Perfection Closes off the Process…

As we continue to consider the options between Google Apps for Education and Zimbra as an online email, productivity, and collaborative suite, I have noticed more articles about Google and the innovation methods that they use.  Yesterday I came across an article from the NYtimes that discuses  Google Pulls the Plug on projects that are going no where. The article was interesting in an of itself because it is interesting to see some of the inner workings of Google be discussed more openly (I will let others decide if it is transparency or calculated public relations).

Toward the end of the article this quote has caused me to ponder a few times…

“Perfection closes off the process,” Mr. Jarvis said. “It makes you deaf. Google purposefully puts out imperfect and unfinished products and says: ‘Help us finish them. What do you think of them?’ ”

It is pretty representative of a significant change in providing technology.  The willingness to take something less than perfect (because it is free) and work with it through various beta releases. Or more so waiting for the “beta version” to be released as that will be a stable release.  It wasn’t so long ago that beta wasn’t good enough for anyone beyond the true technology geek but these days it is different.

In addition to this thought, I reflected on how I led the roll out of Web Help Desk (or do any project for that matter).  I spent enough time figuring it out behind the scenes to work out the required  processes and to know it well enough to say this will work, then spin it through wider and wider circles refining the basic processes and and making sure that additional required functions are ironed out, then we start using it.  As we use it we refine it asking for feedback and taking risks to figure out what we didn’t know (or think about)  and use the users to help shape the technology.  I am not sure if this makes me user centric or if I just work at things until they are successful.  I wonder what it would take for me to pull the plug on a project?

Reaction to Chronicle Recap -

Pretty cool that I know an author mentioned in the Chronicle…

The Chronicle of Higher Education: Magazine & journal reader
“Bringing a laptop into the liberal-arts classroom,” they say, “was seen as an act of setting oneself apart from the rest of the class.”

In reaction to this quote I wonder if students would report this less often if bringing a laptop to class did not put you in the minority but in the majority? It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Reflections on ‘What is Web 2.0?’

I needed to a spot to work on my comment for Learning Web 2.0 by Diving In: What is Web 2.0?

I started by reading the O’Reilly article whose metaphorical definition of Web2.0 is the best that I have seen to date.

You can visualize Web 2.0 as a set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of those principles, at a varying distance from that core.

The varying degrees to which recent web applications incorporate the principles and practices of web based user content creation, organization and sharing is why Web 2.0 is more amoeba than paramecium and hard to define concretely.

I also like how the article fleshes out other principles of web 2.0 including

• self service applications that target the common user not the large players
• the service automatically gets better the more people use it
• it takes a critical mass to leverage an advantage
• database driven content that is easily used (and reused) by an author/audience
• applications that harness the collective intelligence of the users

What I like most about the tools of Web 2.0 is that it fits with what I need technology to do for me.

• accessible from where I’m at
• collaborative and connective (to peers, family, and friends)
• searchable annotated external memory(del.icio.us blog)
• revisable and reflective (through commenting or editing)
• customizable and expressive to and of me

Taking advantage of these services does have associated costs (which I am well aware of) so notice ‘free’ is not listed.

Realiable Resources

In the last book I read an interesting point was made to the fact that users of websites will regularly visit site deamed reliable. I was reminded of this point as I was reading the following article: Andy Carvin’s Waste of Bandwidth: The DDN Edition: Eszter Hargittai on What College Students Actually Do Online

“Interestingly, the least likely category of blogs they[students from UIC] access are political blogs, even though these are the blogs emphasized in mainstream media.”

I wonder is this true because the options of flickr, facebook, personal blogs, and the like are more appealing because of ability to connect with peers or because of a belief that mainstream media is out of touch or that this age group is not motivated to engage with the content of mainstream media blogs?

Rebecca Blood :: The Weblog Handbook:

Some good quotes from:Rebecca Blood :: The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice On Creating And Maintaining Your Blog

• “…people will regularly visit any website that reliably provides them with worthwhile content…” (p. 9)
• “If you do not honor your own limits you will not enjoy maintaining your site.”  (p. 56)
• “…a weblog’s quality is ultimately based on the authentiicity of its voice.” (p. 59)
• “In order to get good at anything, you must be willing to first to do it badly” (p. 71)

There are other gems in the book and while I will not be purchasing the book as a handout for my workshop on weblogs and wikis I will be sharing thoughts and sentiments I gleaned from the book.

I have also posted the “In order to get good at anything” quote on my door and will have a workstudy incorporate that saying into a bulletin board outside our training room.

Now I need to make sure my colleagues and I create a learning environment where faculty feel comfortable and safe enough to do it badly.

Helping Faculty has Changed | connect.educause.edu

Helping Faculty has Changed | connect.educause.edu

Now the job is to anticipate what reception technology students are/will be using. This is the season of the podcast. Do we have at least two years before everything has to fit within the confines of a phone?

Interesting point but is identifying the phone as the end short-sighted?

What is it about a iPod (or similar) or Cell Phone that make them useful in daily life? I know that when I first saw the Rokr comercial from T-Mobile I thought, now that is a great idea. A cell phone/ipod – one gadget two functions I need (ok I want) that.

But the real question is why do I want it? And why is being connected to others and my music so important to me?

So once we fit it into course content into a cell phone what is next? Will there be something more ubiquitous than a cell phone?

What Great Job Security…

2006_Horizon_Report.pdf (application/pdf Object)

2006_Horizon_Report.pdf (application/pdf Object)

The Horizon report identifies instructional technologies and the projected time to adoption. This document and previous years’ reports could serve as a spring board for an emerging technologies group within Computing Services.

Social Technologies, Mobile computing and technologies, and contextual technologies continue to be technologies on the brink of large scale adoption according to the report.

Making Learning Real – from pedablogy

Pedablogy: Musings on the Art & Craft of Teaching » Blog Archive » New Insight on Blogging as a Tool for Learning
I might have made it more real for myself and, thus, more memorable. As it is, I canâ??t recognize any patterns of application of these ideas in my life todayâ??perhaps because, I â??lostâ?? them in some sense.

I clipped this from a post talking about how blogging might help to provide a tool that over time can provide a road map to the current understanding one has.

Making learning real – now that is a challenge if blogging is one possibility what is another?

Fairly constructivist thinking…

Pedablogy: Musings on the Art & Craft of Teaching » Blog Archive » University 2.0?

Pedablogy: Musings on the Art & Craft of Teaching » Blog Archive » University 2.0?

This concept of University 2.0 where it is about the process of how teachers teach and students learn, came to life in my office last week when working with a visiting professor who utilizes “new” teaching techniques which requires much more student participation in the presentation of the course content and a shift in the types of activities the professor invests time in from preparing lectures to guiding students as they develop presentations and projects.

While talking to a colleague about what was happening in her courses she received the That is Not How We Teach Here.

So what do we do with that leave it be and focus on the faculty interested in our assistance? Or is there an appropriate response that challenges the idea of having only one way to teach, research or learn?

Weblogg-ed – The Read/Write Web in the Classroom :

Weblogg-ed – The Read/Write Web in the Classroom :

All of this, from the technology to the transparency to the unknowable audience is more of a risk. And that’s of course what makes it difficult for many to take on. The good news is, the reward for this risk is well worth it, at least for me. And I’m guessing Ewan would still agree.

True enough statement. It took me several months of using a blog as a personal writing space to be willing to jump in and attempt to make better use of the social nature of blogging by using track backs, openning commenting to others, etc…

Need to remember blogging and social software in general is a big leap for everyone being that writing is an intensely personal process and to do it in a public forum that is the www care needs to be given in encouraging its adoption and use.