Learning from Great Comments

I know that I said I’d do Task 17 of the Comment Challenge, the Five in Five. I’ve tried twice to do this task this week. Unfortunately, both times I’ve failed to prove I was human to the Captchas and lost my first comment. No way I can do 5 comments in 5 minutes if I have to rewrite an entire comment. I really wanted to try to push myself, but I’m giving up on this task now. Maybe after the challenge is officially over I’ll make another attempt.

Day 19: Respond to a Commenter on Your Own Blog

Those of you who have commented here before know that I’m pretty good about replying, usually within 48 hours. Check that one off the list.

Day 20: Three Links Out

Here’s the directions for this task:

This task is based an idea by Dave Ferguson that he calls “Three Links Out” or “Three Clicks Out.” It’s a way to find and explore blogs that aren’t as familiar to you.

1. Go to one of the blogs you regularly read and follow a link to another blog. This link could be in the blogroll or in a post.
2. From that blog, follow a second link to a new blog.
3. From that location, follow a third link to somewhere new.

From Michele Martin’s blog, I went to Rob O.’s blog because I thought his definition of “constructive comments” was good. From there, I found an interesting post on multitasking on Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk blog.

Day 21: Make a Recommendation

I doubled up on the last task: when I commented on Doug Johnson’s blog, I included a link to the Eide Neurolearning blog and some research on dual-tasking. The relevant quote from this post is “…at least in some cases, less brain work is used for solving two tasks at once, then the two tasks separately (underadditivity).” If you’re interested in seeing actual research on multitasking, do check out their blog, including the related posts at the bottom of the one I quoted.

Day 22: Highlight a Favorite Comment

Britt Watwood asked a question which prompted my post on Community Size & Connection Strength. That post, in turn, generated some great comments. Here’s some snippets:

Britt described Clay Shirky’s model of groups:

It is the smaller networks within the larger ones that maintain coherence and connection amidst the larger group (what he calls the “small world theory”). These “small world” clusters work as amplifiers and filters within the larger network, just as your strong connections work across multiple larger networks.

Suz talked about how different technology facilitates different group sizes:

I think it also depends what you mean by ‘manage’, and what ‘venue’ the community uses. I cannot imagine, for example, how people manage large twitter networks. The fragmented nature of the information makes it hard to follow, and I find it easier if I know a little about the person, to give context.

Bonnie viewed group dynamics from the lens of the comment challenge (plus she paid me a wonderful compliment):

I had my original small circle and most recently I went beyond my comfort zone with the Slices Challenge and now here and it’s comforting to open a strange blog and find a friendly face.

Looking from the perspective of teaching, Ken Allen wrote about managing students and lurkers in an online environment. He made this interesting observation:

Of course, with a larger, manageable group, the tendency is for the teacher to apply strategies to encourage participation by those who tended to take a back seat. The paradox with this technique is that the activity of the group starts tending towards the unmanageable zone and eventually has to be divided into smaller groups.

Day 23: What Makes a Great Comment?

Like most bloggers, I appreciate every non-spam comment I get. Any interaction is good. That said, I especially like comments that move the conversation forward by doing any of the following:

• Asking good questions (like Britt’s above)
• Sharing resources (like Ken’s above)
• Sharing personal experiences & how something applies in their life (like Bonnie’s above)
• Revealing a different perspective, approach, or way of looking at something (like Suz’s above)
• Disagreeing & making me think

These types of comments are especially helpful in my personal learning, and I really do appreciate these gifts from the blogosphere. Thanks to everyone who comments and shares their personal wisdom!

Technorati Tags: comment08, Comment+Challenge

Quick and Dirty Comment Analysis

Michele Martin asked how I did the comment analysis to see which posts have generated the most conversation. This is task 18 in the comment challenge. I actually manually typed the numbers into OpenOffice Calc (after scanning the list of posts in my WordPress dashboard for posts with a decent amount of comments). However, there is a faster way to get a “quick and dirty” analysis of your comments and conversations.

AideRSS is a tool that lets you filter a feed for the “best” posts. It ranks your posts by how much conversation they have generated, based on comments, del.icio.us links, tweets, Diggs, and Google trackbacks. Enter your URL and let it do the analysis. View the “Top 20″ to see what they consider to be the best conversations.

