Planet Eduforge

George Siemens: Generations of mind mapping

gsiemens — 2008-07-04T03:28:08+00:00

Mind maps (and their next of kin, concept maps) are great tools to draw out ideas, demonstrate connections, and to brainstorm. The next generation of mind mapping - according this article - is a shift from "an organisation method to a collaboration tool." Mind/concept maps fit under the broad umbrella of visual thinking. Visual thinking is an intuitive, but not frequently referenced concept. Much of our thinking is done in images and yet much of our intact of information is textual. As the web moves from text to images to video, it will be interesting to see if visual thinking grows in popularity.

George Siemens: History of Mobile Phones

gsiemens — 2008-07-04T03:05:45+00:00

Teemu Arina provides a link to a video on the history of mobile phones. Scary thing is I remember each stage of development. The first mobile phone I ever held had a value of $2500 (I believe) and weighed just shy of ten pounds. Ah, but then came the days of Star Tac. I thought we had the hit pinnacle of technological advancement. At the time, I simply could not conceive how we could innovate beyond that stage. But that's because I was thinking that the main purpose of a mobile phone was to make calls. In early 2000, the mobile phone became less about calling others and more about sharing images, media, and music. Today, I look at the iPhone and have a similar sense of "well, that's that. We can't innovate past this". But, as Teemu states, "The future of mobile phones is perhaps… not a mobile phone at all, but rather a contextually aware and active mobile magic wand. It’s not about skins anymore. Not even about features, open source, multi-touch or iPhoney. It’s about who is going to make the device interact with your environment as well as capturing it in context."

Ray Schroeder: Characteristics of Adult Learners With Implications for Online Learning Design - Cercone, K., AACE Journal

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:46:38+00:00

The online educational environment is increasingly being used by adults and should be designed based on the needs of adult learners. This article discusses andragogy, an important adult learning theory, and reviews three other adult learning theories: self-directed learning, experiential learning, and transformational learning. During this discussion, the theories are examined for the ways in

Ray Schroeder: A Proposal for Ozone Science Podcasting in a Middle Science Classroom - Piecka, D., Studnicki, E. & Zuckerman-Parker, AACE Journal

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:46:36+00:00

The use of podcasting has grown exponentially. Research projects are racing to keep up with this growth to understand implications for learning and instruction. This project specifically attempts to understand if the use and development of podcasts by students for students influence learning in a 7th grade science classroom. Using a technology integration model, both science and computer teachers

Ray Schroeder: Formation of a Virtual Professional Learning Community in a Combined Local and Distance Doctoral Cohort - Lance Ford, Branch, & Moore, AACE Journal

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:46:33+00:00

A phenomenological study was conducted with a group of doctoral students preparing to be technology leaders. Students and faculty participated in weekend-intensive course work in which the faculty and some students attended classes on campus, and another group of students attended classes through distance technologies. Using some of these very same technologies, students and faculty members were

Ray Schroeder: A New Pathway for E-Learning: From Distribution to Collaboration and Competence in E-Learning - Ulf-Daniel Ehlers, AACE Journal

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:46:31+00:00

The article describes the current challenge for e-learning in higher education, which is to support development of competence. This poses great challenges to e-learning in higher education, mainly because the way it has been designed, in many cases, does not fit with supporting competence development. Rather, it facilitates the mere transfer of knowledge. Two different modes of e-learning

Ray Schroeder: Achieve Online offers online learning method for students to learn - Joy Bacon of the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:46:28+00:00

It uses a system in which a student's experience is tailored to learning needs and preferred styles. Whether it is an accelerated learning pace, a chance to make up credits, a crack at a new foreign language or the need for an education setting outside the traditional brick and mortar, an online education could be the ticket. Achieve Online now offers that opportunity to the Walla Walla Valley.

Ray Schroeder: Indiana Moves Toward Regulation for Online Learning "Virtual" Schools - Chief Learning Officer

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:46:25+00:00

States should develop clear guidelines and policies to allow virtual education to succeed and avoid possible litigation, according to a policy brief from the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at the Indiana University School of Education. The report, "Promises and Pitfalls of Virtual Education in the United States and Indiana," examines the emergence of virtual education as a potentially

Ray Schroeder: Online degrees pay-off in mountain towns - Matt Terrell, Vail Daily

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:46:23+00:00

Besides being able to set your own schedule, online learning has a special appeal to people living in mountain towns like Vail, where were separated by a two-hour drive from major state universities. Without the Internet, a masters degree could mean a long commute not an appealing prospect considering the high price of gas or giving up the job and moving to a new town

Ray Schroeder: Online Learning in the Webiverse: How Do You Grade a Conversation? - Trent Batson, Campus Technology

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:46:20+00:00

Academics have long talked of the "academic conversation." Now, Web 2.0 has called our bluff. We live in the midst of a non-stop world conversation. But, are conversational skills (in writing) important and, if so, how do we teach them? In a real-life conversation last week, a friend told me about a colleague who based all grades this past semester on his student's conversation in Blackboard.

Ray Schroeder: UMUC, Cal State agreement increases education options for soldiers - ANNE RILEY, Daily Record

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:46:17+00:00

Although it served nearly 90,000 students last year, with no football team, no basketball team and, well, no campus, the University of Maryland University College is often overshadowed by its more visible peer schools in the University System of Maryland. UMUC, an institution dedicated to what it calls distributed education or distance online learning, not only enrolls more students than any

Ray Schroeder: Online and blended learning strategies in partnership - UW-Green Bay

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:46:15+00:00

There is still time for place-bound working adults in Wisconsin's Northwoods to start taking classes this fall toward a bachelor's degree and doing it closer to home. The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and Nicolet College in Rhinelander have formed a partnership that makes bachelor's degrees more accessible for adult learners in Wisconsin's northern counties.... All courses offered by the

Ray Schroeder: WORLD WIDE WEB IS BULGING - Gernot Pehnelt, The Guardian

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:46:12+00:00

The ever-growing use of the Internet has raised fears of an exaflood. We must find ways to manage the flow, or the result will be chaos.... Some of the greatest universities in the world are also building courses and curricula for the purpose of distance online learning, so the smartest students in Dusseldorf or Bonn might have access to the greatest teachers and minds across the globe.

