February 2009 Archives

I was reading "A Theory of Fun" yesterday (lent to me by Brett).  According to the book, one of the elements that is often present in gaming is that there is a challenge at the edge of your ability.  You're not quite sure if you can do it or not.  When you fail, you understand why, learn, and try again.  When you succeed, it can be very satisfying.

I think this one post-a-day-challenge has been like that kind of challenge for a lot of people who participated.  I have that sense because some people made it to the end, some who dropped out, and yet others who stumbled, picked themselves up, and tried again.  Who succeeded and who failed?  I should let everyone answer that question for themselves. 

During the recording of ETS Talk today, we talked about the idea of standardized testing and efficiency.  I think it was either Cole or Brad who said that in order to be efficient, something must be low cost (quick, inexpensive, etc...) and good at what it does.  The blogging challenge is the same way, in order to judge success, we must post something of value every day.  So I feel that someone could have succeeded, even if they missed several days, but made some very good observations.  Likewise, if someone posted something every day, but put little thought into what he or she was writing, that would have been an "adequate" effort.  It would have met the letter of the rules, but not the spirit of the challenge.  In my book, "adequate" isn't enough.

Fortunately, everyone who I've been following during the challenge made more than adequate effort.  I read about some new ideas, found some excellent resources, saw some soul searching, and felt some unbridled optimism along with quite a bit of angst.  So in the end, it was a successful collective social experiment that was worth more than the time and effort that I put into it on my own.

So I've done the challenge twice now, once in August and again in February.  I'm not sure that writing alone is at the edge of my ability anymore, but if anyone would like to give it another try a little later on -- May perhaps -- I would do it again and perhaps incorporate more videos or a podcast.  If nothing else, it reminds me of the importance of writing in the open and reading about what others are doing and thinking, both for my own development and the benefit of others.

I read though a report today called "Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics".  It does an excellent job of explaining how the creation and consumption of media has changed and how user-generated media can impact the democratic process.  First, the paper touches on concepts, trends, models, and theory, such as:

• Person-centric media models.  "The customer is the new platform" - Doc Searls
• Changes in media consumption habits based on choice (no longer needing to wait for content), conversation, curation (tagging, aggregation, remixing), creation, and collaboration.
• Resulting advancements such as social networks as public forums, distributed distribution, hackable platforms, cloud content, and pervasive gaming.

And then the report goes on to give specific (and fantastic) examples of what these new types of activity look like.  One of the examples has an immediate impact on the Grassroots Video Hot Team that I'm leading.  The project is called "A World Without Oil".  It is perhaps the best example of an educational application of an alternative reality game.  In the "game", 1800 people submitted blog posts, photos, and videos as if they living through a global oil shortage.  Watch the video to see what I mean:
 


This kind of activity is related to practically everything ETS is working on: blogging, media creation, gaming, instructional design, and engaging students in a Wesch-like way by asking them to explore big and relevant questions.

The rest of the paper deals with the future of this kind of public media: the funding of related projects, need for leadership and partnerships, and policies that permit (if not encourage) this type of activity. 

This is an eloquent "State of the Revolution" report from 30,000 feet that summarizes what is happening with social media, illustrates its relevance, and outlines the path forward.  I'm pretty impressed.

I'm going to have to do a little research into elements of game design.  It has been an idea rattling around my head ever since I went to a presentation at a New Media Consortium conference.  Let me be clear though: I don't want to design video games.  I want to design activities that incorporate game elements.  In other words, activities that are appealing, engaging, and fun.

I designed a scavenger hunt game for the College of Business where students need to collect a set of physical items, photographs, and web resources.  The items were things like a passport, currency from another country, and Penn State clothing.  The photos had to have multiple team members in front of relevant places on campus such as the learning center and the business library.  The web resources were things like the CIA factbook pages on the U.S. and Bangladesh and a graph of the current exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the Euro.  The real purpose of this game was to give a group of students a common experience where they need to make quick decisions about spending limited resources.  To win, they would have to examine the points assigned to each goal and break apart into teams.  Afterward, they wrote about their team's strategy, communication, and signs that leadership was emerging in the group.

The game elements: competition, points, a goal, collecting, collaboration, hunting/exploration, creative strategy, limited resources (limited people on the team and a 40 minute time limit), and a reward (a small prize, plus the status of being the winning group).

