Back in August 2005 I wrote this post about Educause’s fact sheet series. I’ve been trying to put together some fact sheets for a blended e-learning project and went back to Educause. Actually, I simply went back to my blog, searched and then re-read my old post with the links. Talk about easy knowledge management. Anyway, the series (actually called The Seven Things You Should Know about ___ series) has continued to grow with subjects like Creative Commons, You Tube, Facebook and others. Each has a tight focus that describes the tool and how it can be used in educational or learning settings. Highly recommended.
Archive for the ‘Tools’ Category
Revisiting the Educause Seven Things You Should Know Series
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007Better Ways to Communicate Enterprise 2.0…and the Changes Coming in Extension
Monday, March 12th, 2007Rod Boothby at Innovative Creation has a really salient post on communicating Enterprise 2.0. Mainly that we keep talking about what technology does versus the issues or problems that it can solve. Pretty obvious after Rod points it out. And a point that I keep finding myself guilty of falling into!! Here are some quotes from Rod:
“Big companies are slowly starting to adopt Enterprise 2.0 technology. But, selling technology isn’t the answer. And selling technology misses the point.”
And…..
“It is my belief that if you are trying to help people, you need to tell them what problems you are going to solve, and not necessarily how you are going to solve the problems.”
Good points, now I just need to follow Rod’s advice as I put together some of my Extension 2.0 pieces. One key way we are currently doing this is with an internal research project at OSU Extension. More about that program in a few months (We’re currently under IRB review and will distribute the instrument soon, but it’s a system wide census so I don’t want to introduce bias at this point).
I also recommend Rod’s 15 page white paper on Web Office. Here is Rod’s post that contains a link to the PDF of the white paper.
Audio Video on the Knowledge Economy
Monday, March 12th, 2007I just added a post to new blog at our OSU Extension Knowledge Economy Website. The site is still under construction, but we hope to have more blog postings soon. The post describes a power point presentation that serves as a good intro to the Knowledge Economy. The whole KE (Knowledge Economy) concept is pretty critical right now but is also hard to describe to people. Hence the neatness of the presentation.
2006 Presentation at Epsilon Sigma Phi on Technology and Distributed Teams
Tuesday, February 27th, 2007The power point slides for my November, 2006 National ESP presentation “Using Technology to Improve Communications and Develop Collaborative Teams in Geographically Distributed Extension Work Systems” is online at the National ESP website. Use this post and then cruise to the bottom of the page to the hyperlink that opens the graphics. It was a fun hour presentation with a very engaging crowd (here is one of the session photos).
The Time Cost of Maintaining Tech
Saturday, February 24th, 2007Kevin Kelly has a post on his Technium site that really got me thinking. Kevin discusses the additional cost of keeping technology and gadgets going after we have purchased them. Kevin calls this the “true cost of ownership”. I first breezed over the article a few days ago, then found myself bouncing back to it. I was subconsciously adding up how much time I’d been spending trying to get a new computer camera working with both AIM and Skype. Kevin estimates that for every $1 you spend on technology, you will spend a $1 of your time (defined as the cost of a tech person’s time) maintaining it. Kevin also shows some data that indicates that the percentage of time that is spent on maintaining software has almost doubled since the 70’s.
There are several important issues from this post for Extension to consider. Here are a few:
- Has the upkeep time came at the cost of other time? Or is it that we have saved time with the technology and that they increased time is really an investment? I think it is the later, but it still illustrates other needs. See below.
- Skills: What kind of continual training do Extension professionals need to keep up with maintaining and enhancing the technology. Just as important, what kind of training do we need in how to use the systems that we create by having the technology. For example, once I get my camera consistently working with Skype how can I better learn to use the system for various work efforts and increase my efficiency and effectiveness?
- Staffing: Who do we need to support us? What is the role of tech support? What additional skills do we need to look for as we hire educators. Can we share support across Extension systems?
- Equipment: What types of equipment and software do we need? If Web 2.0 platforms become a reality will it save us time? Are there standardizations across systems that we can use?
Some things to ponder and think about. It would be an interesting research project to actually track the economic impact and cost of our time.