Ray Schroeder: Study Finds Men More Than Women Share Creative Work Online - Northwestern University

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:46:10+00:00

A Northwestern University study finds that men are more likely to share their creative work online than women despite the fact that women and men engage in creative activities at essentially equal rates. Because sharing information on the Internet today is a form of participating in public culture and contributing to public discourse, that tells us mens voices are being disproportionately heard

Ray Schroeder: Anthropology Professor, Now a YouTube Star, Says Web Video Can Help People Craft Their Identities Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:46:07+00:00

Michael Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, set out to study the culture of YouTube users, and he ended up becoming a video star in the process. He and his students have been lovingly documenting how people are using their Web cams to express themselves, and his short videos about the new ways the Web is connecting people have been viewed millions of

Ray Schroeder: Sun Microsystemss Virtual Online Learning Classroom Unites Global Learning Communities

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:46:04+00:00

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced the first demonstration of Project Wonderland, its open source virtual world platform for the education community. At the virtual event last week, members of the academic and IT communities explored secure and flexible virtual learning environments created by Boston College, the University of Essex, the University of Oregon and Saint Paul College, pioneer

Ray Schroeder: Rising Fuel Prices Prompt Students to Call for Greater Adoption of Online Learning Lecture Capture

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:46:02+00:00

With gas prices pushing past $4 per gallon, distance-education programs are seeing a boost in enrollment as more students are opting to view lectures online instead of driving to class. Students at over 600 colleges and universities use Mediasite by Sonic Foundry, Inc. to review their course material online anytime without leaving their home or office. Christopher Pargola, an electrical engineer

Ray Schroeder: More students study by online learning as gas prices soar - Dan Berrett, Pocono Record

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:45:59+00:00

These days, Christy LaBadie can stay home, go to class and save money on gas all at the same time. A sophomore majoring in medical administration at Northampton Community College, LaBadie is taking her first online distance learning class this summer. "The reason I did it is because of the current gas prices," LaBadie, 30, said recently. "For me to drive to Bethlehem or even Tannersville

Ray Schroeder: Research and Markets: In-depth Analysis of e-Learning

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:45:56+00:00

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "The E-Learning Handbook: Past Promises, Present Challenges" report to their offering. The e-Learning Handbook provides a critical reflection on the current state of e-learning with contributions from the world's foremost e-learning experts and best-selling authors from academe and industry.

Ray Schroeder: Online learning student venue said to be user-friendly - Stephen Sossamon, Oklahoma City CC Pioneer Oline

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:45:54+00:00

Students who once used WebCT as their online learning site were forced to learn a new system for summer classes. ANGEL has replaced WebCT, Student Computer Center supervisor Mike Reeves said. We started using it this summer, he said. We no longer use WebCT.

Ray Schroeder: Students finding ways to save gas - RACHEL CANELLI, Bucks County Courier Times

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:45:51+00:00

When it comes to saving money on gas this summer, commuter college students have two choices: hitch a ride or avoid the campus altogether.... If carpooling isn't enough for students, colleges across the state and nation continue to increase their online learning course choices. BCCC offers about 200 online classes 105 in the fall alone that range from accounting and literature to biology and

Ray Schroeder: British Computer Society launches Second Life e-learning group - Antony Savvas, Computer Weekly

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:45:48+00:00

The British Computer Society said the specialist group will hold regular meetings in Second Life and other virtual worlds. "E-learning provides a solution for those who cannot access colleges and schools," said the British Computer Society (BCS). "Employers are also embracing the technology that allows their employees to develop additional skills without leaving the workplace," it added.

Ray Schroeder: Students are driven to log on to classes: More college students are going to class via online learning - TMCnet

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:45:45+00:00

Cathryn Mann wanted to take a political science class this summer, but she didn't want to commute to Moorpark College several times a week. So, like thousands of students nationwide, she's taking the class online. "It's just not worth driving out there so much," said Mann, 19, who is living in Newbury Park this summer. "It's too far." Mann, a junior at CSU Channel Islands in Camarillo, has

Ray Schroeder: Gas prices affect online learning class enrollment - Katie Morse, News 10 Syracuse

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:45:43+00:00

Daniel Kiniry takes classes at Onondaga Community College almost every day, but he might not always be on-campus. OCC offers numerous online courses, which many students are starting to take advantage of because of high gas prices. "For me to drive here from home is about five dollars each way. Plus, it takes about a half an hour, so for me to take online classes, that's going to save me at least

Ray Schroeder: Chicago Fire Dept Partners with Online Learning University - Fire Chief

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:45:40+00:00

The Chicago Fire Department recently signed a partnership with one of the nations first completely online universities, Columbia Southern University. Chicago firefighters, their spouses and children will receive a 10% tuition discount and application fee waiver as a result of this partnership.

Ray Schroeder: Online university part of solution - Lori Van Rooijen, VP Athabasca University - Calgary Herald

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:45:37+00:00

In your editorial supporting Mount Royal College's bid for university status, you mention the 5,300 qualified Alberta students who were turned away from universities in 2006 because there was "no room for them." In fact, there is room for them at one of Alberta's four public degree-granting universities -- (online and distance education) Athabasca University, established by the province in 1970.