Okay, so that's a real game.  But then I think about the game-like elements that we embed in other activities.  Take the way some people really got into the stickers at the Learning Design Summer Camp.  The game elements: collaboration (on sticker design), reward (recognition for a good design), customization/creativity (it's your sticker), and collection (your stickers and your friends' stickers).

Likewise, the one-post-a-day challenge has game-like elements.  There is a definite goal.  We are doing this together.  Maybe not so much limited resources, but we have limited time and endurance is definitely part of the challenge.  Consequences for missing a post?  Ask Erin about that one. 

The flip side of this is that I've tried plenty of "games" that are not fun at all.  They may look like games and call themselves games, but they have lost sight of what makes games engaging.  They can also be too complex (confusing), too difficult (frustrating), too easy (boring), or repetitive (also boring).

And "graphics" has little to do with the fun of a game.  I've recently played several games that use pieces of paper or video games hand-drawn graphics.  They can be just as engaging as 3D immersive environtments, perhaps even more so since they tend not to have the graphics glitches, long load times, or expensive hardware requirements that plague high-end graphic games.  Don't believe me?  Give one of these a try:

• Desktop Tower Defense
• Kingdom of Loathing
• Gem Craft
  

Don't get me wrong.  I like the flashy games as well.  I've spent my fair share of time in Everquest, World of Warcraft, Eve Online, and most recently, Spore.  But I have lost interest in each one at some level of achievement and the complex graphical nature of those games makes it expensive to continuously develop new content. 

Those of you who know me know how I feel about Second Life.  It's not a game.  I think that a lot of people have assumed that since it involves personalized characters in a 3D environment, it will be as popular as Everquest was and World of Warcraft is now.  It won't be.  Mainly because it's not a game and lacks the traditional gaming hooks that are so addictive that people get divorces over it.  However, if you are mainly looking for exploration and customization, Second Life may be your cup of tea.

But back to my original topic.  I need to think more about game-like design elements and incorporate those elements into many different kinds of experiences.

Actually, it's funny that I refer to them as "game-like" at all, when these elements often have direct connections to survival skills (hunting, collecting, development of social status, etc...) within the boundries of limited resource situations.  Animals "play" through simulated hunting and fighting in preparation for adulthood.  So can we say that the roots of gaming is in education?  Or do education and gaming both have roots in a common ancestor -- and it is only recently (historically speaking) that we have tried to lump all of the learning into education and all the fun into gaming.

Well, like I said, I need to look more into this.

Well, I had a pleasant surprise as my day was winding down.  I got on iChat to bug Erin about something (a consultation we have coming up next week) and she told me that she had been contacted by Carrie Paige from the Educause Learning Initiative about doing a short write-up about the "beer game" and the stock trading room that is run by Smeal.  It turns out that Carrie is writing an article about the top five teaching and learning challenges that ELI has identified and how some institutions are addressing each of them.  Here is their list:

1. Creating learning environments that promote active learning, critical thinking, collaborative learning, and knowledge creation.
2. Developing 21st century literacies (information, digital, and visual) among students and faculty.
3. Reaching and engaging today's learner.
4. Encouraging faculty adoption and innovation in teaching and learning with IT.
5. Advancing innovation in teaching and learning with technology in an era of budget cuts.

The work that ETS does aligns pretty well with this list (in my humble opinion), so Erin and I thought there could be an opportunity to send in more than one write-up.  We gave Carrie a quick call and I asked if she was having problems finding examples of any of the other challenges.  It turns out that she was looking for something related to #2 (digital literacy) as well.  Perfect.  That lines up with what Erin and Stuart Selber are doing with the composition program (starting with English 202C) and what Chris Millet is doing with Digital Commons.

I want to make sure that those above me know about this and approve the idea, but barring any objections, we'll have our names as co-authors of this paper and be able to share a little of what we're doing (along with related URLs) with the broader teaching and learning community.

Carrie also mentioned that they were setting up conference calls around each of these topics and asked if we would be interested in participating in those.  She described it as 5-minute presentations about what we're doing (i.e. Lightning Talks).  That sounds like fun.

So write up of the beer game?  Yes-and write up of English and Digital Commons?  Yes-and Lightning Talks?  Yes-and I get a good blog post out of all of this.

