Piloting you!

I had a lot of conversation today about pilot initiatives within a
larger institution. it seems as though in each project that I take
part in, there is reason enough to get a small group of (semi)
dedicated people together who will try something out and report back
on their success. Whether that is moodle, gmail, google sites, dimdim,
or ning; it seems as though there is never enough at stake to require
all users to jump on board initially. While this is good in a lot of
ways: less kicking and screaming, learning from mistakes with small
group is better, and less chance of falling flat on your face with
everyone watching. But, it is bad in many as well: no ensuring that
the pilot will go further, no urgency in rolling out to everyone, and
all pilots are basically representations of the person who creates
them.
 
This last point is what I would like to focus this post on. What I am
finding as I do more pilot initiatives is that I am trying to model
the pilot on my own practice and workflow. I am taking what I feel is
valuable and important and I am saying that others should feel the
same way. At the end of the day, I am piloting a larger and more
unwieldy version of me.
 
While it is flattering that others would want to help beta test me, I
am not totally sure how smart it is. I am not a typical user of almost
anything. I want to break things open and push them to do what I
envision, not what they were intended for. While I may have a good eye
for what others may need, I need people who aren’t using tools in such
ways to help design the pilots too.
 
I guess what I am trying to say is that I cannot pilot myself if I
want the pilot to actually do what it is supposed to: test whether or
not something will work for everyone. But, how do I ask those who are
less willing to try new things to become a part of a pilot. How do I
ensure that all voices are heard so that when things do go live, the
backlash from these users isn’t fierce enough to shut it down?
 
Easy question, right?

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

The glue has just become superglue.

As I have written before, I am more and more convinced that the glue that is holding together all of the small pieces of online learning has to be as flexible and universal as Moodle. While I wasn’t convinced that it had to be Moodle vs. something else, I am becoming more and more convinced that this is the right direction for the many connected and authentic learning experiences I expect to have in the future.

Today’s reason is that Moodle has an incredibly easy to impliment solution for synchronous events. As many schools and districts are looking around for synchronous tools to buy like Elluminate, Adobe Connect, iLink, and others, the unassuming little open source solution called DimDim quietly integrated with an LMS so seamlessly that you do not even have to set up accounts.

I was able to get this solution to work in literally ten minutes (and most of that time was just transfering the DimDim files over to the moodle folders). If you are interested in experimenting with having live sessions within your own moodle classrooms and 20 seats is enough for your purposes, this is a free and easy way of doing it:

Step 1: Download the moodle/dimdim integration package here.

Step 2: Follow the instructions for uploading  and configuring the files on moodle here.

Step 3: Set up your own meeting in a classroom or on the front page of your moodle, by simply inserting a new activity and then putting in the configuration of the meeting you would like to have. (As you can see below, you have a lot of options to turn on or off.)

Once everything is set up, you get a link to your webmeeting that looks like this:

I can’t even believe how easy it was to provide a synchronous tool to anyone who wants it, all without having to create accounts or adjust permissions.

While, this isn’t the killer app that does it all and it doesn’t make large class sizes any easier, the simple ability for any teacher at any time to set up their own learning events that can be recorded for later use is just one more reason why we need to be gluing everything that we can to Moodle and making the community better in the process.