Ray Schroeder: Online learning available on iPhone

Ray — 2008-07-04T02:45:35+00:00

Software provider Mohive has announced that it is the first company in Europe to offer elearning on the Apple iPhone. Mohive CEO Lars Unneberg said: "The introduction of Apples' iPhone has dramatically boosted the potential for mobile learning in the markets we operate in. Traditional barriers to effective mobile learning, like low quality video or clunky, unpredictable interfaces have been

George Siemens: Many Eyes and data visualization

gsiemens — 2008-07-03T22:01:41+00:00

I love Many Eyes - a data visualization site. As a service, I have little doubt it has a bright future. We'll continue to hear more about visualization as we continue to be inundated with information. If you're new to how Many Eyes works, have a look at these short tutorials.

Seb Schmoller's Fortnightly Mailing: E-learning strategy for England - 2008 to 2014

sschmoller — 2008-07-03T18:26:03+00:00

Becta has just published Harnessing Technology: Next Generation Learning 2008-14, an overall cradle-to-grave e-learning strategy for English education. There are some depressing charts on page 27, which contrast how children say they prefer to learn:

with what they say happens most frequently in classrooms.

(The second chart looks to have a poorly edited title.)

Stephen Downes: Failures Lead to Success

2008-07-03T16:48:20+00:00

"I recall a staff developer once telling of a chemical company that would call all its employees out to the front lawn to surround a cannon whenever someone tried something new and failed. The boss would set off the cannon to celebrate that we are one step closer to success." Pete Reilly urges educators to create environments where it's safe and acceptable to make mistakes in a post republished from the Institute for Learning Centered Education. Good advice. In business I've learned much more from failure than success. -HJ Pete Reilly, Ed Tech Journeys, July 3, 2008 [Tags: none] [Link] [Comment]

Seb Schmoller's Fortnightly Mailing: Dylan Wiliam on formative e-assessment

sschmoller — 2008-07-03T15:31:16+00:00

I've focused on formative assessment in previous posts. I'm a member of the steering group for a short JISC-funded project about formative e-assessment run by the Institute of Education. The aim of the project is to "scope a vision for formative e-assessment". Here is a link to the PowerPoint slides of an introductory talk given by Dylan Wiliam [1.2 MB PPT] at the project's first "practical enquiry" day. (An MP3 file for the talk would be useful, and may be available soon.) The project is looking for a spectrum of case studies of "formative e-assessment in action". News page for the project.

Stephen Downes: Social Media Disasters (or How Not Having a Social Media Strategy Can Hurt)

2008-07-03T15:21:04+00:00

The power of social media is shown in the problem that a company can have when one negative piece of publicity get multiplied millions of times. Even though an allegation may not be true, or even if the company corrects the problem, the negative publicity can circulate for years. The rules of PR have changed, and companies may need to invest time and effort in the same social media channels as those who are circulating the negative publicity about them. For sure, ignoring the problem won't fix it. -GW Augie Ray, socialmediatoday, July 3, 2008 [Tags: none] [Link] [Comment]

Stephen Downes: Videogames In Libraries Increase Readership

2008-07-03T15:04:08+00:00

When the Internet first came together, way back in the 1980s (remember FidoNet, Usenet and Bitnet?), one of the most progressive groups in embracing the new technologies was librarians. Library bulletin boards were a good source of ideas and innovative practices. In the same spirit, the American Library Association is urging its members to install videogames in libraries nationwide, in order to attract hard to reach users. It seems to be working. -GW John Rice, Educational Games Research, July 3, 2008 [Tags: United States, Video] [Link] [Comment]

Stephen Downes: Making a Difference? The Effect of Teach for America On Student Performance in High School

2008-07-03T14:45:48+00:00

The Teach for America program uses top recruits top college graduates without formal teacher training to teach in poorly performing public schools. Even though these recruits are assigned to "the most demanding classrooms", their students do better than those from classrooms with fully trained teachers with three or more years of experience. What does this say about the efficacy of teacher training? -GW Zeyu Xu, Jane Hannaway, Colin Taylor, Urban Institute, July 3, 2008 [Tags: Schools, Experience] [Link] [Comment]

Stephen Downes: K12 Online - Do It Anyway!

2008-07-03T14:27:46+00:00

This short post begs the question of why do they accept and reject session proposals for an online conference? Good question. Sure, they need to invite a few keynotes or featured presentations or the like, but after that why not allow anyone with something to say the cyberspace to say it in. Seems to me that they could easily use a Digg-like rating system to direct people to the most popular contributions while allowing everyone to be a contributor. "This is one of the great things about being online where anyone can have a space and a voice." Yes, as long as we allow it and enable it. -BD Clarence Fisher, Remote Access, July 3, 2008 [Tags: none] [Link] [Comment]

Stephen Downes: Mortgage Crisis Project - How Do You Manage so Much Complexity? Ning!

2008-07-03T09:55:16+00:00

"How do we ourselves learn how to work in a more collaborative way? How do all of us learn the essence of Social Media?" These are Rob Paterson's questions as he works with KETC Public TV to create a place where people can learn about surviving the US sub-prime mortgage crisis. In an earlier post, Rob shows the barriers, "They don't know where the safe help is. They are surrounded by sharks waiting to feed off them. They are often frozen by shame and fear." This project is still in early development but is proceeding quickly. Finally we are seeing examples of social media being used for tangible social benefits. -HJ Robert Paterson, Robert Paterson's Weblog, July 3, 2008 [Tags: Video, Project Based Learning, Web Logs] [Link] [Comment]

Robin Good: MasterNewMedia Web Traffic Stats, Authority, Audience Metrics: June 2008