It also goes to show you that when it's 4:50 PM, there are still opportunities that may be knocking. 

Last week on Cole's blog, Cole, Scott McDonald, and I got into a discussion in the comments about what happens when people from different professional cultures try to talk to each other.  Scott was talking about how technologists can see pedagogical practice and teachers can see the technology, but the synergistic relationship between the two can only be seen by a rare breed of person who can see both or by a group of people with diverse perspectives who talk about the intersection (I'm paraphrasing here). 

Am I a rare breed then?  I come from an engineering and programming background, but have a master's degree and most of a PhD in education.  I love teaching.  I love technology.  But more importantly, I love the intersection of the two along with the added mix of social media tools.  I think that's a third category because those tools aren't just technology.  The addition of people (one part Soylent Green if you please) makes all the difference.  Do we need to add a psychologist to help sort out that element?  We have one -- see Cole's resume (I'm proud of my psych minor as well).  And the media element: we're talking about creating cultural artifacts and having our faculty and students repurpose existing media.  Do we have those people?  I think so -- see Brad and Chris's resumes.  Are we all different rare breeds?  Or maybe the Land of Misfit Toys who have finally found a home?  Or is it a home that we're building?

This part is a little academic, but also relevant:
In my research, I'll be using Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as my framework.  I won't go into the details too much except to say that one of the people writing about CHAT, Engeström, talks about the expansive learning cycle that occurs when a group of people attempt to resolve a contradiction.  When that happens, it can lead to new forms of activity: new tools, rules, and organizational structures surrounding a community of people who are working toward a collective goal.

Scott's comments about getting people with diverse perspectives to talk collectively about the intersection of education and technology and social media is practically a contradiction-generating machine.  Those who jump into the resulting chaos and try to find solutions will learn a lot along the way.  If we only talk to people who have the same background and perspective that we have, it will be easier, but I think we'll have a tougher time seeing issues from all angles and developing the best solutions.

This is also one of the reasons that I like events like the TLT Symposium and the Learning Design Summer Camp.  They bring people from diverse backgrounds together to discuss what they are doing, what issues they are having, and potential solutions. 

In a marathon, people often hit "the wall" somewhere between miles 18 and 22.  It's when your body's stores of easily-accessible carbohydrates (stored in the muscles and liver) runs out.  At that point, your brain goes into survival mode.  You start to have feelings of doubt.  The trick is to pace yourself, drink and refuel as you go, and let the energy of the crowd carry you forward.  One foot in front of the other.  Get to the next corner.  Get to the next light post.  Soon enough, your mood picks up again.  You pass another mile marker.  You round a corner and the finish line is in sight.  Then it's a sprint to the finish and the satisfaction of completing something difficult.

The same goes for this blogging challenge.  It's about 3/4 of the way through and I feel it.  Fortunately, I've been pacing myself.  But like a marathon, I find the crowd support to be the most important element.  We are all in this together, right?  I'm watching Cole run ahead along with the Kenyans.  Erin is surprisingly speedy as well, running with a group of students from English, Comm, and the honors college.  Dave is the bandit runner: he didn't sign up for the race, but he's running it anyway. Brad is the gadget guy in the group, talking about Pano, the blogging platform, the mini notebook, 12seconds.tv, etc...  I've also done a better job of cheering on the others this time by reading more of the fellow posters and commenting when I have something to add or a question.

The finish is in sight.  One week to go.  Five more posts.  But after I cross the finish line, I may keep going.

This is a bit of a rambling mess.  I have a lot of thoughts running through my head based on the collision of my work on a Hot Team, the ITS Marketing interviews, a recent discussion of game-like activities, and some discussions of the exposure of staff blogs.

I've had a LOT of meetings lately, so it was a very nice change to have most of this morning free.  I used the time to start writing up some of the ideas generated by the Hot Team that is looking into Grassroots Video.  When the Hot Team is finished, one of the outcomes will be a one page (front and back) white paper that can tell someone about the topic, how it is used for teaching and learning, and how to get started. 

During the consolidation of ideas, I came across four factors that seem to be driving the adoption of grassroots video. First, video recording capability is built into small, cheap devices such as cell phones, digital cameras, web cams, and small digital video cameras that cost under $200.  Second, services like YouTube make it easy for students to upload, share, rate, and respond to short videos at no cost.  Third, videos in YouTube can be easily embedded in other forms of online communication such as standard web pages, blogs, wikis, and social network sites like Facebook.  Finally, this trend has reached a critical mass, both in the amount of content available and the number of people who are producing and consuming it.

