way to evaluate student performance but also helps the students organize what they should be doing. So often in the MEIT program I have referred back to the assignment rubric and this has helped me know what I need to do and where I should focus my effort.
At the UW-Hoofer's Sailing Club we are in the process of creating short videos that will be posted on YouTube for access by sailing students. I decided that my multimedia rubric would cover this latest club endeavor and include elements from the Digital Storytelling course: presentation design and delivery a la Presentation Zen, storyboarding and working within hardware/software constraints. In effect, it will serve as a project template providing direction to guide each group in their production and help them tell a great story in the process.
I am wrapping-up my Pecha Kucha which is about an introduction to sailing covering the basic points of sail, leaving the pier and landing. I've gone through this so many times in a face-to-face class that I found myself recreating that environment. At the eleventh hour I wanted to change it into something that would be more of a story about going sailing rather than a 'how-to sail' approach. I have kicked it into high gear taking more photographs and redesigning slides and voiceovers.
Our study group work met earlier this week and evaluated SlideSix and authorStream. I was a bit down on SlideSix but after our group meeting I wondered if I could use it for my finished Pecha Kucha. I tried using the audio for narration and it seemed klutzy - but I kept at it and I think it might work. My fallback is VoiceThread, but I think I will push SlideSix just to see if I can learn a new online tool for sharing presentations with recorded audio.
Week four of Digital Storytelling has been an exciting one. I took my 6 best pictures from my Photo Blog site (Posterous) and used a new program called Prezi to create a very different kind of presentation. Prezi gives you an infinite workspace for brainstorming ideas and images that can be turned into a presentation. The presentation is not a linear Slideshow but lets you create paths between ideas and images. Add some zoom effects and one has a dynamic presentation that will run itself with the autoplay option. I think Prezi has great potential for team collaboration on just about anything. If you haven't seen Prezi then picture Inspiration only recorded with incredible transitions.
Click the Autoplay option in the lower right corner to let Prezi run with the transitions.
This week I concluded the final chapters of Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen. I recommend this book for anyone that is about to create a presentation. The emphasis is not only on the design of effective slides but also on the delivery. Reynolds provides great insight and examples of powerful presentations and the book has transformed how I think and even feel about making a presentation. Read Presentation Zen and come-out from behind the lectern and connect with your audience!
Another class reading is from Bernajean Porter's DigiTales which provides a nuts and bolts approach to putting together a digital story. The latest chapter delves into creating a digital storytelling toolkit for either Mac or Windows users and the categories of hardware and software one will need. I have 'Mac Envy' after seeing all of the video and audio software that comes with the Apple computers. But, I do have Adobe Premiere Pro and hopefully one day I will become proficient enough with it to create professional AV presentations.
Finally, I am working on creating my first Pecha Kucha using presentation ideas from last week. I am working through the second draft of my storyboard and will soon commit to a presentation that delivers 20 slides with only 20 seconds per slide. Rather than planning on speed talking or jamming each slide with a jillion bits of information - I am going to simplify to amplify my main points and ideas. I will be applying what I learned from the Presentation Zen readings in terms of design and delivery.
Week Three of Digital Storytelling has been stretched-out over a 3 week break and provided a chance for me to reflect upon past presentations. Am I designing presentations with my audience in mind? How truly effective were they? I discovered that the technological features of my slideware need to be reigned-in so that my focus is on getting my message across to my audience as clearly as possible. It's OK, actually better, if slides are less busy and free of noise. By eliminating bullet points, background images and tiny product logos on every slide I amplify my message through simplification.
I must resist the urge to fill-in the empty spaces with 'stuff' and let a tract of empty background contrast a single image and/or text. Instead, I need to spend more time doing offline thinking about my main ideas and presentation design a particular audience. The goal is not to have slideware that I talk about, rather I am presenting ideas and the slideware provides a reinforcing backdrop which promote acquisition of ideas in the audience's mind.