For blogs that have been going a while, this isn’t ideal as an overall picture. It doesn’t go back far enough in your history. My Top 20 goes back to last July, but I think that’s because I actually played with this tool previously. Michele’s Top 20 only goes back to February 26. When I checked hers today, it let me know that they had never analyzed her blog before. I guess the first time it only goes back 90 days. It would let you know about recent activity though, and for a newer blog it wouldn’t matter.

AideRSS is actually designed to let you filter sites with lots of post to just get the “cream of the crop,” but I think it would work for the challenge. I’m sure some blog hosts have a good way to do this already, but I don’t think WordPress has anything built in to see stats on comments.

If you know of another way to get a quick and dirty analysis like this (without installing Google Analytics or something similar), let me know. I’d love to hear about it!

Technorati Tags: comment08, comment+challenge, analysis, rss, AideRSS, conversation

Comment Challenge Catch-Up

I’m slowly catching up on the comment challenge. I’d planned to do a bit more over the weekend. My husband and I went to the bookstore after lunch Saturday, then spent the rest of the afternoon in bed reading. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the time offline.

Day 13: Write a Blog Post Using Comments

Although the Telecommute Instructional Design Jobs
post wasn’t actually from a standard public comment, I still think it counts. (This came from my Ask A Question page, where readers can submit questions privately, but give me the right to republish.) After all, the point of this seems to be about interacting with the readers. The Ask A Question just gives them another way to do so.

Community Size & Connection Strength is another post based on comments.

Day 14: Turn Your Blog Over to Your Readers

I just did this one today, asking for help answering a reader question in Instructional Design Training Programs. This probably isn’t the most compelling question; maybe I’ll try this one again sometime. Usually when I post a really deep question to readers, it’s after I’ve already written a full post. I do ask questions for tips and help sometimes, and I’ve been very happy with the wonderful responses from the community. I don’t usually let go of control enough to let my readers write the post in the comments though, not at the level of Chris Brogan anyway.

Day 15: Give a Comment Award

I’m copping out of this one. I just can’t imagine picking one person out of all the wonderful commenters I have here. Thank you to everyone who has ever left a non-spammy comment on my blog.

Day 16: Go Back and Catch Up on Something

I’m only three days late on my catch-up day. Not bad, huh?

Day 17: Five in Five

I’m putting this one off for tonight; I’ll come back to it later.

Day 18: Analyze the Comments on Your Own Blog

I wrote up this task partly because I was interested in doing it myself.

Which of your posts have generated the most comments?

I’ve had nine posts which generated 10 comments or more:

# of Comments	Post	Date
18	Do Instructional Designers Really Need Technology Skills?	06/05/07
16	Social Networking as LMS: Problems and Opportunities	08/18/07
13	Technology Skills for Instructional Designers	06/04/07
12	Diigo or Delicious for Beginners?	03/29/08
12	Is instructional design the right career?	06/20/07
11	Facebook as LMS?	08/16/07
11	Atmosphere for Commenting	05/17/08
11	First Experience with Usability Testing	03/11/08
10	Firefox Extensions	08/21/07

Dates in the table above are American style (MM/DD/YY).

Which has generated the best conversation? (The last question is about quantity; this one is about quality.)

I loved the debate about whether instructional designers need technology skills or not. I am so happy that Cammy Bean came here and disagreed with me. First of all, it meant that I found another instructional designer and blogger who I’ve learned lots from over the last year. But the conversation was great because she was able to share a perspective and experience that were quite different from my own. Her initial comments led me to write two other posts, one of which is at the top of the list above. I’ve had other good conversations, but I still think this one was the best. It certainly was very eye-opening for me.

Are there any patterns to the commenting on your own blog? Do certain types of posts generate more comments than others?

I see a couple of trends:

• Three of these posts were from my series on instructional design careers in June 2007.
• My two posts about Facebook and other social networking sites as LMS (Learning Management Systems) were also popular.
• Two are about the tools I use: Diigo and Firefox.
• Posts that have gotten the most views aren’t necessarily the ones with the most discussion. For example, the post with the most comments has only gotten 500 views total. My all-time top post, Instructional Design Skills, is approaching 2000 views, but doesn’t have a single comment. That post gets lots of search engine traffic, hence a high number of views, but has never started a discussion.