Its impact on Penn State?  We did a survey last year and found that 80% of our students watch videos on YouTube and about a third of faculty were using it for teaching purposes.  Earlier this week, I used two YouTube clips during a meeting.

First, we were talking about using game-like elements to engage students.  I'm not talking having students play Rock Band or World of Warcraft.  I'm talking about educational activities that include things like collecting things, competition, customization, status, exploration, and so on.  During the meeting, I mentioned Wesch and his World Simulation, but it makes a lot more sense if you see the simulation in action -- so we watched a clip.



The other example (from the same meeting), we were talking about educational uses of role playing.  I had heard of philosophy and psychology courses where you have to respond to an issue as if you were someone like Socrates, Jung, or Freud. The conversation jumped to Twitter personalities like Darth Vader, and then to Chad Vader's YouTube videos and the Ben Franklin impersonator that I saw on an episode of The Office.  I had no idea if the Ben Franklin clip would show up in YouTube, but sure enough, it was there.  Well, it was a 7-second clip, but enough to illustrate the point.

 

[iPhone] Dickinson Katz Videoconferencing on 12seconds.tv

I went to the Katz Building today.  It's the new University Park home of Penn State's Dickinson School of Law.  My reason for going was to look at their new videoconferencing room along with Mary Ramsey and three people from the College of Engineering. The Engineering faculty want to enhance the global perspective of their students by having them talk to faculty and other students around the world about manufacturing practices.  For example, they may have a small team go to Japan to study a manufacturing process.  That team would go to a factory and take video.  Then they would use videoconferencing to share the video and their impressions with another team that is back in the U.S.

The Dickinson facility is top notch.  It's not quite telepresence, but it's pretty close.  The room holds about 20 people comfortably.  There are three main displays: a large projection screen for sharing the image from a tablet PC (controlled by the course professor); a smaller plasma display next to the projection to show a remote instructor at another location; and another plasma display at the back of the room, which can show remote students from another location. [It's a bit complicated - it depends on who is teaching from where.]

Between these displays is a large open rectangle of tables.  On top of the tables are ten push-to-talk microphones that allow students to speak to the remote locations and causes the room's cameras to focus on the speaker.

I saved the best for last.  In the middle of the open rectangle are ten displays and ten cameras that are just below the level of the table.  That lets you easily look across the table at other students at your location or look down a little and see the remote speaker.  The reason they designed the room that way was because they want to replicate the way that law courses are taught.  Nearly all of the courses use the Socratic method, which centers around questions, discussion, and debate instead of traditional presentations.  For that to work as it does in a traditional classroom, students have to feel like they are sharing the same space as the person they are talking to.  They need to make eye contact and see body language.  The cameras and displays help that feeling of closeness, even though the speakers may be separated by any distance.

This has got me thinking again about how activity shapes space and how space design shapes activity.  I love that the room was designed to be an embodiment of that method of teaching.  It's a highly specialized tool that makes sense within the context of a law school that teaches courses across two campuses.  The person who designed the room (John Davie) even explained the decisions they made about how many remote students could participate in a course based on how many could be seen by the room cameras AND how they worked with an audio/video integrator on settings for the microphones that would keep the camera on a talking student for 8 seconds after they were done talking -- so a remote instructor could respond to a question or answer and see the student's body language. 

It's probably overkill for what the Engineering faculty want, but it was great to see the careful thought that went into the design of the room.  We got a lot of good ideas about what the Engineering facility should include: a video display, a data display, a tablet PC, at least two room cameras (front and back of the room), and multiple push-to-talk microphones.

Like most of my posts, this one gets to the point in a round-about way.

I've watched two seasons of a Discovery Channel show that follows a group of climbers that attempt to summit Mount Everest.  It takes a lot more time that you would think.  Climbers spend several weeks between base camps, allowing their bodies to get used to thinner and thinner air.  As part of the training, they may climb to a higher camp and then back to a lower camp at night to sleep.  These training hikes can be painful and exhausting, even deadly, but those who make it adapt and are better prepared.  They are able to push onward, up the mountain to the summit. 