2008-07-03T09:30:29+00:00

Here the web traffic stats, page views and audience demographics of Master New Media (all editions) as collected during the month of June. Google has significantly decreased the amount of traffic that it is sending to Master New Media in the last two weeks. This has a significant impact on revenues as most of the ad-clickers do come from searches on Google. I am looking into optimizing the search engines crawling setup and checking the site structure for problems which may have affected this. MasterNewMedia compared head to head with some of its many competitors: Poynter.org, Scoble, Copyblogger, ProBlogger. Source data: Google Trends Showing publicly your web traffic data, audience demographics and your best content is a great way to show your authority, credibility and progress to all those that may be potentially interested: advertisers, sponsors, fans, competitors, potential partners. Since last month, every first week of each month, Master New Media, publishes all of his major web traffic, demographics and audience statistics as collected by the multiple services I use to gather accurate information about my online readers. If you would like to suggest additional stats to be included, or would like to recommend a specific analytics technology to add to my toolkit, feel free to utilize the comments section at the end of this monthly web traffic report. MasterNewMedia web traffic stats for June 2008: Here the details:

Master New Media Web Traffic And Audience Metrics: June 2008

Unique Visitors and Page Views

Total Visits on Master New Media: 518,685
Total Page Views on Master New Media: 755,491

MasterNewMedia International Editions - Breakdown

MasterNewMedia International - English Version:
- Unique visitors: 255,076
- Page Views: 366,194

MasterNewMedia Italian Version:
- Unique visitors: 125,992
- Page Views: 185,304

MasterNewMedia Latino Version:
- Unique visitors: 112,546
- Page Views: 172,071

MasterNewMedia Brazilian Version:
- Unique visitors: 25,071
- Page Views: 31,922

Source data:
Alexa measures the number of pages viewed by site visitors. Multiple page views of the same page made by the same user on the same day are counted only once. The page views per user numbers are the average numbers of unique pages viewed per user per day by the visitors to the site. Source data:

Ad Impressions and Clicks

Source data: Google ADSense

Demographics and Technographics

Audience Age

Audience Sex Source data:

Audience Languages Source data:

Popularity by Region
Source data:

Traffic by Platform Source data: Woopra - data relative to a smaller sample than total audience

Traffic by Browser Source data: Woopra - data relative to a smaller sample than total audience

Traffic Sources

Source data:

Most Viewed Content

Top 10 articles MasterNewMedia.org May 2008:

Source data:

Authority

Google PageRank Here below the Master New Media Pagerank calculated with PR Checker: PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. If you want learn more about Pagerank here are some relevant articles:

Alexa Rank: The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources, and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). Source data:
Technorati Authority Source data:

Link Popularity

Google Inbound Links

MasterNewMedia English: 3.440
MasterNewMedia Italian: 1.640
MasterNewMedia Latino: 869
MasterNewMedia Brazilian: 738

Yahoo! Inbound Links

MasterNewMedia English: 3.329
MasterNewMedia Italian: 620
MasterNewMedia Latino: 13

Citations, Mentions and Trackbacks

Source data: Source data:

Master New Media RSS Feed Stats

Source data:

Edited and prepared by Robin Good and Max Badolati for Master New Media and first published on July 3rd 2008 as "Master New Media Web Traffic and Audience Metrics: June 2008"

Eduforge Blogs

2008-07-02T22:36:03+00:00

EDUCAUSE Open Source Listings: Free and Open Source Options for Creating Database-Driven Subject Guides

ckeller — 2008-07-02T21:32:39+00:00

This article reviews available cost-effective options libraries have for updating and maintaining pathfinders such as subject guides and course pages. The paper discusses many of the available options, from the standpoint of a mid-sized academic library which is evaluating alternatives to static-HTML subject guides. Static HTML guides, while useful, have proven difficult and time-consuming to maintain. The article includes a discussion of open source database-driven solutions (such as SubjectsPlus, LibData, Research Guide, and Library Course Builder), Wikis, and social tagging sites like del.icio.us. This article discusses both the functionality and the relative strengths and weaknessess of each of these options.

Open Source | connect.educause.edu: Free and Open Source Options for Creating Database-Driven Subject Guides

ckeller — 2008-07-02T21:32:39+00:00

Stephen Downes: Telepresence in the Flesh

2008-07-02T20:19:03+00:00

Clive Shepard describes the experience of holding a meeting using a high-definition telepresence application, in this case, Cisco's Telepresence application. He says, "It's hard to convey how real this experience felt. We were talking to other Cisco employees in Paris and they might just as well have been in the room." A similar technology is the Halo Collaboration Studio by HP and Dreamworks. This is not cheap techology, but is the way of the future as travel becomes more expensive. -GW Clive Shepard, Clive on Learning, July 2, 2008 [Tags: Experience, Cisco] [Link] [Comment]

Stephen Downes: Proving the Potential of Virtual Worlds

2008-07-02T20:06:19+00:00

I was part of a panel in Second Life on Monday, and what struck me was how it took place in a virtual lecture hall, and one by one, we all went up to the podium, showed some slides, and lectured to an audience of avatars seated in virtual chairs. We know how to bore you in a classroom, and now we know how to bore you online. I agree with this post by Matt Rhodes that "Second Life isn't the future of life online." It is a land of early adopters who love the technology, but are mostly using it as an analogue of what they would do in Real Life. Matt points to a company called RocketOn that "turns the entire web into a virtual world where your avatar travels with you." Perhaps we are starting to break the mold of old approaches using the newest technologies. Bertrand Russell said that "people like to die by the latest method." He could have been talking about Second Life. -GW Matt Rhodes, Business and Games: the Blog, July 2, 2008 [Tags: Second Life] [Link] [Comment]

iterating toward openness: OpenEd 2008 Submission Deadline Extended til 7/4/2008

david — 2008-07-02T17:50:32+00:00

For those of you that contacted us about problems submitting by the June 30 deadline, we’ve extended the submission deadline until Friday, July 4th at midnight Mountain Daylight Time. Even if you emailed in an abstract and extended abstract, we still need you to submit your proposal via the website. We’ve re-enabled proposal submission; you’ll need to create an account before you can submit your proposal:

http://cosl.usu.edu/ocs/index.php/opened/opened2008/schedConf/cfp

We don’t anticipate extending the submission deadline beyond July 4 — so please submit your proposals right away! Many thanks… Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Stephen Downes: A Bit More Education Techno-Twaddle; Why I Avoid NECC, 2008 Edition

