Teachnology: Comments

Comment on "Organizations, Garlic, and Telling the Tale"

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:18:25 -0500

Excellent post. I'm sorry I missed the days of "The Garlic". It seems I was always missing out on the fun! I have two thoughts.

One, exploring your organization means you need to feel comfortable baring your soul and opening yourself up to constructive criticism, both as an individual and as an entire group. The Garlic and their blog are great example of how they have tried to invite honest conversation in a nonthreatening way.

Two, I would argue that we don't always have to hide our dirty laundry from our neighbors behind a protected space, depending upon how we choose to air it and the ground rules we establish. A little healthy dialog across departments and institutions may reveal that we have the same dysfunctions, and that we may be able to share some potential solutions (form a support network of sorts).

I've linked to some posts Bob Sutton has done on organizations admitting mistakes and Penelope Trunk's personal self-examination in my post here: http://www.personal.psu.edu/lnm105/blogs/cleartext/2008/05/collaborative-intelligence-or.html

- Nikki Massaro Kauffman

Comment on "Organizations, Garlic, and Telling the Tale"

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:34:24 -0500

Most excellent! I too would have love to have heard this session.

Though I'm curious, and you alluded to this in your closing paragraph, whether or not something like The Garlic had an reforming influence on the very issues that inspired it?

I love the questions you are asking Stevie - they couldnt be more relevant to the here and now. I've been trying to wrap my head around some very similar concepts of late. If indeed next weeks session will discuss some of the solutions, you can expect the international Stub of mystery to find his way into the crowd ;-)

- CHRIS STUBBS

Comment on "Organizations, Garlic, and Telling the Tale"

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:59:49 -0500

Oh--and the legal comment was sort of tongue-in-cheeck, given the whole "dominant narrative/shadow narrative" thing. But you're right. It doesn't work. I removed it. :)

- STEFANIE A ROCCO

Comment on "Organizations, Garlic, and Telling the Tale"

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:53:23 -0500

I think, Allan, that the Open Minds sessions are Outreach-only. But I'm not totally sure, so I will certainly inquire. I think it'd be awesome to have everyone interested come, even if there's a nominal fee for everyone that way.

- STEFANIE A ROCCO

Comment on "Organizations, Garlic, and Telling the Tale"

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:50:01 -0500

Hey Stevie. Brilliant and insightful post. It's a good perspective on office culture. "The Garlic" was hilarious and I'm glad that the higher-ups took it in the spirit that it was intended. On the other hand, it was born out of a stressful situation (more for you designers than us techies).

Another thought: I'm interested in your inclusion of the "legal notice" at the top.

I actually think that I would have enjoyed this session. Are the "Open Minds" sessions open? Or are they limited to Outreach? Is it something that would be of benefit to others?

- ALLAN SHAWN GYORKE

Comment on "The Culture of Teaching and Learning"

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:44:24 -0500

I have always liked Dr. Wesch's YouTube clips using his students (and studies) at KSU; these videos are quite thought provoking. The visual delivery seems to heighten the impact of his message.

This one is really pushing the idea of how the incoming students learn—and are we helping or hindering them? Definitely food for thought.

- rb smail

Comment on "The Culture of Teaching and Learning"

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:50:43 -0500

Hi Stevie,

I saw a guest post on Penelope Trunk's blog that puts me in mind of this video.

It's from an A-student Millennial blogger who observes that has decided the "real" value of an education is no longer about GPA, content, or rote memorization, but about social connections and experience.

Food for thought.

- Nikki Massaro Kauffman

Comment on "Tweet Meet "

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:45:34 -0500

I was just wondering how many tweet meet tags we could find online. So far there's Micala, Reginald, mine... I have a feeling that the Tweet Meet is here to stay, in various reoccurring formats. Anyway, very nice post; I keep seeing this theme over and over again around twitter and community.

- rb smail

Comment on "Tweet Meet "

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:22:37 -0500

Nice post Stevie. I continue to be amazed by the power this application has for me in my own backyard.

- Jeff Swain

Comment on ""Punch Meeting""

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:13:17 -0500

I've always been a fan of these. I always tell people that weekly meetings will get shorter as the project goes on (maybe 15 min or even zero if it's really smooth).

Pre-scheduled "punch" meetings are also much better than unscheduled emergency "pop-up" meetings. I think these are the most dreaded ones of all.