Information about instructional design careers does seem to be a popular topic. In fact, that’s part of why I chose to do the posts on telecommute jobs and training programs; people are looking for this information.

The best discussions were posts where I took a stand on something a bit controversial: the need for technology skills and Facebook/social networking as LMS. When I can find that balance where I make a statement that not everyone agrees with but still make it open for people to discuss and debate, I get great conversations.

If you do see a pattern or commonality between posts that generate good comments, what can you do to increase those qualities in other posts?

Even after doing all this analysis, I’m not sure what to do to increase these qualities in other posts. Certainly, I’ll continue to write more about instructional design careers and just about instructional design in general. The topics that I’m passionate about are more likely to be interesting reads and therefore generate more comments.

Do you see a pattern in what generates good conversation, either on your own blog or here? What makes you not just comment once, but come back to comment again?

Technorati Tags: comment08, comment+challenge, Cammy+Bean

Atmosphere for Commenting

Rather than posting for every day of the 31 Day Comment Challenge, I’m summarizing multiple tasks into one post as I did for tasks 2 through 8. Tasks 9 through 12 all seem to be about the atmosphere for commenting on your blog, so I’m combining these into one post.

Day 9: Should We Be Commenting on Blogs?

I think if the goal of the blog is learning, then yes, we should be commenting on blogs and allowing comments on our own. Allowing and even encouraging comments doesn’t prevent other forms of conversations (like linked blog posts) from happening. It does, however, allow people who don’t have a blog to participate in the conversations. I think commenting can also encourage interaction outside our usual niches. For example, one of my friends is a web programmer. He has his own site, but it’s very much focused on what he does. He has commented here before when he felt he could add to the conversation. However, his comment wouldn’t have fit with the content of his own site.

For purposes of learning, I think leaving it open to comments is very valuable. However, I do understand that people use blogs for other purposes where commenting wouldn’t make as much sense. Just because this is what’s best for me doesn’t mean it’s best for others. People are entitled to create a different atmosphere on their own blogs; it’s their space!

Day 10: Do a Comment Audit on Your Own Blog

In this task, we’re asked to look at six reasons why people might not comment on your blog.

1. You sound like a press release.

Nope, I don’t think I do this one. I certainly have seen it though. Blogs that sound like press releases don’t just discourage me from commenting, they discourage me from even subscribing.

2. You sound like an infomercial.

In my normal posts, no, I don’t think I sound like an infomercial. Sometimes when I’m excited about a tool I wonder if I do sound that way though. What do you think–do posts like Diigo’s New Release or my Synergy feature overview sound too much like a sales pitch?

3. You sound like a know-it-all.

This is something I know I do sometimes in real life, so it’s the one thing on this list that most concerns me. Michele noted that she gets more comments when she gives incomplete answers and asks questions. I’m looking forward to Task 18 where we try to look for patterns in what generates comments because I wonder if I’ll see the same thing. Without actually doing the analysis yet, my guess (or at least my hope) is that I sounded more know-it-all early in my blog writing. I’m much more comfortable blogging now, and that makes it easier to ask questions and put half-formed thoughts out there.

4. You haven’t showed them how.

I hadn’t done this until today. I copied Tony Karrer’s First Time Visitor’s Guide idea and included some directions there. It will be interesting to see if I get more comments that way. That idea worked really well for our team blog, where most of our audience (other employees in the company) isn’t familiar with blogs. After six months, the guide is still the most popular page.

5. You haven’t created the right atmosphere.

This is something I think I’ve improved over time, although maybe it’s just the issue of a blog needing time to build up readers and a community. I didn’t participate in the 31 Day Build a Better Blog challenge, but I did pick up tips from others who did complete it. One of those was emailing new commenters. That technique alone has done wonders for improving conversations and getting people to comment more than once.

6. You just don’t seem that into it.

Nope, not a problem. I think people can see that I’m a geek and that I enjoy all of this without any trouble.

What do you think?

For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while and those of you who have just recently discovered it, how do you think I’m doing in these six areas? Have I been honest in my self-assessment?

Day 11: Write a Blog Comment Policy

Done, and included in my new First Time Visitor’s Guide.