2008-07-02T17:39:09+00:00

Any time I see Techno-Twaddle in a post title I just have to read more. Here is a passionate alternate view of all the goodness that is NECC. Tabor explains why he isn't drawn to NECC and what parts he finds objectionable: "the sheer lack of intellectual diversity [a statement which will undoubtedly be criticized as inaccurate], the techno-fandom, the 100% Process/0% Content split will keep me away. If I wanted to sit on the floor with a notebook, I'd go to a Halo 3 LAN party." You don't want to miss the comments. Suffice it to say that the NECC attendees had plenty to say and Tabor responds to them all. -BD Matthew Tabor, Education for the Aughts, July 2, 2008 [Tags: Patents] [Link] [Comment]

Robin Good: GoToMeeting 4 Everyone: 100% Mac Compatibility Plus VoIP Keep The Screen-Sharing Crown At Citrix

Robin Good — 2008-07-02T17:19:59+00:00

Citrix has just released version 4 of GoToMeeting (and ver.2 of GoToWebinar) which adds to an already outstanding screen-sharing tool, full 100% Mac compatibility and integrated VoIP, among some other smaller new features. With this release GoToMeeting strengthens its position as a the leading and best performing screen-sharing technology I have seen so far while introducing two powerful additions that are hard to compete with. The new GoToMeeting release offers even more than one could have expected in this new version, which attempts to further streamline and simplify the already cool and slick interface while throwing in some heavy new features and improvements. I think you will like what I have to show. Here all the details:

GoToMeeting 4 - New Features

100% Mac Compatibility

The new GoToMeeting 4 is now 100% Mac-compatible, allowing Mac users to host a screen-sharing session or to receive presentation rights from a PC user. Not only. The new VoIP feature is also integrated in the Mac verson of GoToMeeting, allowing full voice over IP audio for both presenters and attendees also for them. The only major feature that hasn't made it yet to the Mac platform is the recording, but according to the Citrix GoToMeeting team this should see the light pretty soon in one of the upcoming minor upgrade releases.

Integrated VoIP

Probably too long-awaited to have the impact and the benefits that this was planned for, the addition of VoIP to GoToMeeting is probably the second most interesting feature in this new release. Being this the first release of the voice feature for Citrix, one cannot expect it to be perfect from day one. And in fact, if you have gotten yourself used to use Skype together with GoToMeeting (a perfect match) I do not think you are going to find the new integrated VoIP solution any better than the manual mashup you have used until now. The GoToMeeting VoIP facility works, but it is not as good, solid and reliable as what most everyone has come to expect from a VoIP call. Skype has long earned its crown in this area, and any competing effort will have to take very seriously into account that unless you offer something as good as or better than Skype, people will not bother using your newly added VoIP. As a matter of fact in my own initial tests of GoToMeeting 4, I have had to give up on using the native G2M VoIP facility and switch back to Skype which offered much better audio quality and performance. I would expect Citrix to refine and improve VoIP markedly in the coming weeks, but again my sensation is that this has been done too late and not with a killer solution. It is very difficult to switch user habits once they have settled on some tools that do efficiently what they need.

Additional New Features

Attendee Audio Controls and Advanced Audio Monitoring Much better attendee audio controls are now available making it possible for the host / presenter to easily identify among the attendees who is talking or making noise, and to as easily mute any or all attendees until desired.
One-click Recording G2M v.4, integrates like its previous version a full recording facility which is capable of memorizing both the visual sessions as well as the audio from your presentation. Recordings can be rendered either in the native GoToMeeting format, which can be replayed back in a GoToMeeting session as well as in the standard Windows Media Video file format.
Floating Control Panel The new GoToMeeting 4 sports a fully floating control panel which can now be easily moved to any position you want on the screen. As before, wherever you place the control panel the attendees to your presentation will not ever see it. It remains completely invisible to them.
JoinGoToMeeting.com A new site service from Citrix makes it also easier to log in into any G2M-based presentation. Just communicate the meeting code and send your contact to JoinGoToMeeting.com and the only thing they can do there is to input the meeting code you have just given them. With one click then they are in. Great idea to simplify the log in process. Bravo Citrix.
Edit Countries International However amazing it may sound, if you choose to utilize the powerful international teleconferencing service integrated into the new GoToMeeting 4, you can now specify for which countries you want teleconferencing support and the G2M system will provide you with dedicated toll numbers in those very countries you have selected. The countries supported for now beyond the US are: Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Canada, Belgium, Ireland, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

Learn More

GoToMeeting Product Overview
Watch a GoToMeeting product demonstration
FAQ
Technical fact sheet (PDF)
Sign-up for 30-day free trial
GoToMeeting v.3 Review by Robin Good

Summary Overview

Pros - Key Strengths

100% Mac and PC compatible
Integrated VoIP
Best screen-sharing performance in the market
Integrated audio and screen recording
International support (growing)
Integration with other tools such as Outlook and IMs
Live annotation and mark-up tools
More manageable and customizable interface

Cons - Areas for Improvement

New cosmetic changes to the interface do not provide tangible improvement. In some cases they may even infer some frustration as user brow accustomed to their tools and to the way they look and feel. If unwarranted changes even to the most cosmetic parts is introduced without a strong need, there will always be users who will like and others who will not because they already liked so much what they had before. Solution? Such improvements should be offered as an "option" in the Preferences setup of the tool and not as a forced upgrade.
VoIP. Too little too late. Two years ago was the right time to add VoIP to this tool. As of now, the addition of a mediocre VoIP solution, at least as seen from its initial performance, offers more something to talk about rather than something to talk through. People have gotten used to utilize Skype in conjunction with G2M, and made exception for those who can't use Skype for some reason, the rest will not find this addition worth abandoning their habitual solution.
Annotation and markup have remained the same. A major opportunity for gaining further market strength and to attack other uses and applications has gon unused. Live markup, collaborative tools are going to see a huge boost in demand and use and being on the cusp of innovation and usability on this front means being ahead of the game by a long step.