I had a conversation today that was a lot like climbing to a high altitude.  I felt like my brain was melting, but I saw the summit and it looks like a place that I'd like to go.

I was talking to Andrew about it on our drive home.  The questions that are coming up are fundamental and philosophical (Andrew has a degree in philosophy).  What is academic computing?  What is faculty development?  What are we doing with our time, money, and people?  What knowledge are we generating and how do we capture and share it?  Where should we focus?  What can we become?  How can we get there?  

I feel like I should go on another solo backpacking trip (or maybe climb a mountain) and really think through these questions for a while.  I have a feeling that I'll be answering them for the rest of my career.  That makes me happy.

Cole tweeted a news article along with the text "Spontaneous Bursts of Being", so I had to look.  This post is somewhat related to that article, the phrase, and the tests I've been doing with 12seconds.tv.  I made my frist posts on Friday and got some comments from Brad and Cole. I decided to make another post today.  I was on my way home and planning to watch a DVD that I got in the mail today. 


[iPhone] Ultramarathon Movie Plans on 12seconds.tv

So the difference between the text and the three pictures with audio is that people could see a snippet of my walk across campus, see who Andrew is and what kind of dog I have, and see the DVD case of the movie that I'm talking about.  After posting it, I got a response back from one of the runners that I know (Kim) who asked about the movie.

But more important than the responses and comments is this idea of a spontaneous burst of being.  In those 12 seconds, I made a rich media burst (more like a solar flare) of that moment in my life, where I was, where I was going, who I was going to see, and what I was planning to do.  This is actually more than something you would watch on "Allan TV" -- the hypothetical 24/7 broadcast of my life, since it includes my thoughts and feelings in the commentary. The choice of images that I share for that moment say something about what I feel is important.

So what does Cole find important?
 

Hanging with Maddie on 12seconds.tv

Spending time with Maddie is apparently high on the list.  And what about Maddie?  Well, she seems to really like the Internets! 

And THEN I found Brad and Cole's exchange on 12seconds.tv.  Apparently, Brad had a long day. 


Long Day on 12seconds.tv

He was consoled by Cole and Maddie. 


@bradk3000 re: Long Day on 12seconds.tv
Then Brad lost his mind and began playing peek a boo with the Internets!

@bradk3000 re: Long Day on 12seconds.tv

After all of this, it may just seem like some guys playing around with cameras, but during a meeting with some instructional designers today, I saw a more direct connection. Gary mentioned that he was working with an ethics course where the instructors asked for students to create a respond to a situation where a thousands of gallons of waste chemicals are generated from an industrial process.  The students had to give their response in 10 words or less.  The results sounded pretty creative, including a lot of images to go along with the chosen words.  Gary said that some of the responses lead to further class discussion.

This has a game-like element to it: a challenge, a bit of a competition (for a good, creative response), and resource limitation.

I predict that I'll be writing about this topic again in the future. For now, I'll end by saying that it would be premature to evaluate the educational uses of something like this until we understand the more general use.

I don't want to start another "let's all try twitter" conversation, but I have been playing around with 12seconds.tv.  First, I was talking about it at the BS Breakfast, based on the Grassroots Video Hot Team that I'm leading.  Someone (Stevie I think) said that I should make one.  Okay.  So I went to 12seconds.tv and made an account, then I took the Flip Mino video camera out of my coat pocket and recorded myself.  I plugged it into my laptop, uploaded the video, and it went to both 12seconds.tv and twitter (I tied my accounts together).  The results are below:



Brainstorming Breakfast on 12seconds.tv

Very shortly thereafter, I got a response from Cole:




@agyorke re: Brainstorming Breakfast on 12seconds.tv

Okay, well that was pretty cool and rather easy with the equipment that I had available.  The problem was that it took time away from the BS Breakfast itself as I used the camera, laptop, and web site.  So tonight, after work, I went to Mad Mex and downloaded the 12seconds app for my iPhone.  It's pretty cool.  You take three pictures or select pictures from your library.  Then you record a few seconds of audio and post the results -- as I did below:



[iPhone] Happy Hour at Mad Mex on 12seconds.tv

I don't know that I would do this all the time, but there is something to it.  The video or series of images adds something to the status update.  It provides a lot of context, so you have a better idea of what the Jesus table is.  Plus the fact that I could all do it from my iPhone is pretty cool.  I may actually prefer the three image option over the video.