- ELIZABETH J PYATT

Comment on ""Punch Meeting""

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:04:14 -0500

Sounds like a take off on a "punch list" to me....THAT I've heard of. ;-)

- Cathy Holsing

Comment on ""Punch Meeting""

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:56:20 -0500

While we were at PSU, Mike, Dave, and I always thought that as English teachers we had a divine right to coin phrases and create new words at whim. I dont think you were at Zeno's when we arrived at the realization, but I thought it was more than appropriate to fill you in now.

- Jim Heiney

Comment on ""Punch Meeting""

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:41:37 -0500

I LOVE the idea of a punch meeting.

While I am by most definitions a Gen X not a Net Gen, I sympathize with my Net Gen counterparts in wondering if many meetings could be shortened and the longer collaborative meetings could not be in many cases replaced by collaborative technologies that permit us to reduce travel time and/or multitask.

I'm finding here in higher ed, we are so meeting-saturated that we spend more time talking about our projects than acting on them. I often have more meeting time on my calendar than desk time to accomplish the goals set at those meetings.

When left without a time-limit, agenda, "punch meeting", or standing meeting, we have all seen meetings where precious time by all was usurped by conversations that should have happened offline in a small subcommittee, by rehashing of issues that should have been long decided, or by sideline items that do not relate at all to the charge of the particular group presently meeting.

- Nikki Massaro Kauffman

Comment on ""Punch Meeting""

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:36:41 -0500

Thanks, Chris! You're right, of course--five minutes is definitely an awesome meeting length! For this project, we started with a full-day retreat and did the brainstorming and collaboration, and now the punch meetings are used just as you use them--to update status and do short bursts of production that need all of our heads.

- Stevie

Comment on ""Punch Meeting""

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 09:31:44 -0500

Given the title of this post, I was a little disappointed to find out that this was neither a meeting that served delicious punch, nor the promotion of some sort of Solutions Institute Fight Club. But I digress...

For one of the projects I work on, we have bi-weekly phone update meetings with one of the key stakeholders, and I have been extremely impressed by the fact that Brad Kozlek has been able to keep them to 5 minutes in length or less. An agenda is sent out ahead of time. We run through a list of current action items and where they are status wise, briefly discuss any other outstanding issues, and badda bing. Meeting adjourned. Its like meetings light - all the content, now with zero calories.

I think part of the trick, and what could be the catch depending on your situation Stevie, is that there is almost no collaboration or brainstorming going on at these meetings. Features and design were hashed out at the beginning of the project - the bi-weeklys are pure business. Does it work? Is it on schedule? Move along. For our project its necessary, but I know that collaboration is the linchpin of a lot of the great work that goes on at SI, so this concept may not apply. But I can say its turned meetings from a chore into ... a much smaller less time consuming chore =) After all, no one likes meetings.

Good luck with the punch!

- Chris Stubbs

Comment on "The World is Flat - Lessons for Distributed Learning"

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 14:39:54 -0500

Hi Stevie. One of the points Andrew Fairbanks made at his Outreach talk resonates with exactly what you are saying - that we need to stop duplicating services and focus on what we do best as individuals/teams/units. You can read more about his talk here.

(Thusly we are pointing at one another's blogs in a neverending loop.)

- Natalie Harp

Comment on ""In Plain English" Series for Web 2.0 Technologies"

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 09:33:00 -0500

Great link, Stevie. I can see use of this in our new orientation lesson as we move our courses into the Drupal environment. Thanks for posting!

- Beth

Comment on "Walk Scores"

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 10:03:26 -0500

Good thoughts. The Walk Score has some issues, for sure. As Anonymous mentions, the distances are as the crow flies. Hout's is listed as my nearest grocery, but I can't bike across the golf course to get there.

I think on the East Coast, there would be a correlation between walkable neighborhoods and income. On the other hand in San Antonio, the rich neighborhoods are the least walkable; everyone wants a ton of land, and the communities are gated (and thus retail can't develop near them).

I will say that something like the walk score would have been great when we were shopping for houses in SC from afar. Maybe not perfect info but it would give an indication of the differences between Park Forest and Holmes Foster, for example.

- gary

Comment on "Walk Scores"

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 09:53:40 -0500

Somehow I completely missed the "entering personal info" part of the commenting. That was me. ;-)

- Sarah

Comment on "Walk Scores"

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 09:50:16 -0500

I'd love to see a mashup, too. I'd be really interested to see some of that data considered together. Even closer in to State College, I only have a walk score of 17. It also appears to do distances as the crow flies, and trudging across a field isn't really an option. It also doesn't take into account the walkability of the routes - sidewalks and bike paths are not in abundance in my neck of the valley.