Editor's Comments

The new GoToMeeting 4 confirms its leadership as the best screen-sharing tool on the market. In My opinion, and after having tested hundreds of competitors remains unchanged: Citrix GoToMeeting has the best performance and screen-sharing quality you can find around. There are competitors who are easier to use, less expensive or more feature rich. But, if your main goal is to do a professional screen-sharing session with up to 25 attendees, I would not hesitate a second in recommending this tool. GoToMeeting ver. 4 has all of the basic features you may need to do a professional screen sharing session, including text chat, voice over IP, teleconferencing, invitations, recording and moderator tools. The user interface is the best in its class and outside of a few minor items it makes just about any task easy and intuitive to find. The addition of VoIP offers greater collaboration opportunities to those who do not have access to a phone line or who didn't want or like to use Skype or similar tools in tandem with G2M. Though the integrated VoIP technology in G2M isn't as good as Skype, it does provide a fallback solution for some users. The element which still offers the greatest opportunity for extending GoToMeeting competitive edge is the annotation and markup facility. This is an area that will see lots of growth in the near future across all of collaboration tools. I have been suggesting several improvements to the G2m markup tools in the past but only some have seen the light of the day so far. I am ready to bet that in the next version of GoToMeeting or in the next version of one of its key competitors you will see some major innovation which will provide a great incentive for new users to jump in. All in all, GoToMeeting consolidates its screen-sharing position as a leader offering a well-rounded, solid, reliable and highly performing tool for a reasonable price ($49/month for up to 15 users). If you have never tried GoToMeeting, I do suggest you give it a good try.

Originally written by Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on July 1st 2008 as "GoToMeeting 4 Everyone: 100% Mac Compatibility Plus VoIP Keep The Screen-Sharing Crown At Citrix"

Chuck Severance: In Paris doing some Code (SAK-13886)

Charles Severance — 2008-07-02T15:43:10+00:00

Well - there is a performance issue in the portal code in Sakai 2.5. There are more queries to the SAKAI_SITE_PROPERTY in Sakai 2.5 than in 2.4. In looking at things there were several instances of "too many queries" -...

George Siemens: Social Media Disasters

gsiemens — 2008-07-02T15:35:04+00:00

Open environments - or at minimum, environments where everyone potentially has a voice - function by different rules than closed environments. We've seen this in fields such as news, video, music, and journalism. We're also seeing it in the marketing and public relations fields. The fully pre-packed, centralized, company-shaped public image is now augmented by images posted to flickr and videos posted on YouTube. An organization no longer solely shapes its reputation. The myriad of bloggers, podcasters, youtubers, facebookers, and twitterers contribute significantly to reputation of a company. William Dutton calls this networked group the fifth estate: "Essentially, the Internet is enabling people to network with other individuals and with a vast range of information, services and technical resources. This is being achieved in ways that can support greater accountability not only in government and politics, but also in other sectors. I will argue that this could be as important – if not more so – to the 21st century as the Fourth Estate has been since the 18th. "
Social Media Disasters provides numerous examples of companies that have not yet succeeded in transitioning to participation in an open market of reputation creation.

George Siemens: Learning Environment Connector

gsiemens — 2008-07-02T15:20:36+00:00

Blackboard is taking a page out of Google's Android and Open Social textbooks in announcing Learning Environment Connector: "Imagine a world where students go to a single URL and connect to their course regardless of which course management system it is hosted on. Dashboards consolidate information for users from these many systems. Administrators easily access accounts and information across these systems; thus simplifying helpdesk operations. The Learning Environment Connector makes this world possible."
The approach of using openness as a competitive leverage point works for Google as they have the trust and respect of their users. Blackboards lawsuit antics over the last few years have significantly damaged its reputation in the eyes of users. Perhaps developers will be more forgiving.

Stephen Downes: Sakai and OpenSocial: A Different Approach to Distributed Learning Applications

2008-07-02T12:55:22+00:00

This is a guest post over at Michael Feldstein's e-Literate by Dr. Ian Boston for the On the Horizon series. "Web development is simple, there are 100s of 1000s of web developers out there developing applications using whatever works for them. If we, in delivering applications for education create barriers to entry that prevent that army of developers from engaging we will lose the benefit of the powerhouse that is represented by the open source development community." Accordingly, they have transformed the Sakai interface based on the OpenSocial API and adopted a different development strategy. "Underneath, it is Sakai, operating as a data server, but ontop it is Gadgets, Widgets and Ajax applications delivered in HTML. We call this SData, where many of the concepts are borrowed from GData and other Google API's." -BD Ian Boston, e-Literate, July 2, 2008 [Tags: Google, Open Source] [Link] [Comment]

Stephen Downes: I Freed Myself From E-Mail's Grip

2008-07-02T10:43:39+00:00

Luis Suarez, blogger, has had the report on his project on how to eliminate e-mail published in the NY Times. Having been up to my in-box with e-mail on a recent project, I can really relate to this worthwhile project. "THINK about whether my experience could work for you. Think about how to use social networking tools to eliminate spam and to avoid repeatedly answering the same question from many different people. These tools can also save you from an accumulation of online newsletters that never get read, and from those incessant project status reports that clutter many in-boxes." Eliminating e-mail may be the best way to get better social media adoption in an organisation, and now we can refer to IBM as an example. -HJ Luis Suarez, New York Times, July 2, 2008 [Tags: Newsletters, Books, Networks, Experience, Project Based Learning, Spam] [Link] [Comment]

Stephen Downes: Lead the Charge?

