Educause 2009

While I’m a firm believer in doing things at a distance, some experiences are very rich when they are in-person.  Educause 2009 is just one of those experiences.  First, no where in Alaska will you have an opportunity to see and touch technology like the Educause vendor floor.  That alone is incredibly valuable.  To be able to walk from one vendor to the next comparing products, asking for demos on the spot.

Then, come the keynote speakers.  While watching a keynote on your computer screen doesn’t really feel any different from watching the keynote speaker on several large screens surrounded by 5000+ people, listening to people talking about the speaker in the hallways and at lunch does make quite a difference.

The sessions are always hit-and-miss.  Some of them are great and others, you wonder why they were accepted to present.  Some speakers use their hour to show slide after Powerpoint slide.  Others are so interesting that you wished they would continue into the next hour, with examples and ideas.

Of course, ultimately it comes down to the people.  Mingling and talking and questioning people from many different universities.  Hearing what experiences they have had and how they have solved the same problems that you face.   Walking around, living and breathing conference can be exhausting, but ultimately, if you return home with one or two nuggets that you can use, it is well worth it!

I’ll be posting those nuggets very soon.

Maximizing Productivity

Sitka Harbor at night

While I’m a 100% advocate of working at a distance, I have to say that occasional face-to-face meetings really have a way of crystalizing the discussion and maximizing productivity.  This past week we met with content experts from around the globe and after months of working via audio/web conferencing our prior work really came together.  I wonder how much longer it would have taken had we not had this opportunity to meet together?  Something about eating lunch together, working and taking walk breaks, it’s all about the side conversations and personalities mixing together in ways that are difficult to reproduce online.  So, now I’m a 70% advocate for distance, and a 30% advocate for hybrid occasional real time, face-to-face meet-ups.  Very nice change of pace.  Glad we were able to pull it off.

Meanwhile, to catch up, we had a busy week at ASTE too.  You can find the presentation materials that Maureen and I gave at a presession entitled Breaking Through the Web (2.0) of Confusion at http://aste2009.pbwiki.com/ There are notes, resources, and our PPT on this website and it links to last year’s ASTE 08 presentation that Tina (UAA) and I gave.  So enjoy both resource pages.

Just a reminder too, for those asking, my Personal Learning Environment Map is updated and found at:  http://www.mindmeister.com/9002694 Had a few people ask about that again lately, so I thought I’d link it again.

The picture to the right (sadly only taken on a cell phone) has a caption created by bubblesnaps.com Kind of fun!  Check it out.

Work-Arounds

Sometimes I think that far more valuable than knowing the correct solution, or the perfect answer to a question, the work-around is supreme.  Today it seems more important than ever to flex, move on past the problem and just find a workable solution to a glitch or oddity.  Software, browsers,  we’re standing on moving platforms and the answer the worked so perfectly yesterday just doesn’t always seem applicable.  Flexibility, and work-arounds seem to me to be the answer to this new paradigm.

Team Dynamics

Just read an interesting article by Suzy Thompson entitled “The 5 Habits of Highly Effective Project Teams” and I think she has gotten it pretty much right on.  Made me stop and ponder all the dysfunctional teams I’ve been on and which of the 5 ingredients listed below were missing.  Let’s take a look at each:

1.  Establish Structure and Discipline: Without some sense of the project, short term goals and objectives, people have a tendency to drift.  Worse than drifting is the feeling that the project or their individual part of the project, might not be important.  And, without a feeling of self-worth, it is difficult to feel compelled to produce quality.

2.  Act with Urgency: This is interesting.  I can remember many occasion when a team member and I have talked about the missing sense of urgency by managers or other team members.  Why is this important?  Sense of urgency is actually what puts people on the edge, makes them better, more creative and more willing to be innovative.  Sense of urgency means that the project and associated deadlines are actually important, and with importance comes the built-in desire to do your best.  Productivity increases when there is a sense of urgency.  Most people will tell you that they are more productive when their lives are really busy.  When they haven’t much to do, it takes twice as long to accomplish the same task as when you are busy and vibrant.

3.  Cultivate a Sense of Ownership: Without ownership, who cares when something goes wrong?  Without ownership, who cares if deadlines are not met or the end product is sloppy?  It is ownership which gives us pride in the project.  A very necessary ingredient.

4.  Lead: Project managers, and even team members, need to be able to take leadership stances.  This also means that they must know the difference between quality and junk.  Nothing is more demoralizing than when you work really hard but know that, your leader does not know the difference between producing something mediocre versus producing something of substance.  Hard to work for people who have no direction, no leadership skills, or are basically clueless.

5.  Be the Change You Want to See in the Project: Certainly leadership means a lot, but even if you are not the team leader, others will respect you and notice if your behavior is remarkable and your professionalism is evident.  You can really set the tone for the group by displaying and modeling excellent team habits.  Try it and see!

I think she is missing one important ingredient however.  Respect Fellow Team Members.  Finding strengths in all team members, and respecting each other for what each person brings to the project team is also very important.  I call this “not hogging the ball” as you dribble down the court.  One person sometimes can do it all, but the team will be richer for sharing your strengths and encouraging others to share and grow.  When each member has an important role that they feel competent and highly qualified to accomplish, the team really rocks!

So, an interesting article to stumble upon and I think, valuable to think about.

Personal Learning Environments

Okay, I’ve been asked to give a presentation at a conference on Web 2.0 and social networking tools and I’ve decided that the best way to do that is to talk about Personal Learning Environments.  The more I think about it, the more it makes sense, we learn in both formal and informal ways, we lurk over people’s shoulders and watch what they are doing and we learn from that too.  The web is providing us with all sorts of tools to enhance and foster this ‘informal’ learning.

Recently came across Ray’s Personal Learning Environment which I think really speaks to me.  Take a look!  Also found some good slide show presentations (some with audio) on this topic.  Graham Attwell, in particular, has created some very clear slides and shares these at Slideshare.net. You can see one of his presentations (and search for others) here: Personal Learning Environments.

Life after weddings?

the BIG event

Has it really been 3 weeks since my daughter got married? All that planning and commotion, anxiety and sleepless nights, confusion and happieness, and it’s over?? I’ve been joking that a wedding is like a colonoscopy, the prep is far worse than the actual event and after it’s over, you have a glow, but remember very little. It’s all a blur. But, life does go on!

Today I start my first post for Instructional Design, Sitka, (Palmer branch). It strikes me that just as my life is marked by actions “before” and “after” The Wedding, so too is my life changed by this new job– miles and miles away from the home office. For years I’ve preached my philosophy “teach from the beach” joking that as an instructor for students at a distance, I could live in Hawaii and teach students here in Alaska.  Now I’m working hundreds of miles from the UAS Sitka campus with people who understand that distances can be overcome by the use of technology and that people really do work in home offices. Hooray!!

I read an article, before gas prices doubled, that employers need to prepare for catastrophes (natural or manmade) where/when employees will not be able to make it to the office to work. The article stressed that our lives will be paralyzed if we don’t figure out how to communicate and work together at distances. Today, with the price of gas making it nearly impossible for some people to afford to commute to work, this becomes more than just a futuristic notion and more just plain common sense. At any rate, the UAS Instructional Design Team is giving it our best shot, working with each other and our clients both in person and using distance technologies. It’s a grand adventure and we’re off and running!

That said, at this blog you will find work related information, personal dribblings, fun stuff, and in general, hopefully, something of interest.