Interesting Wiki

Was at the office and ran across this new article about Wikileaks, a wiki website that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive corporate and government documents, while taking measures to preserve the anonymity and traceability of its contributors. Basically, it gives whistle-blowers everywhere a chance to bring their case to light without fear of reprisal.

Very interesting news, and the concept of the site is fascinating. Look here to read why it was recently ordered by a court to shutdown.

Back to work……

New Post on Personal Blog: Something Extra

Hey gang – there’s a new posting on my personal blog. This week’s entry deals with how simple Craigslist postings can turn into interesting stories, like how got a one-day gig as a movie extra over the weekend. Check it out here.

Podcasting Thoughts

The future potential of podcasting and vodcasting seem so limitless that I’m a bit ashamed to not have been more knowledgeable about their capabilities. I had heard of the concepts before, but apart from running into a podcast on a blog from time to time I had neglected to investigate how I myself could use this technology for my benefit.

In terms of an educational setting, podcasts are a huge benefit for students and faculty. Particularly for lecture style classes, it is a great resource for students who may have missed a class, or just feel that constant playback of a recorded lecture will help them retain the information more easily. This is a huge leap in also capturing the true intent of a lecture lesson as well; often when you take notes, you’re more concerned with quickly writing it all down than fully devoting your attention to what someone is saying, or to catching extra examples that may reinforce the subject matter. I know whenever I hear an instructor say “This won’t be on the test, but it will help you understand the lesson”, I tend to zone out or ignore what’s being said, almost always based on the fact that I’m simply tired of the effort it takes to manually take down notes to paper or laptop. Now with the ability to fully listen to such a lecture afterwards coupled with the mobility of an iPod, there’s a greater chance such “extra bits” will be absorbed. I imagine the cumulative effect of absorbing this extra information will be improved total comprehension of a subject, which has huge implications for the value we get out of schooling.

Though I confess that many of the reasons I missed class were far from admirable, it’s obvious this technology is a also very helpful for those who can’t regularly attend lessons, particularly the segment of student’s who are forced to work to help pay tuition. As the author notes with some of his questions, it will be interesting to see how podcasts contribute to the overall concept of “classes without a classroom.” I feel a huge part of the classroom experience is the back-and-forth dynamic debate that occurs between students and teachers, so replicating this experience in real-time seems difficult to envision, though it seems we are already approaching such a possibility.

On the lighter side of all of this, I can’t help but think that podcasting will lead to a rise in iPod induced injuries. Much like it’s been proven that talking on a cell phone impedes your ability to drive attentively, so I imagine listening to recorded content like lectures will lead to a higher chance you’ll lose your concentration and cause an accident. Although this could cause serious harm, I’m really hoping this grows extremely popular for the sole reason of one day seeing someone run smack into a street sign because they were so engrossed in their podcast.

Thoughts on the IMD past, and suggestions for its future

So far in the class I decently understand all of the concepts presented, and to a large degree grasp the importance of why I need to be more involved with my “self-directed” learning. It is very true that applications like Flash or Photoshop are very transient and that what is crucial is the ability to feel comfortable with the creative process, to have access to the latest knowledge of industry trends, and to have the personal drive necessary to actually make getting involved with an online community a regular process.

My current difficulties with really digging into those concepts were initially tough to describe, but I feel with some thought I have reached some conclusions about why I, personally, have not been able to experience the benefits of what is offered by blogs, RSS feeds, and the like.

Some of this is due to my schedule – with a full 12-hour course load, the assignments that accompany it, and a regular 9-5 job on the weekdays, I find the enthusiasm and energy I need to really explore the potential of online learning is greatly depleted. I feel this is a significant deterrent, because a big part of really drawing benefit from these resources involves seeing the process as a hobby rather than chore. Due to my schedule, I see any further demand on my time as the negative side of the coin – a chore. And when you view something as a chore rather than fun, your almost certainly bound to due the bare minimum needed to get it out of the way. In the case of “self-directed learning”, following this logic makes the entire exercise counter-productive because, again, it really seems like something that requires enthusiasm for it to be beneficial.

However, I think the ultimate root of the problem is elsewhere. My demanding schedule further aggravates my inability to dive into these classroom concepts, but the primary impediment is my lack of comfortable in any one online community I have so far investigated.

My decision to enroll in the Art Institute of Dallas is fairly recent, and is formed out of an ambiguous goal of finding a career that melds art, technology, and general marketing concepts. This means my desire to pursue an IM&WD degree isn’t a long standing passion of mine, nor due I have a great deal of previous involvement with the industry. And so, I feel I am greatly out of my element for the few blogs I have attempted to approach. Even basic elements within most IMD websites and blogs are foreign to me, so naturally trying to read postings in these sites makes me feel like a foreigner. Some examples of what I’m describing read: ”A new development in (x) has caused in uproar with (y) users, who feel it will generally restrict their ability to (z)”, or ”at this years (a) conference, the latest version of (b) was unveiled which seems to improve upon the (c) found in last year’s version”, and finally, “if you are looking to do (d) in (e) program, than simply export an (f) into a (g) and then run the (h) at (i) levels and you’ll finish with a (j)”. In all of these example, the letters represent a term you need to know in order to understand what’s going on, so knowing at best one or two of these renders you unable to extrude any benefit from the conversation whatsoever.

Of course, I could spend the time to search for some free online tutorials, definitions, and advice to help me learn all of what’s going on. But this process is rendered null by the hellish schedule I mentioned above and besides, I enrolled in AID for the very purpose of learning the basics.