Day 12: Make Sure Your Blog Technology is “Comment Friendly”

No captcha, no moderation. Akismet is pretty terrific at picking up the spam, so I don’t need it. It does occasionally flag things as spam that aren’t, usually because a comment has too many links. I do ask for email addresses, but I use those to contact new commenters.

Technorati Tags: comment08, Comment+Challenge, Michele+Martin, Tony+Karrer, conversation, learning

Comment Challenge Days 2 through 8

I’m catching up a bit on the Comment Challenge. I don’t plan to write a post every day; I’m aiming for a reflection about once a week.

Day 2: Comment on a Blog You’ve Never Commented on Before

Since the challenge started, I’ve commented on a number of blogs outside my usual circle. I don’t read that many blogs from practicing K-12 educators, so these were all new to me.

• Kevin’s Meandering Mind
• Learning Mosaics
• BLK
• Miss W. and her Smartboard

Day 3: Sign up for a Comment Tracking Service

I’ve been using co.mments since last August; it works great. Here’s all my conversations, if you’re interested.

Day 4: Ask a Question in a Blog Comment

Well, I’m the one who came up with the idea for this task, so I probably should do it. My comment on Wendy’s blog had a lot of my own thoughts about the purpose Facebook, but I did turn it back around as a question to her. That discussion has prompted a second post on the topic, with more great comments.

Day 5: Comment on a Blog Post You Don’t Agree With
Day 6: Engage another Commenter in Discussion

Nothing has come across my reader in the last week that prompted me to disagree, so I postponed this task. I’m bending the rules a bit and combining tasks 5 & 6. Someone linked to a post by Kristin Hokanson about copyright confusion from a Diigo conversation. I replied to a comment where someone argued that students should be taught to ask permission to use any material, even if it’s under a Creative Commons license. That defeats much of the purpose of Creative Commons in my mind.

I also responded to two other commenters on Wendy’s second Facebook post, so I guess I did #6 twice.

Day 7: Reflect on What You’ve Learned so Far

What have I learned?

• I comment to agree or ask questions much more often than I comment to disagree.
• I have a hard time limiting myself to really short comments because I don’t usually take the time to edit them down after I write.
• Rambling comments can still be beneficial though, if they let me mentally process something. That’s what happened with my Facebook comment on Wendy’s blog; I used her space to “think out loud” and reflect.

Day 8: Comment on a blog outside of your niche

I knew this one was coming, so when I saw this meme on Musical Perceptions, I jumped in with the few songs I could identify off the top of my head. This is one of the blogs I read that is totally unrelated to my current professional life. This is for the band nerd in me, not the instructional designer.

Technorati Tags: comment08, Michele+Martin, Wendy+Wickham, conversation, Comment+Challenge

Commenting Self-Audit

Like many others, I’m participating in the 31-Day Comment Challenge. The first task is a commenting self-audit.

How often do you comment on other blogs during a typical week?

Looking at my tracked comments & conversations, I’ve tracked 147 comments since I started using co.mments last August. That works out to about 4 comment conversations per week, or a little more than 1 every other day. That number doesn’t include conversations where I comment more than once though, so it’s probably a little higher than that.

Do you track your blog comments? How? What do you do with your tracking?

Obviously, yes, I track my comments. There’s no way I’d comment as much as I do if I wasn’t tracking them. Before I knew there were such tools, I really didn’t comment much because I never remembered to go back to the sites and see the responses. With tracking and an RSS feed, I can keep track of it all much more easily.

Do you tend to comment at the same blogs or do you try to comment on at least one new blog per week?

I do tend to comment on a lot of the same blogs over time. That commenting helps build and maintain relationships with other bloggers, so I do see value in that. I don’t have a set goal about commenting on new blogs, but I do try to check out new blogs, especially when they link to me. If someone links to me, I try to go at least thank them for the link, even if I don’t leave a substantive comment.

The second part of this task is looking at the suggestions in Gina Trapani’s guide to comments. I’ve broken all of those at one point or another, but I think I actually do pretty well usually. I can certainly work on being more succinct in both my comments and posts though. For example, this comment I left on our team blog for work was absurdly long. Normally I’d move something that long into a post instead of a comment, but we have a set posting schedule and topics for that blog.