I'm interested in hearing what other people think about this.

This morning, Brett Bixler and I sat down to discuss some initial thoughts about the second annual Learning Design Summer Camp.  Several people blogged about LDSC08 (the first Summer Camp) quite a bit back in August, since that was during the first blog challenge and that's when the event was held.  Quick summary: it was a two-day informal event where anyone interested in "big picture" education technology topics could share what they know and learn from each other.  Topics included issues like copyright, open educational resources, student engagement, and personal publishing.  The approach to planning this event was "Community as Committee", where anyone attending could help shape the event.  We had stickers, lightning talks, the Live Question Tool, birds of a feather sessions, idea pitches, etc...  It was as close to th idea of an unconference as anything I've seen at Penn State.

So now Brett and I are planning the second incarnation.  We're probably going to have it in July, so people aren't as crushed by the August rush to get things done before classes.  We won't be able to have it in Foster Auditorium in the library though, since they are renovating that space.  But I'm confident that if we can harness community energy again, we will be able to top last year's event.

If you're reading this and interested in attending the event, you may want to head over to the wiki and watch the page for changes, submit your own ideas, and help shape the event.

This is an idea that I've heard before, but Mike Hofherr brought it up again during a meeting of our informal learning spaces group: Instead of putting in sidewalks around buildings when they are built, some planners will let people start using the grounds and see what paths naturally develop and then put the sidewalks there.

This is literally a "go with the flow" approach.  It doesn't mean taking the easy path.  It means taking the natural path.  I'm a proponent of that kind of thinking because it is based on data instead of guesswork.  I believe that it leads to programs, policies, and designs that feel less artificial.

So in the informal learning spaces group, we often talk about spaces that students are already using to study and create together.  If we can enhance those spaces with more comfortable seating, some writing surfaces, and maybe some technology, I don't see how we can fail. The first three rules of real estate are location, location, location, right?

A related idea came to me this morning.  Vicki Williams and I had a conversation about the need to gather feedback about informal/collaborative spaces around campus.  So instead of asking students to get on a computer, go to a web site, and fill out a form, could we post signs saying something to the effect of "Like this space?  See a problem? Send feedback by texting 814-555-1234."  Most students have cell phones.  Many students send a lot of text messages.  This idea may be more natural to them than finding a web site and filling out a form.  Now the downside might be that we don't have the checkboxes and prompts of a web form, but it could mean getting ten times the number of responses.  I think it's worth a try.

[I'll be poking around to see if there is a good text-message-entry system, but if anyone has leads, I'd be interested in hearing about them.]

I'm chairing a team that is looking into the informal learning spaces around campus.  So far, we've had three meetings.  The first was in a conference room in Paterno Library.  The second was in a tutoring/collaboration space in Wagner.  Today's meeting was on the second floor of Pollock.  I wanted these meetings to move around so the group could be immersed in the types of spaces that we're studying and talking about.  In each meeting, something new entered the conversation. 



The Paterno room had a projector with a wireless keyboard and mouse, so I could sit at the conference table and take notes where everyone could see.  This lead to conversations about other wireless devices, such as wireless projectors (which according to Mike Hofherr are about the same cost as wired ones).

The Wagner room had a mix of seating options: mobile tables and chairs, a bar-height table with stools, and four breakout rooms for more private group meetings.  This got us thinking about the importance of offering options within the same space and what we could do to further enhance that space, or use it for multiple purposes such as group presentation practice and podcast production.

The second floor of Pollock building is three areas in one: a large traditional computer lab, several group collaboration spaces, and the Digital Commons media production and editing areas.  Another thing that excited the group was the Whisper Booth, which looks like a phone booth with podcasting equipment inside.  Chris and Hannah showed us around and talked about how heavily their space is used and how space alone won't address the trend in demand for media production spaces. 

On the way out, Chris and I talked about moving the meetings around.  He said that because the meetings are moving around, each one the energy and excitement of convening a group for the first time.  I thought that was a really good observation and something that we should use for other types of meetings, especially if a project is stalled and needs some new ideas.  That's why retreats (if done right) can lead to fresh perspectives.  Familiar conference rooms can be too familiar when out-of-the-box thinking is required.

