Question 177 of 365: What is plan b?

Preparation is something I had to learn. While I have always planned, true preparation has always eluded me. I mean to say that the ability some people have for seeing the way things will work out before they do has never been my gift. I have to play my way through everything and push the boundaries in order to get at what is possible. I have to see which questions get asked and which conversations are essential before it all makes sense.

That is why when streaming three concurrent sessions at a conference with two video feeds and one audio feed each, I new that everything would eventually work out. I knew that there would be a plan b that I could put in place. I just didn’t know what that plan b was until I saw it.

Originally we were going to use rented powerful laptops, but we didn’t have the right converters for our video feed. Then we were going to use our Boinx TV mixer to give the pictures nice overlays, but our own laptops weren’t capable of handling all of the multimedia. We were going to have the audio pumped directly to the mixer but the Ustream broadcaster wasn’t having any of it. Ultimately, we had a great stream being pumped out with both the powerpoints and the live video. This is super nerdy and all, but I think that the plan b we came up with was exactly what we wanted in the first place, but it took us a few revisions to get there.

It was the process of finding the plan b that was actually most engaging to me. Knowing that things would work the first time is not interesting to me. It is only through troubleshooting and creating a new solution that I feel valuable. It is about the workaround and the new workflow that everything comes together and I truly learn something.

Which is why I am much more inclined to give my children and the other people that I work with a tool that isn’t specificially meant for the task at hand. Perhaps I don’t have the right one, but more likely I know that it is the process of figuring out just what the tool can do that will bring about the greatest change.

People say that the iPad isn’t a creation device. By making it into one, I am learning more than if I just accept that limitation.

Some say that blogging is dead. By figuring out how to make my writing alive and valuable to me, I am able to find it’s relevance.

The conventional wisdom is that boomers aren’t interested in a networked workplace (Personal Learning Networks and the like). The plan b is in figuring out where we can go from a place of resistance.

I don’t believe that we are ever done planning for the future, and that includes creating a perpetual plan B. I want to make sure that all of my actions are in the creation of the best possible option for what comes next.

We are not creating the first version of the future. Everything is a revision, a second and third and fourth attempt at getting things right. So long as we keep at it, I know that it will be everything that we need. It may not be what we hoped for, envisioned or prepared for. It will be what we deserve and what we work for. It will be our best plan b. I promise.

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Question 21 of 365: What is “wrong” with Widgets and App Stores?

There is a huge insurgence of applications that do a single thing and do it extremely well. They can be served up as a single embeddable object, a facebook app, or simply a standalone piece of software on the iPhone. Every one of them is attempting to find a niche of their own, attempting to carve out that special market that would allow them to be a necessity. And, according to the numbers of Apps downloaded or Mafia Wars games played, they are succeeding in exactly that.

The problem that I see, however, with this model of creation is that no one is trying to change the world anymore. It used to be that any new piece of software was trying to revolutionize the way in which we think about the technologies we use. Operating systems were designed to constantly introduce new ways of interacting with content and interfacing with information. Applications like word processors (and later blogs) helped to create an entire class of highly educated and highly published people. Video cameras revolutionized our ability to capture events and people. Recordable (and more importantly portable) music defines a society more fully than perhaps even its lawmakers might.

These technologies and applications shifted our understanding of what was possible. A widget cannot do this. An app generated for a single device cannot either. Now, some people might argue that live streaming from a cell phone via the Ustream.tv app is revolutionary in its own way. Or, that the Facebook connect widget is single-handedly simplifying our ability to login across the web, but these things are incremental, and some would say, inevitable steps forward.

That is why I have no problem with Google trying to digitize the world’s content or buying up power grids or competing with Microsoft directly for a collaborative office suite. They are literally trying to change the world with their products and policies. While they may make a Google Talk Gadget or a Google Maps Widget, their central goal is always in changing the ways in which we find information.

It really isn’t that Widgets or Apps aren’t useful. They really are quite good at helping us figure out which song is playing or to upload files to our cloud-based service. It is much more that they just can’t muster enough to reach for anything greater than that. When everything does one thing well, it may make for a very engaging overall experience, but those little innovations lack a greater purpose. That is why they are so expendable. That is why people can give up so easily any of the tools in the Web 2.0 graveyard.

So, what I would like to see from more Widget makers and App store developers is a reason why they believe that their idea will affect all others that come after them. I want products who are not limited by what is currently in development. I would like to see applications that do not deny that they have the ability to shift entire industries, that can cause teachers to change their methods, or that can lead people to think in new ways. I would hate to lose that, just because we have a way of monitizing the smallest increments of content now. I would hate to think that the era of “thinking big” is over just because everything that we use now is so small.

CAGT 2008: Technology and Community

Presentation (both live and PowerPoint):

Technology And Community

Audio Reflections:

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Topics and Links from the presentation:

1. Make the Community Visible
2. Make the Community Inclusive
3. Make the Community Public
4. Make the Community Always-On
5. Make the Community Lasting
6. Tending your community

Online Learning and Web 2.0: OL Teach 2008 (Secondary)

Online Learning and Web 2.0: OL Teach 2008 (Elementary)

The Ripe Environment for Authentic Learning: TIE 2008

The process of creating a Ripe Environment for Authentic Learning is one that must be experienced rather than explained, so it is my most sincere hope that you experience The Ripe Environment today and that you take ownership enough of it to take it with you when you leave today.

Let’s start with the basics, though: defining our terms.

Authentic Learning: Learning for a Real Purpose and with a Real Audience.

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6. It’s the Content, Stupid.

• That is why we use blogs to communicate, not because they are easy, not
  because they are more collaborative, it is simply because they let the
  content speak for itself. Without content you are nothing. Without
  great ideas there is no hope for the future. It is the content that
  matters, not the format. That is why we do blogs, to pull content up
  through the rss straw, roll it around in our mouth-like readers,
  tasting each smooth milkshake post and swallow it down, totally
  satisfying our desire to fill our bellies with content.

7. The Marks of Collaboration

• The Digital Literacy Toolbox (521 revisions at last count)

8. Independent and Interdependent Questioners

• Ask a question here.
• Create something new here:

9. Change Cannot be Institutionalized

• Edupunk heroes

10. The Most Powerful Learning

• The typewriter vs. the fully connected blog post.

Learning 2.0: The Colorado Conversation (The Reminder)

My anticipation is rising. The time is drawing near when Learning 2.0 will be here. I will not attempt to recreate Karl’s amazingly concise post (if you have read my blog for any length of time, you will know that brevity is not always my first priority).

The purpose of this post is just to keep the awareness at an all time high that things are happening in Colorado. We aren’t trying to be the EdTech mecca, just to have a unified (whatever that means) voice for change. Let’s see what happens.

“Just a reminder for those of you attending – either physically or virtually – that Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation is coming up this Saturday, February 23rd, from 9:00 am – 2:30 pm MST. If you registered, you should’ve received this email a few days ago with some updated information. And here’s the schedule for the day’s activities.

For those of you interested in attending virtually, we will be attempting to Ustream the seven sessions – channel info here.
Please keep in mind that our first priority is pulling off the physical
conference, so if the Ustream happens it will be a bonus, but we’re
going to give it a shot.

We have about 170 folks registered,
although I imagine a few will change their minds at the last minute.
The weather looks like it’s going to cooperate, everything is planned
out and we think (emphasis on think) we’ve thought of everything. It’s going to be interesting . . .”