Instant Messaging in Extension
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007Our office has incorporated IM into our operations over the last five years or so. This has occurred mainly due to the fact that we are using virtual and distributed office settings. So IM has primarily been an internal tool versus an external tool for us. We use it for our internal operations versus as a means to connect with clientele. Libraries seem to be using it more and more to be more accessible to their clientele. Here is a good post from Bibliotech’s archive about IM use with librarians. It’s from this more recent post that notes:
As of this Fall, 2006, our IM Reference stats at Butler University have surpassed our email Reference stats and are regularly more than half of the number of Reference questions we get by phone. And this is only the second academic year we’ve offered this service.
The first post provides a succinct overview of why libraries need to use IM to connect with their clientele. I’m really uncertain how well (if at all) Extension is using IM. Especially given the changing demographics and technology use of current youth. There appears to be a demand. Any ideas?
50 Business Blogs
Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006Lisa Haneberg at Manager Craft has a neat little post on 50 Business related blogs. The blogs are neat and cover several management areas like management and leadership, coaching and communication. What I find equally interesting is how the list was put together. It was compiled by asking a panel of speakers to provide nine blogs each. While to the panel was specifically addressing blogs, I think it would be an interesting question to pose to speakers at other meetings that Extension Professionals conduct. What if we asked each speaker to share one, two or three blogs that they read? I think that we might find that we are not reading that many blogs and missing out on additional sources of content. So, I’m going to start asking Extension Professionals I really respect to provide a blog or two that they read regularly. If they have none, then I’ll ask what online resources they are using. If they still have none it will be an interesting indicator.
Kids These Days…
Sunday, September 3rd, 2006
I mentioned earlier that Ryan Schmiesing and I are starting to work on a youth collaborative software project. This means that I’m doing spurts of research on the subject. One area of information that I’m collecting compares current youth generations to older adult generations. So I was really interested in this Business Week article about
Millennials serving as interns (found via Tom Peters’ blog). It’s an interview of an entrepreneur that hired summer interns and takes 3-4 minutes to read. The culture clash is interesting, and I still wonder how much of it is generational differences versus typical kids working for typical baby boomer adults. Two key differences that I do think are real: A generation that knows nothing of the cold war and that take multi-tasking as a way of life.
I’m especially interested in the group of youth called the Digital Native generation. This is the generation that grew up in a complete digital lifestyle and knows nothing different (I picked the term Digital Native up from Glen Hiemstra’s new book Turning the Future into Revenue. Glen credits Marc Prensky with coining the term – see this article by Marc. See also p. 15 of the Glen’s book for more information). Another interesting term is “Mypod generation”– from Myspace and iPod – two tools that almost every teenager understands. For more on what the newer digital savvy workers expect, see this article from the September 2006 issue of Optimize. What we need to understand is this is the only life that many of our youth have experienced. Hence our efforts to look at both Extension youth and adult programming to better understand how youth use social collaboration software. Extension can play a key role in helping both the youth (via understanding the pros/cons of social software, the consequences of what they post, understanding job and other life skills) and adults (to actually better understand tools like Myspace, how club and other advisors can use the tools, and how to work with mixed generations of co-workers and citizens).
Simple Ways to Incorporate Web 2.0 into Extension Programming
Tuesday, August 29th, 2006Kathleen Gilmore at the Otter Group has a post about a simple mix of Web 2.0 type tools that a teacher friend is using to help coordinate learning in her middle-school classroom. All of the tools are easy to use and could be incorporated into a number of Extension programs. For example:
- A 4-H club or event
- Any educational program that is ongoing and involves the need for sharing of information
- Various teams
- Program planning groups
I use basecamp and delicious fairly frequently. All of these can be accessed for free (Basecamp in limited format). Simple ways to use simple tools to connect and empower people. Extension professionals could find many ways to use these tools.
Blog + Wiki = Bliki
Saturday, May 13th, 2006I came across this interesting blog post from FutureWire on blikis. Blikis combine the functions of blogs and wikis. Here is the wikipedia post on blikis. I can see my non-tech interested friends shaking their heads at yet another fad or tool to know about. Some potential Extension uses? How about tech support blogs or program related blogs. Each could have several authors with permission to post and update. The FutureWire post has a link about getting started.