I like to jump in and try something new, figure things out as I go, and learn while doing.  However, when I sit down to write about it or debrief with a group of people who have gone through the same (or similar) experience, what I learn about that experience seems much more rich.  The process of reflective writing and debriefing helps me with synthesis -- putting everything together, pulling out trends, looking at related data (survey results, comments, etc...), and comparing it to what I had expected.  After that, the path ahead seems much clearer.

Today, a group of us had a debriefing session about the Digital Media Day during the Winterfest series of training events.  There were some weather issues that affected attendance, the sessions had too many topics in too long of a session, and the facilities weren't ideal.  So was it a failure?  Well, they were able to show some of our tools and services to about 20 people and during the debriefing.  But more important that that, the difficulty that the team experienced launched us into a very good discussion.  We started talking about some fundamental issues.  Is Winterfest a good time to reach faculty?  Under what conditions are we successful in working with faculty?  What do faculty want?

In other words, the way this event unfolded may help us by liberating us from the idea that Winterfest is a good way to reach faculty.  In contrast, we are having a lot of success when we work with faculty that we know in certain colleges (education, business, liberal arts) and bringing the training to them through brownbags, "training on demand", and college or department meetings.  In those cases, we tell them what they want to know, on their terms, and surrounded by their colleagues.  That means that two people in a department can have an informed conversation about using blogs in their courses since they both understand blogging from the same perspective.  That seems much better than a situation where a single person from a department has gone to a training session and needs to explain the basics before they can talk to others in their department about potential applications.

It's all about building a critical mass.  That's how culture changes.  So now that we are liberated, we can move forward with more targetted programs where we see faculty as our partners, not as students in a workshop.  I feel really good about reaching that conclusion.

Short post today because I'm on vacation (and according to my own rules, not required to post).  We're already through 1/4 of the one post a day blogging challenge.  I'm having fun with it.  I have found it easier to write every day than it was when I did the first challenge in August.  I guess I've found my voice.

Beyond that, I've found myself leaving a lot comments, especially on blog posts of people who are either new to the challenge or struggling with a too-strict interpretation of "the rules".  For example, Ryan, one of the students who is taking part in the Schreyer Honors College blogging project, was going to drop out because he made his post one night after midnight.  Erin Long and I both commented on his blog and encouraged him to keep going and to relax his own rules (or make different ones) if they worked better for him.

After all, the objective is to practice writing and leave behind the perfection paralysis that prevents so many of us from sharing what we are learning and what problems we face with people who may be able to benefit or lend a hand. 

A bit about Crucial Conversations, in case you haven't heard of that program.  Essentially, it's a model for how to discuss an emotionally-charged issue with someone and set the stage for collaboration.  I went to a two-day training program on Crucial Conversations earlier this week, and at the end, the trainer said (paraphrasing) "education doesn't work, you have to put what you've learned into practice". 

First, I disagree with this statement in that my idea of education includes putting what you have heard, seen, tried, discovered, etc... into practice.  But I don't want to get into an "I most of a PhD in education and you don't" argument with the guy -- the idea behind what he was saying is true.  You'll really learn the model once you try to put it into practice.

So that's what I did today (more or less).  I had a meeting with some people in our Classroom and Lab Computing group about redesigning their web site.  I started off by stating the fact that I knew about what we were supposed to accomplish and what resources we had to offer, verified those facts with the people in the room, asked for their input, established a common purpose, worked through the options, and came up with a list of actions. 

In other words:

• What do we know?
• What do we think?
• What do we want?
• What should we do?

Okay, so that isn't one of the CPR, CRIB, or STATE processes in Crucial Conversations, but it works for me and seemed to work for the people gathered in the room today.  Overall, it ended up being a very productive conversation and I think we're all on the same page.  After the meeting was over, I drove Audrey back to the office and we talked about Crucial Conversations.  She said that she would be interested in taking the training if she can.

This may not have been the best test of the Crucial Conversations process though.  The CLC guys are a pretty logical and agreeable group.  However, I did find that the CC process helped to clarify things early on and make it clear that we were going to be in this together as a team. 

In case you're wondering about the content of the meeting, we talked about the importance of a content management system, what we had available, what system would be the best fit for what they need to do (probably Plone), where they should host Plone if we go that route, and how to best answer some of their questions about hosting Plone and integrating it with their existing hardware and data-driven applications (IIS/ASP).