2008-07-02T10:04:51+00:00

Tony Karrer asks this month, "Should workplace learning professionals be leading the charge around these new work [technological] literacies?". I have to agree that it would be a good thing if more learning professionals become conversant with social media in particular. However, I doubt that real change in organisations will come from a group who normally don't run the show. Management and leadership staff have to accept the change, and that is where learning professionals can help, by informing and supporting those at the top. -HJ Tony Karrer, Learning Circuits Blog, July 2, 2008 [Tags: Online Learning, Leadership] [Link] [Comment]

Robin Good: The Future And What It Holds: Howard Rheingold Video Interview - Frontiers Of Interaction IV

Robin Good — 2008-07-02T09:23:35+00:00

I shot the video interview that follows for the Frontiers of Interaction conference which took place yesterday in Turin, Italy. Superbly organized by Leandro Agrò and Matteo Penzo, the sold out event brought together high prestige names like sci-fi writer and visionary Bruce Sterling, Elizabeth Churchill Principal Research Scientist di Yahoo, Jeffrey Schnapp, Nicolas Nova, Ashley Benigno as well as a selected cream of Italian visionaries and technologists (Luca Mascaro, Fabrizio Capobianco, David Orban and several more). The focus of my questions in this video interview with Howard Rheingold, was kindly suggested by the event organizer Leandro Agrò, and they focused on: a) the future of technology, b) the speed at which things change, c) who will eventually control the Internet, d) what we can do about it, and e) how pervasive technology will become in the next few years. The Frontiers of Interaction event was mostly in English with some Italian language sessions. You can watch good quality recordings of most of yesterday sessions on Dolmedia Frontiers of Interaction page. Here's the integral unedited Howard Rheingold video interview (18 mins) as well as the entire English text transcript.

Interview With Howard Rheingold

Frontiers of Interaction - Turin - July 1 2008
Full English Text Transcript

Intro

Robin Good: Hi everyone here is Robin Good from Rome, Italy and I'm connecting with Howard Rheingold just off San Francisco bay. Good morning Howard! Howard Rheingold: Good morning. RG: How are you doing today? Howard Rheingold: Excellent, it's a shiny, beautiful day, I'm alive, what more can you have?

Speed of Change

Robin Good: ...nothing really. We're here for the Frontiers of Interaction fourth edition that is taking place in Turin and we're offering the audience there the opportunity to reach out to Howard who's one of the pioneers of cooperation, collaboration and the evolution of the use of media technologies from computers to the more pervasive mobile technologies that we are using at most every corner now. So Howard has been following this evolution by living inside the evolution, by participating in communities online and by writing, studying and learning from others as much as he could so I've got a few question that I've stammed from the theme of the interaction event that is taking place in Turin, and the first one is just really to warm up, I don't know what you're going to answer to this but the question is: "How speed is really getting in this future? Is it getting ahead of us, is it difficult to keep up ace with it, I mean as we're trying to understand all that it changes it keeps changing faster. What reflections you have on this? Howard Rheingold: What's changing fast is the technology and the access to all kind of new media. We witnessed the fact that we are speaking through our computers, with computer cameras, on video...that's no big deal for a lot of people now. It was pretty miracolous maybe impossible, just a few years ago, it's just a huge proliferation of ways to communicate, devices...I think the big good news is what has been called the digital device really has been attacked by ... We have cheap powerful chips that, I think at last counter was between a three and a half billion and four billion mobile phones in the world and at least a hundred million of those are cameras. I think it's pretty clear that five years from now, ten years from now most people in the world will be carrying a device that will not only enable to speak on the telephone but access the Internet, to download and probably to upload and to stream video. So a lot of the dreams of yesteryear are now in people's pockets. I think the bad news, if you want to look at it that way, is that there are so many different ways to communicate. You've got forums, you've got Google groups or Yahoo groups, you got several different ways of communicating with video, you've got blogs, wikis, we've got Twitter, we've got instant messaging, we've got chat. now I think the divide is one of literacy, the device is not so much between the haves and the have-nots, in terms of having access to technology, but between the knows and the know-hows and the don't-know-hows. What you know and how you know, how to participate, and the on-going culture that's being created upon access to many to many media, that really makes the difference and I don't see our educational institutions or our parents keeping up with the pass of change. I think parents are afraid to talk to their children about making moral choices, thinking critically about what they see online because they fear ... their children no more than they do about the technology. At the same time we see this moral panics about what is happening online. Then I think it's a result of the larger society and a lot of mass media that communicate with that society. Also lagging behind their understanding of the media that are becoming available.

Who Will Control The Internet In The Future>?

