Social Bookmarking

I confess, this was new to me. If you have heard of http://del.icio.us then you are (or were) ahead of me. So wutizzit?

First, let’s step back. What would you say is the biggest challenge in taking advantage of the world wide web? The amount of information now available to anyone with an internet connection is just unfathomable. Think about all those books in your house that you haven’t read. Think about all the books in your public library. Those are a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of the information available on the web. And every time some inspired person puts up a blog entry, there’s more. Some folks (like Google and Microsoft) are trying to basically put all human knowledge on the internet.

Yikes! So clearly the #1 challenge is to be able to find the information that will be of interest or of value to you. That’s why there are search engines, and why Google has a market cap equal to more money than there is in the galaxy. What you need for the web is a guide. But who knows what’s there and what’s good? The crazy people who stay up all night surfing the internet, that’s who. And your kids (if not in the previous group). And you, and your colleagues, and…everybody collectively.

It works like this – you find a website that is a good source of information or amusement or whatever, and you think your like-minded compatriots would or should find it interesting, so you register it on a social bookmarking site.

You want to find a web site on antique pocket watches. You Google it, but end up with all kinds of sites that are too commercial, or not what you want. So you go to del.icio.us and see what websites others recommend.

When you first go to the del.icio.us website you can see what others have bookmarked, but if you want to participate in the tagging, you have to install a small applet. When you do, it places two buttons into your browser, one to see your tags, and one to tag the current page:


There are other sites that do social bookmarking. One other example is http://myweb.yahoo.com. The Yahoo site lets you specify with whom you want to share your bookmarks.

Try it, it’s fun! And maybe even useful?

Blog, Blogger, Bloggest

Web Log. Say this three times fast, and you know where “blog” came from.

You’ve heard of blogs and bloggers, so here’s a quiz.

Blogs let you:
a) run off at the mouth about whatever you want
b) share information informally and get feedback
c) build a community of experts
d) all of the above

Yeah, it’s (d). You can blab ad infinitum into cyberspace, and technically the entire net world can read your rant – if they can find it, and find it interesting. But because it allows commentary, and because it’s easy to link to other pages and blogs, you can use a blog to get feedback and become part of a network of experts. That’s you, by the way.

Tony Karrer (http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/), at DevLearn 2007, made the interesting observation that writing a blog forces you to crystallize your own thinking, and to focus on what is interesting and relevant. Ok, I’ll try, I really will.

So, I could use a wiki to put information out there about Web 2.0, but in this case I’m using a blog. I’m not going to say a whole lot more about blogs, you’re reading one now, so you’re in the conversation. 30 seconds from now you could have your own: http://www.blogspot.com/. One suggestion: have something to say first…

Ride the Wiki-Wiki Bus

So I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume you are familiar with Wikipedia. If so, you know what a wiki can do. What you probably don’t know is what “wiki” means. Evidently it’s an Hawaiian word for “quick”, adopted by the inventor of the wiki, Ward Cunningham, when he rode the Wiki-Wiki bus in Hawaii.

Ok, so a wiki is a searchable database of information. How is that different from a help file? Well, for one thing it is web-based and so globally accessible and centrally maintainable. But the real beauty is that a wiki can be maintained by the user community. Gulp. Is this a good thing? Well if it’s not, then we’re in a heap of trouble because this is the direction that the online world is going, full steam ahead.

So consider this – what’s the biggest challenge to corporate training developers? I would say it’s getting content from the experts. To develop the “learning organization” you need to gather and distribute information. That’s pretty much all we do in education, in a sense. A wiki does both. The courseware developers are not the content experts, so they typically got to Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) for content. That’s great, but what if you could gather knowledge from everyone in the organization who has some expertise in some area? That’s what a wiki can do for you. Ok, don’t panic, you can lock it down so that users can’t contribute if you feel that is appropriate.

I heard a couple of speakers at DevLearn 2007 say that they are now using wikis instead of RoboHelp, and that companies are using wiki’s (behind a firewall) as a replacement for their intranets.