As a whole, I think I’m about average for my commenting. I comment pretty regularly. I gravitate towards certain blogs where I comment more regularly, but I try to branch out. I consider myself a decent online citizen, and I think I’ve been able to disagree with people without being too disagreeable. I can do more to reach out to new blogs and to really make sure I’m adding value to the conversation when I do. I’ve been trying to do more to interact with other commenters and not just the blog author, but I’m sure I can do better in that area too.

More than anything else, what I’m hoping to get out of this challenge is just becoming more aware of my commenting. Much of it just happens out of habit for me, so I hope that a bit of self-examination will help me be more deliberate and thoughtful of what I’m doing.

Technorati Tags: comment08, conversation, blogging, comments

My Workflow with Synergy

This is a follow-up to my post on the features of Synergy. My last post covered how Synergy works. This post focuses on how I work with Synergy, both when I’m in live online events and during my daily work.

Liveblogging & Team Meetings

When I liveblogged the TCC 2008 conference, I always had the Elluminate presentation up on my primary screen (my desktop computer) and my blog on my laptop. I didn’t use a mic for anything other than our team’s presentation, and it’s easier to listen with speakers for hours a day than a headset.

It’s much easier to use two monitors like this than to alt+tab back and forth on one computer. Synergy lets me easily switch focus back to the Elluminate screen to join the backchannel chat or answer a poll; you just move your mouse over to the other screen and type away. There’s no way I could have done this as smoothly if I’d had to move my hands from my laptop keyboard to my full-size keyboard.

Here’s a rough idea of how this worked.

The online course development team has a weekly meeting in Connect. I actually use the reverse setup for our meetings; I keep the live meeting on the laptop and my notes and to-do list on my desktop. We often do screensharing in our meetings, so I need Connect on the computer where all my work files are stored and I have all my software. It’s also easier to use my headset and mic with my laptop than to dig around behind the tower to plug it in. (Yes, I am that lazy. Why do you think I’m using this software in the first place?)

Daily Workflow

In general, what I keep up on each computer during my regular workday is that work programs stay on my laptop and personal applications are on the desktop. When I first started telecommuting at a previous job, I was really strict about that; I only used my laptop for work and barely even checked Gmail on it. Over time, the lines have blurred a lot, so the workflow is much more fluid. What I do where depends on the context and what else I’m doing.

On my work laptop, I use these programs that I don’t have installed on my personal desktop:

• Outlook
• Dreamweaver
• Photoshop
• Captivate

That means that on days that I’m doing a lot of web work or creating Captivate activities, I work primarily on my laptop and don’t switch over too much. However, when I’m waiting for something to happen on my laptop (like synchronizing files with the server through Dreamweaver), I’ll pop over to my desktop computer for a few minutes to read something in Google Reader.

My desktop has a better monitor (see the picture here), so increasingly I use that if I’m doing any online work that doesn’t require the software on my laptop. I find that my eyes feel less fatigued this way than if I use the laptop all day.

• Collaborating with SMEs in Google Docs
• Setting up courses in Blackboard
• Editing our team wiki or the wikis for a course
• Google Calendar
• My to do list (I use Toodledo.)
• Pidgin for instant messaging (On Pidgin, it’s mostly personal contacts. More people from work are on Skype. I use Skype almost exclusively on my laptop—see the note about being too lazy to plug in the headphones on my tower above.)

I also use Gmail and Google Reader primarily on my desktop rather than on the laptop. I have different versions of Internet Explorer on my computers, so I use both for testing purposes. Right now I only have Firefox 3 on my personal computer, again for testing.

Transitions

Reading RSS feeds is my “transition” activity; when I finish one task and am mentally switching gears to do something else, I spend a few minutes reading. I find I especially need that transition time if I’m deep into a project on my laptop. I’m not sure how much of that is just getting my eyes to look in a different direction and how much is the change in mental work, but it does help to take those little pauses during the day. I usually go for something light during that time; think Cute Overload or maybe Slashdot. I advise against trying to read a post on, say, Half an Hour as a mental break.

Questions? Suggestions?

Hopefully, I’ve clarified how this can work, rather than muddying the waters. Please let me know if any of this doesn’t make sense; I’d be happy to try to clarify this further. Also, just because this is what works for me doesn’t mean it would work for anyone else.

If you try Synergy or already use it, I’d love to hear your tips on how to be more efficient with the tool. Just writing up the process has made me rethink how I’m doing things. I might try doing some things differently in the future. It’s a little haphazard right now, and I wonder if a different workflow would be smoother.