I was going to write something about the end of Crucial Conversations today, but I keep thinking about this really cool map that I saw that represents topics that were tweeted all over the country during the Superbowl, courtesy of the New York Times (click for the interactive version).


I've also been giving some thought to the tag cloud generator that Dave Stong has been playing around with called Wordle.  The image below is a tag cloud built from the RSS feed for the Schreyer Honors College blogging project:

I went to the first half of the Crucial Conversations training yesterday.  A lot of it is along the lines of the types of communication skills that I try to use when working with people, but it's good to take a step back and think it through.

One thing that stands out is what they call the "Sucker's Dilemma", where you are faced with making one of two unpleasant choices, such as "I can either confront him/her about his behavior and earn an enemy or I can let it go and suffer through more bad behavior".  The better solution is to see if you can find a third way -- so you can manage to change the behavior without making the person angry with you.  This sounds pretty familiar. 

In a few episodes of ETS Talk, we have talked about AND instead of OR.  In other words, we shouldn't ask whether we should help faculty through web sites OR hands-on assistance, we choose AND - do both because faculty are not homogeneous.  They need different kinds of help for different problems and want that help in different ways.  We don't distribute information through e-mail OR web sites OR briefing videos OR town hall meetings.  We choose AND -- all of them to ensure that we reach as many people as possible and each person more than once in different modes.  After all, the old marketing wisdom is that it takes seven exposures to an idea before people will "buy" it.  I think this is also tied to discussions of "Yes, and ..." where people not only agree to try an idea, but add their own unique spin on it to improve it. 

Getting back to the sucker's dilemma, I have also heard of this called the False Dichotomy (Andrew has a degree in Philosophy -- some of it rubbed off).  This is where a person tries to drive others down a path through a series of constructed bianary choices.  For example: "You're either with me or against me" (no room for debate, neutrality, caution, negotiation, etc...).  Another example could be the dichotomy set up between national security and humane treatment of prisoners.  In other words, you either support national security and torture people for information or you treat prisoners humanely and put the country at risk.  The third way: abolish torture AND improve the image of the country AND establish strong international alliances AND try to deal with the root causes.

So there you have it.  From my Crucial Conversations training to Obama's presidency.  It wasn't intentional, but you have to go where the reflective writing takes you during the one post a day challenge.

Today, I'm starting off one another one post a day challenge, which will last at least until the end of the month.  I originally participated in the August 2008 challenge issued by Cole, mostly as a way to get myself writing more spontaneously.  Overall, I found it to be a hectic, but rewarding exercise.  Hectic in that I did many of the posts around 11:00 at night, before going to bed.  Rewarding because it was a way to put my thoughts of the day into writing and then have a restful night's sleep. 

Since that time, I've found it easier to make blog posts here and on other sites that I manage without running into write-rewrite paralysis -- where you put down some thoughts that don't quite match what you're thinking, save it, come back to it later and revise, save, and then before you know it, the moment is gone and you never end up posting the final version.

I decided to do this again, mostly in reaction to all of the people who wanted to give it a try, but either dropped out early or never started to begin with.  Erin Long and I picked February, mostly because it was the shortest month of the year.  My "rules" for posting are based on Cole's (see his post about this challenge):

• At least one post on this blog, every work day in February -- so weekends and non-vacation days.  I'll be making the majority of posts on my own time, but I don't want the blog-writing to interfere with my weekend or vacation plans. 
  
• I can make more than one post here or additional posts on other sites, but those don't count toward anything.
• I'm not planning on missing a day, but if I do, then I plan to keep going with the challenge and I'll probably make up an extra post on the weekend.
• Posts have to be more substantial than "check this out [link]".  Links, videos, images, and other embedded objects are fine, but they need to have some original commentary.
• I am not planning on sticking to a theme beyond the intersection of education, technology, and culture.  So I won't be writing about my other obsessions (e.g. running and triathlons) unless they are relevant to something related to education technology.  I am planning on writing about the technologies that I'm exploring as part of a course I'm taking, but I'll be writing on other topics as well.
• As Cole mentions in his post, invitations are not required.  If you want to join in, then just start writing.  If you don't want to participate, don't.  If you want to start your own challenge or make your own rules, go ahead.  No one owns the Web.
• My tag on all my posts will be "one post a day".