As an overall solution to these obstacles, I’ve decided to search out other blog and community topics that will aid me in my IMD pursuits without being specific to IMD itself: such topics include strengthening the creative process, becoming a better writer, and keeping pace with the latest trends in the art industry. I have previous experience with all of these, and the interest to actually seek them out online. Hopefully, I can gain some of the success which has so far eluded me.

With this as a reference, my goals for the remainder of the IMD class are as follows:

1. Learn how to refine my blog search, somewhat like refining any “Google” search. Learning to tools and tips for rooting out the high quality, topic specific, and generally respected blogs that are above the thousands of other blogs on the same subject. Basically, finding the diamonds in the rough.

2. Further refinement of general blog tools. Example: I understand the concept of “back-tracking” links from a blog posting, but still don’t know the actual process for doing this. Another example is how to securely post images you create on your blog posting.

Although that list seems short, I do also have a general suggestion for the class. Because of the very little free time I have in my personal life because of everything that is going on, I wondered why we don’t actually spend class time reading an assigned article or researching a particular topic, posting comments on what we have found, and then responding to other people’s post. If we did this while in class, we could a) actually ask questions right then for problems we are having, on the spot b) ensure everyone is posting at the same time, right away, c) finish the first step in the process (initial posting on a topic) which would then leave the time until the next class to develop responses and cultivate back and forth discussions, which seems like the part that is most important for the success of understanding the entire process.

I apologize for the length of this posting, but I felt Mr. Batchelder warranted some explanation for why I, as an individual, haven’t been extremely proactive about expanding my “self-directed learning” thus far.

I also wanted to throw my two cents towards some of the other arguments for why some of the assignments haven’t been working, and it is thus: while there is some level of instruction you need to start blogging, I feel the direction in class has been enough to meet the bare requirement of posting on the assigned topics by Saturday night, and then providing well constructed comments on other people’s posts before the start of the next class. While there may be argument as to why we haven’t developed a community past this bare minimum of meeting assigned class work (which is what I’ve tried to cover in this posting), I’m a little irritated by people saying “It’s too difficult to do” as an explanation of why they aren’t, at the very least, doing class work. While I want to stress this isn’t directed to everyone, it is meant for some – grow up, stop whining, and do the freakin’ assigment.

My Blog: Keeping Busy

With full time school and full time work, it’s difficult to keep my life exciting. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my work, and though I have just started taking classes I find the subject matter to be interesting. But I am starting to notice that my repeated reply to friends asking “How have you been?” is “Busy”. And the absolute lack of subject matter outside of “busy” is something that troubles me.  

And so, I am committed to avoiding a life defined by desks. I have always tried to add elements of spontaneity and mild adventure to break up the tedious, sometime monotonous grind that currently dominates my time, and this will be the subject of my blog.  

Keep in mind, I will try to avoid writing about the simple ways I spend my free time. In some ways this can get monotonous as well: drinking at bars, seeing a movie, going to restaurants – these too can get very repetitive if you keep the status quo. No, I will try to avoid the most common avenues many people, including myself, turn to on the weekends and holidays.   

Simply put, this blog will try to be a reference for keeping things interesting, for mixing it up in unexpected and sometimes revealing ways, to step outside the boundaries of what could otherwise easily become a very busy, repetitive life in a very busy, repetitive city.

Communities of Practice

I chose to read the piece written by Etienne Wenger for this week’s look into learning within communities of practice.

I’ve had first hand experience with these “communities of practice” in my current full time job, most often during lunch breaks when a group is organized for an extended, sit-down type meal. They come from different departments within the company, such as sales, marketing, support, etc. As described in the article, a big part of what this community does for me personally is to create an image of the company we work for. We discuss our opinions of large, multi-department projects, as well as perceptions of our product and brand within our industry. I use this information to form an accurate picture of the company’s well being, because you get a much more truthful idea of morale in the office. Trying to gauge this during normal work hours and outside this “community of practice” is often difficult, since people tend to hide their frank opinions within the tricky politics of the office.

We also use these social gatherings as ways to learn about projects we may not normally have heard about, which itself often produces a discussion about how to improve overall communication within the office. In fact, I’m often startled by the efficiency ideas we produce during these lunch periods, since they are usually organized with the goal of escaping work for an hour.

I can certainly see the value in these groups, but I can see how tricky it is for companies to foster them. As mentioned in the article, if any manager were to ask us to reach benchmarks or incentive goals from the discussions within our community meetings, we would enjoy them far less and doubtfully produce the same enthusiastic insight we currently do. However, giving too much recognized space and time for such meetings has its risks, because you may just be encouraging people to do less work. I will admit that some of our lunch breaks revolve around topics that have absolutely no value to what I’m doing at the office. Navigating this line between encouraging communities of practice while ensuring they produce credible content is one of the more debatable aspects of the article, so it’s a question I’ll post to finish:

If you were a manager trying to gauge the effectiveness of a “community of practice”, what could you point to as an indicator of its success?

PLE Link Posting

Here’s the online piece I found concerning PLE’s, an article entitled The Present and Future of Personal Learning Environments

The article is very helpful in providing a definition for PLE’s, though the author admits that the concept is still open to interpretation. In particular, I found his explanation of PLEs as the intersection of Web 2.0 services, e-portfolios, and virtual learning environments (VLEs) as the single most valuable piece of reference in the writing.

The piece also does a great job in discussing the barriers to the expansion of PLEs. I find that most of the readings we have so far done in class seem to presume that success is inevitable for PLEs, and that the apparent usefullness of the concept is enough to make it popular. But Lubensky takes a keen look at the very real threats that exists for PLEs, and reasons why the idea might never reach full acceptance. I found his approach to be a refreshing, considering the sometimes utopian views that are spread about the future of PLEs.