Technorati Tags: synergy, workflow, liveblog, Stephen+Downes, productivity

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Astroturfing by the Elearning Society

Today boys and girls we’re going to learn about astroturfing. Can you say “astroturfing”? I knew you could.

A grassroots movement is an authentic spontaneous movement of support. Astroturfing is when an organization, business, or politician fakes grassroots support.

Today I received two comments on my blog within minutes of each other, both about a new site called “the eLearning Society.” One was on my post about professional organizations for instructional designers; the other was on my top ten tools list.

The content of the posts themselves isn’t as blatantly advertisement as some other ones I’ve seen, but I still consider this astroturfing.

• Although the posts were under two different names and email addresses, they were from the same IP address. I’m really skeptical that it just happened to work out that way, especially within a few minutes of each other. He felt the need to fake his identity when talking about his own group—not a sign that fills me with a sense of confidence.
• When the person running the eLearning Society posted under his own name, he linked to his personal website and used an email address that isn’t connected to the site. I’m actually much less likely to delete comments from a company representative when they are honest about who they are. I don’t mind comments from vendors if they are upfront. For example, Maggie Tsai from Diigo has commented here on a number of occasions, and she’s been very helpful.

When you look at the site itself. you see that the eLearning Society asks vendors to pay to be listed in their directory. The page asking for advertisers claims that “thousands of eLearning professionals” are using their site, but it looks to me like it’s just one guy who’s active. There’s only one profile listed in the “community.” There are no jobs or resumes posted in the career center. On several of the pages you can see “discussions” started by a nameless registered user. I’m not kidding–it says it’s a registered user making the comments, but shows up as “Your Name Here.”

Usually I just delete these sorts of comments, but this seemed like a “teachable moment.” Maybe I’ll save someone else some trouble researching this group themselves.

I’m curious–did anyone else get comments about this group recently, from sockpuppets or under a real name?

Image: ‘diagonal and manhole cover‘
www.flickr.com/photos/44124412272@N01/312835504

Technorati Tags: astroturf, e-learning, marketing

Update: The owner of the site and I have had a long conversation; see the comments for the full text. Per his request, I have removed his name from the post. He’s new to Web 2.0 and made the following assumptions when he commented here:

• He thought no one would read his comments other than the Google search bot.
• He didn’t think it would matter that he posted under his wife’s name; he was trying to test Google Analytics and whether it would pick up differently under two names rather than one.
• He assumed he didn’t need to disclose that it was his own site when he recommended it.
• He didn’t realize that what he posted online could affect his professional reputation.

Diigo User Communities

I just realized that Diigo lets me see everyone who has bookmarked my site and what they saved. They call this the “User Community” around a site; there’s also communities around tags. Here’s Site Community for my blog; you can enter your own URL there to see your user community. If you’re more interested in the people than the pages and tags, the People Search By Site is a better tool.

I like being able to see this information to learn about what my readers like from my blog. Obviously the information’s a bit limited because only 12 people have bookmarked my site, but it’s still fun to look at what they saved and how they tagged it. A site with more bookmarks, like Vicki Davis’ site community, has much richer information.

In del.icio.us, it’s much harder to find this information, and much of it simply isn’t available. I periodically check how many people have bookmarked my site on del.icio.us, but that only picks up people who have saved the main page. If I want to see who has bookmarked a particular post, I have to enter that URL separately. (Unless I’m missing something–if there’s an easier way, somebody please fill me in.)

I know that some bloggers put their own posts in del.icio.us to help them track who else is saving those posts. I do agree that what gets bookmarked is one measure of our posts’ value to others. I’ve never done that bookmarking though because it seemed like too much work. Diigo doesn’t require any prep work on my part though, which makes it much more likely that I’m going to actually use the information.

Here endeth today’s commercial for Diigo. Seriously, I know I sound like I’m doing marketing for them, but I promise I’m not on their payroll. I just was really excited by this discovery today and wanted to share.

Technorati Tags: Diigo, delicious, socialbookmarking, Vicki+Davis, community

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Collaborative Learning Trends

These are my live-blogged notes from the webinar Emerging Trends in Collaborative Learning from the WebEx/eLearning Guild Online eLearning Summit. My comments are in italics.