If you want to know more about wikis, here’s a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wiki. A wiki about wikis – what else?

For an interesting example of using a wiki in the education field, check out http://collaborativelearning.pbwiki.com/.

Your Very Own Wiki

Got 30 seconds to spare? Start your own wiki. You can do that for free at http://www.pbwiki.com/. It’s a miracle of the new economy. And, haha, yes you can set it up in 30 seconds but, if your wiki is something you are passionate about, you will soon find that it begins to consume every free moment…how do I know?

My Very Own Wiki

To see my own very first wiki, for Youth Orchestras (a special interest of mine), check out http://yomusic.pbwiki.com/. It's very new...I have not launched it to the YO community yet so it is just a shell...the content will come from the community. I plan to launch it this weekend!

Web 2.0 – A Primer

In case you missed Web 1.0, that is what we used to call the Internet – the world wide web, browsers, virtual classrooms, and the like. Now that we have Web 2.0, all that OLD stuff is Web 1.0. Kind of like WWI was not WWI until there was a WWII. I’m told that actually what’s really cutting edge is Web 3.0 but I have no idea what that is, so you’ll have to go to someone else’s blog for that.

If you want a lot more info on Web 2.0, you can visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0. You can also visit the blog of eLearning expert Tony Karrer of TechEmpower – http://eLearningTech.blogspot.com. Tony presented an excellent session on Web 2.0 at DevLearn 2007. My Web 2.0 blog entries will borrow a lot of information from Tony’s presentation, and in fact that was what inspired this blog in the first place.

So, if you want to be a hit at the next cocktail party … learn some good jokes. But if you want to impress your training department colleagues, here is what I can tell you about Web 2.0. First, the types of things we are talking about are:

• Wikis
• Blogs
• Social networks
• Social bookmarking
• User rating systems
• RSS Feeds / Subscriptions

I will do some separate posts on these topics for those who want a primer from the point of view of someone who is new to this technology. “Beginner’s mind,” we call it. Every good educator is able to look at things from the point of view of someone who knows nothing about it. “Students” we call them.

The Keynoters at DevLearn 2007

Sounds like a barbershop quartet. Here are some highlights from the 3 keynote speakers at DevLearn 2007.

Keynote #1 – Sir Ken Robinson

As he did happen to mention, Sir Ken is the author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative. He made the point that “technology” is not “technology” if it happened before you were born. Those who are under age 25 are “digital natives,” born into the world of computers and the internet. Those who are over 25 (or in my case, over 25 twice), are “digital immigrants.” The new learners have a whole different way of working and learning that we have to understand in order to reach them and teach them effectively.

Another interesting point he made was that a corporation is more like an organism than a mechanism. The mindset of Industrialism treats human activity like a mechanism; standardized testing is an example of this approach, which is limited. The better analogy for corporations and people is climate change: like farming, if you create the right conditions for growth, things will happen automatically and spontaneously. His analogy was the year it rained in Death Valley; this apparently barren desert actually sprang to life with all kinds of plant life when it got watered. The seeds were there all along, just waiting for the right conditions. Get it?

Keynote #2 – Paul Saffo

All media was once about listen, watch, consume. The new media is about participate and create. Did you ever stop to consider that when you use Google, it is not a one-way street where THEY give YOU information? YOU also give THEM a search string, which has value in that it shows what someone is interested in – which is of interest to advertisers.

One of his key points was, “Learn to love uncertainty, don’t fear change.” Instead, figure out how to embrace the change and have fun with it.

One example of the new media landscape that he mentioned was http://www.thisspartanlife.com/ – a talk show that takes place inside the online game Halo. Sounds like change to me. You can visit the site yourself, but I will just share this description:

Damian Lacedaemion is not your average talk show host.

He lives inside an online game where daily existence is a struggle against overwhelming odds (and other, much better players.) So he has taken it upon himself to create a little oasis of sanity where he can talk to people who aren't bent on his destruction. He invites guests to join him in a live game where they can walk about and discuss some of the finer aspects of life, music, art, sex, movies and yes, even games.