I wrapped-up my 28 day Photo Blog on my Posterous site. I really enjoyed posting daily photos and looking at what my cohorts were doing as well. I linked my daily photos to my Facebook page and had wonderful feedback from my FB friends. I was amazed at the pictures my cohorts came-up with and in turn inspired me to see things differently. But Posterous was not the end of for pictures as I used them to create a 30 second Animoto video. I uploaded photos and a video clip which were combined with a lively jazz soundtrack to create this video about spring storms in Wisconsin. I revised it a few times until it felt just right. Take a look and leave a comment about it if you like!
Digital Storytelling is really storytelling with audio and video support. To create a really good digital story or presentation one needs to plan first and then execute the plan. A common theme between DigiTales and Presentation Zen is thinking through what you want to tell or say and then designing the elements which support and further the message for an audience. Sounds simple? It isn't! We have so much technology at our fingertips in terms of video editing and slideware software that it can be too tempting to just jump right-in and start being creative. I do this all the time and, if I'm lucky, I pull myself back before I am bogged down in bullet points, font colors and jamming text into a slide.
On that last point, I am in the process of revamping an older presentation I made on ADDIE to my former coworkers at Pharmacy OneSource. My challenge is to embrace and apply the design principles found in chapter 6 of Presentation Zen and create a brand new presentation with a handout. Can I resist the urge to clutter my screen? This is a tough assignment for me as I am trying to un-do 20 years' worth of behavior. I have been thinking about this for 2.5 weeks now and it is hard - but worth doing if I am to create truly effective presentations in the future. One assignment will not fix me, it is going to take practice and reflection to become better.
Finally, I am looking forward to the challenge of using the Pecha Kucha approach to presentations. What is the challenge? Well you have to use no more than 20 slides and have only 20 seconds on each slide. I don't think I can get away with drinking 6 shots of espresso and talking like a sports broadcaster calling a Funny Car race. "Sunday! Sunday! Nitrous-powered Funny Cars at US 30 Drag strip. Be There! Be There!". Ahem, sorry about that. Couldn't resist. Well, Pecha Kucha will require me to distill and focus my presentation into key elements that can still interest my audience.
If you've read this far in the blog then you know I am wordy. I admire those that can express their ideas in short, tailored measures. Presentation Zen doesn't just apply to presentations - it should be considered when writing as well.
What a week it has been trying to learn how to become an effective story teller. In addition to readings from Presentation Zen and Digi Tales the course has us working with VoiceThread. Finally, an Internet site where I can begin to put together images, text and audio to tell a story! I experimented with VoiceThread and created a short story about a Wild Turkey I encountered during a morning walk. I uploaded 5 digital pictures that captured the event and added a voice commentary. If you want to hear my story just click here.
I have big ambitions and high hopes for digital story telling. In the software industry I could prepare and present a digital story about a customer request for new functionality. Instead of listing what we need to provide to customers, I could present it in the form of a customer story. At Pharmacy OneSource our customers are mainly pharmacists, so I might tell a digital story about a 'Day in the Life of a Pharmacist' which would add a personal, human element. At the Hoofer's Sailing Club I might create a digital story where I share what happened when I did not check my rigging on a windy day and what ensued.
In my readings from Presentation Zen and Digi Tales it was stressed over and over how important it is to storyboard and design a presentation before creating the final presentation product. Yes, this all made sense and who wouldn't do that? Well, I set about creating my class VoiceThread presentation on the Civil Rights Movement. I immediately parked myself in front of my computer, logged on to VoiceThread, started browsing and grabbing images for my presentation - then recorded the voice-overs for the slides. Mission Accomplished? Hardly!
Although I read the course materials, I had not devoted any time to going analog (offline with a pad of paper) to think through the core idea and supporting elements to craft a great presentation. I had gone computer geek first and focused on the presentation tools and then tried to kludge together a story after the fact. Ouch. I played the presentation back and I even I got a little lost trying to find the riveting moments or continuity that would have made it better. It didn't help that I could hear my own pauses as I tried to figure-out what would have made sense next. I deleted the whole thing and started over.
I have a ways to go to become a better story teller. It took the experience of playing back my own work and hearing how I told a story to realize that I need to plan-out, sketch-out and storyboard first. Story telling is such a powerful way to reach an audience and until I improve, all the free slideware presentations I create and even my Blogs will never convey meaning and respect to my audience.