Speakers

• Heidi Fisk, Co-Founder, The eLearning Guild
• Brent Schlenker, the Emerging Technologies Analyst, The eLearning Guild

How do you define “collaborative learning”?

Brent showed his online profile in different places

I’m impressed that he’s a level 40 orc in WOW. The fact that I’m impressed by that probably makes me a g33k…

Heidi Fisk noted that she isn’t involved with so many new technologies b/c she has difficulty typing. Good example of why mobility is part of the accessibility considerations and why we should think about that more.

New technologies are all about connecting people-that’s the underlying theme of all these new innovations

The focus on “You” (Time magazine, personal branding)

YOUniverse-what does your digital presence look like?

• Consume
• Connect/Collaborate
• Create

Maybe the “editable” from Brent’s earlier list should be “collaboratable”-not that it’s a real word…Hmmm…I still am not quite happy with that.

Looked at generational trends for technology

eLearning Guild technology usage

• Synchronous e-Learning: 65%
• Wikis: 31%
• Blogs: 22%
• Chat rooms: 24%
• Mobile Learning: 19%
• Podcasts: 17%

eLearning Guild is an example of collaborative data sharing, pulled dynamically

Synchronous Learning trends (although new engine in 2005, so data isn’t directly comparable)

• 2001: 13%
• 2002: 18%
• 2004: 25%
• 2005: 38%
• 2007: 65%

Learning 0.1: Physical classroom in 1941, chalkboard, no

Learning 1.0: standard info (expert content, one direction, static, centralized). Few content creators, many content consumers

Learning 2.0: Dynamic, decentralized, loosely joined networks, learners create & enhance content; rip, mix, feed

“Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy”

Five Ables from before:

• Searchable
• Editable
• Linkable
• Tagable
• Feedable

First 3 “ables” are from the Cluetrain Manifesto

Informal Learning

New hires need more formal, structured courses, less informal

Company gurus use more informal support & conversations, less formal classrooms

Brent is showing this as very low informal at the beginning, but I’m not sure I agree with that. I think there is a lot of informal learning for new hires too

Google Trends shows searches for “instructional design” dropping over time

What does that mean? Are there fewer learning professionals using instructional design? Perhaps the old ideas of what instructional design is aren’t working anymore. We need to find new ways to be of value.

Blogs, Wikis, RSS

Got a phone call-darn, I missed what Brent said about blogs, wikis, and RSS. I’ll have to catch it in the recording. (Unless Brent would be so nice as to summarize what he said here in the comments…)

Internal Wikis: Intel as the example

• 6000+ articles
• Intel Acronyms to help people
• Intel History created by the employees-better than what any single group of people could have done

Blogs let you share ideas and get feedback from all over the world

Text messaging took off much faster in other countries where the infrastructure was better for that than in the US.

Where to start using new technology? Feed reader/aggregator, start learning RSS

Feed readers are a good way to get a high level scan of a lot of the information

Showed iGoogle, Netvibes, etc.-learning dashboards

“Nobody can tell you what the matrix is. You have to experience it for yourself.” Morpheus, The Matrix

You have to go out and experience it, engage with others, create and share

Several questions in the chat about accuracy in wikis-people seem to be very worried about that. The moderator suggests lots of self-policing

Find the grassroots people to start trying something and encourage them to share what they are doing. You can’t just tell people “this is what we’re doing” like a new accounting system-you have to build from the bottom, not from the top down. Even if it fails, what have you lost if the tool is free?

Collaborative Immersive 3-D Environments

Games vs. Virtual Spaces

“You can learn more about a man in one hour of play than in one year of conversation.” Plato

Immersive 3-D environments require you to work together, be engaged, solve problems

Most kids play games, lots of adults do too

MMORPG is a virtual team

Screenshot of 40 people in a WOW raiding party-this is 40 people from around the world with different skills working to accomplish something. Lots of logistics even though it’s a game.

Second Life is a virtual space without specific game objectives like WOW. Watched NASA shuttle launch video within virtual world–a “matrix” moment for Brent

Example of Second Life training: Crowd control training where there’s no danger of people getting hurt. It’s easy for learners to figure out how to “game the system” if it’s non-player characters. If real people are the ones playing the role of disrupters in the crowd, it’s harder to game the system.

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