But he is finding it easier said than done. When other gamers join the game and don't know they shouldn't be shooting at his guests, Damian is sadly forced to revert to his old lethal self and clear the map of these brutes with their curt utterances and barbaric tactics.

But once the fighting is done and the guests are blue in the face, the fine Solid Gold Elite Dancers are there to shake their avatars to the latest chiptune music.

As they used to say in the comics, ‘nuff said.

Keynote #3 – Frans Johannsen

He’s the author of The Medici Effect. Looks kind of like Barack Obama, with the same kind of multi-cultural roots (a black Swede?). I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version. If you cross-fertilize across disciplines, as the ruling Medici’s did by bringing creative people from around the globe together in Italy during the Renaissance, you can get breakthrough results that you otherwise wouldn’t get. Innovation, says FJ, comes from the intersection of ideas, cultures, and industries.

Point: you have to be willing to FAIL. Not taking risk is risky. Prepare to make mistakes.

Point: Reward output, punish inaction. There is a correlation, he says, between the number of ideas produced and the number of GOOD actionable ideas.
Point: So, leverage your existing diversity, as well as bringing in ideas from the outside.

Point: The management challenge is to get diverse teams to be productive quickly.

Read The Medici Effect if you want more.

He was a dynamic and entertaining speaker. His presentation style alone was worth noting. He had a Powerpoint, yes, but averaged about two words per slide. Had one basic point to make, and everything supported the point, and he used liberal doses of humor.

What else was there at DevLearn?

I am going to do some separate posts about the exciting stuff I learned there.

What I Learned at DevLearn 2007

Wow, if you are in Training and Development, I’m here to tell you that this field is more exciting now that it has been in the 29 years I’ve been around it. Which, ok, is not saying much, since generally it has been about as exciting as your dining room furniture. But now we get to play with really cool stuff, and that’s what I want to talk about in this blog. Time to have fun people! And more importantly, to engage today’s learner and tomorrow’s learner.

Dude, What’s a DevLearn?

If you’re in the T&D field, and anyone asks, just pretend that you already know about the eLearning Guild and their annual conference, this year being DevLearn 2007. The Guild defines eLearning as “all educational or instructional content that is distributed using web-based technologies,” and exists as a community to further knowledge and practice in eLearning. If you have been laying awake nights wondering, “Where do the best brains in cutting edge training technology meet?”, then you may need to change your medication, but one good answer would be, at DevLearn.

One huge theme at DevLearn this year was collaborative learning and Web 2.0, which I will define later, but the idea being that knowledge should be shared. So, I’m sharing what I learned at DevLearn. At any given time there were generally 14 sessions going on, and since you could only attend one, you could only take in 7% of what was there. Soooo ... my posts will represent only one window into the whole thing, and I’m only presenting selected highlights of what I learned, since your attention span is probably already getting taxed. I’ll post stuff by topic so that it is easier to navigate and find things.

Welcome to The eLearning Buzz!

This is it, the first post on The eLearning Buzz. I was inspired to start this blog about eLearning after attending the DevLearn Conference in San Jose this week, sponsored by the eLearning Guild. There are other blogs and websites on eLearning that are more sophisticated than this one, and I will be providing links to those. But I wanted to start this one as a way to communicate with colleagues who are perhaps new to eLearning, or at least new to "Web 2.0" technologies like blogs, wikis, and the like. After all, that's what Web 2.0 is about -- sharing the knowledge!

Like the internet in general, the new web-enabled learning technologies -- eLearning -- are changing our world, and hold enormous potential for human development and community. So this blog is an exploration that we can undertake together into these waters, charted and uncharted. I'm not the world's leading authority on eLearning, but I am interested in what works. Like many of us, I'm learning as I go. I'll share what I know, and I hope you'll do the same.

So please do visit from time to time to see what's new, give feedback, and share your own thoughts and ideas.

All the best,

Jeff Yoder