Robin Good: Thank you Howard, very interesting answer. You opened up quite a bit of space and interesting themes there, but let me ask you: as far as the pervasive presence of the Internet, I have here a provoking question. Do you that given the first alerts of net neutrality or the big changes that are taking place in the world economy...I mean who do you think is going to be possibly ruling next if the Internet becomes more pervasive? Telcos, banks or actually more actual power to the people. I know that is an impossible question but it's a provocation. Howard Rheingold: Well you know I think people have various degrees of education where this Internet technology came from and where it's going, to at granted it was originally created by the US defense department but the Internet was not really created or nor was it grown by the telephone companies or the computer companies of the world. It was really created by millions of enthusiasts like you and I, who for the first time had access to what we call many-to-many technologies. It used to be said that freedom of the press is for those who can own a newspaper. For some years now anyone who has a desktop computer connected to the Internet and now, above of all connected to the Internet, they've got a printing press, a broadcasting station, a place where a community can have a marketplace, and you're seeing whole new industries created in dormitory rooms. It's no longer the big incombent rich companies that create innovation but although they really work clueless because I know because I went in and interviewed the major telephone companies of the world in 1992 when the Internet was beginning to show on the horizon. Not only were they clueless and contemptuous of making their tools available for millions of people, they are not clueless now, the incumbent content owners, the Disney of the world, the recording industry, the motion picture industry are reacting by extending copyright laws and by trying to ... copyright laws into devices. In the US we have the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which the US and other countries are trying to extend to the world, through the world of intellectual property organizations, which makes it very difficult for amateurs to make amateur production using these technologies because of the lock on ownership. You have companies like Disney who can take folk tales like Snowhite, appropiate them from the public domain, stamp an ownership copyright on it and then sue anybody else who tries to use what they've stolen in the first place. On the other hand we have companies that provide access to the Internet, the phone companies and the cable companies, trying to re-institute the centralized technical, economic and political control that they had before their centralized .... networks or democratized, net neutrality is the name for one of the ways that broadband providers are trying to make sure that you can't start a competing business in your dormitory room. In the future you'll sort of have to be a technology geek and a policy-maker to understand that these conflicts are taking place, but I think, if you look at what the cable companies in the US are trying to do in terms of controlling what bits pass their parts of the network, that's the net neutrality, if you look at what the authoritarian government of China is trying to do in making, I think that at last count was two hundred million in China with access to the Internet and they have everything that everybody else has: they got their social network, they got their instant messaging, they've got their video, a tremendous freedom to communicate just as long as you don't criticize the government so I see... And they're trying to do it at the same level by controlling the routers, the machines that pass the bits, they want to have sensors in those routers for political expressions, just as Comcast in the US wants to put sensors in those routers to prevent competing bits to move over their network so I believe that the future is not necessarily going to be as the freewheeling and creative as it is now. I think the good news is that millions of people have tasted freedom. They can make videos and upload them to YouTube, they can start a mailgroup anytime they want. I think that having a population that's tasted that freedom is going to be hard to put it back in the box when you got one phone company and three television channels and your only choice is which brand are you going to buy, not what are you going to create, what the millions of amateurs are going to pay attention to. I think it's important for people to understand that our freedom is not guaranteed in this ... What we know and what we do is going to count in the next few years.

People's Lobby

Robin Good: How we can best put to use what we know and what we can do to avoid seen a too a negative change in the media we love so much? Howard Rheingold: Well, at least in theory, democratic governments are influenced by public opinion. Public opinion to an elected political office holder means potential votes. Right now, the people they listen to are the lobbyists for the big companies who are spending a lot of money trying to win politically what they have lost through decentralization of technology. Politicians are not going to listen to the amateurs, the millions of people who use the Internet without anybody's permission about what they create. But. If we know what is at stake and we make known to our political leaders, if there is significant public opinion that we want to retain these freedoms, they have to listen to us, because they take those large sums of money from lobbyists so that they can get re-elected. But if they get the message from the voters that it doesn't matter what you spend we are not going to re-elect you if you cut our freedoms off, I think that will have some effect. I can't speak about the situation in China but in countries where we have some degree of public opinion that can influence policy-makers. Let policy-makers know. If you just go and search for the word net-neutrality you will find out about the battles that are going on. If you search under Digital Millenium Copyright Act you will find out what that means. There are organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation that are trying to organize. So it is not as if people are doing nothing. We need more people who are aware of these issues and to join their names in the effort: people's lobby.

Pervasive Technologies

Robin Good: When it comes to the pervasive Internet, this mobile net you have studied and followed so much, what are going to be the implications that we are going to see starting to appear, that we are not too aware of , that are coming against us at full speed and that you can anticipate to us. What is it going to be? Are there going to be sensors everywhere? Are we going to see machines inside social networks? What is going to happen? Howard Rheingold: I think that the next thing that is going to happen is that most people on earth are going to have a telephone with Internet access. Actually this is already happening. We have already 300 million phones in China alone. So the largest growth for mobile phones in the future is precisely for those people who have not had access to technology and to the latest in media before. So we are seeing in higher nations like China and India bring in their significant people power and brain power. This is why I think it is very important, given the global problems we have to solve about global warming and energy efficiency, environmental degradation, political conflict... we need all the minds that we can in on this. So I think it is very exciting... Iqbal Quadir who started the Grameen Phone in Bangladesh, which makes telephones available through the microloans that have been made available by the Grameen Bank to a woman with no other income in a village in Bangladesh. That not only enables her to begin economic development for herself and for her family but it gives access to information, labor information to everybody in that village. Quadir believes that access to information and communication an essential part of development. Sending money to people in the capital cities of developing countries just makes the problem worst. What we need is to enable the people in the villages, the people who are moving from an agricultural way of life, who are streaming into cities, give them access to healthcare information, give them access to education. One of the tremendous opportunities we have online, is that we have the world's knowledge available, decreasing costs on devices, decreasing prices to more and more people... Again I think that the critical uncertainty there is how are people going to know how to use the devices and the access to gain healthcare information, to get an education. This is why I think there are tremendous opportunities there and real challenges too. The other side of this is that we are living in a surveilled society. It is so easy to put a camera up everywhere. It is so easy to tap into that data streams of individuals not only follow your phone calls but everywhere you go on the Internet. Huge power not only for the states to have political control over citizens but for spammers, for people who simply want to sell you something. For your neighbour who may be angry at you. For your ex-spouse. For the person who you may have cut off in the traffic and got your license number. This panoptic surveillance society is not just a big brother is big everybody. It is important to note that with these tremendous opportunities to expand freedoms and wealth we also have tremendous threats to our privacy and to our political liberty. The technology alone is not going to guarantee an outcome one way or the other. We have a period of time here when all these technologies have become suddenly available. We have gone from only a few very wealthy people having gigantic mobile phones to 3.5 billion tiny mobile phones in a little over ten years. That has never happened before. Took a lot longer for alphabetic literacy, the telephone, the printing press to spread. Our institutions have not kept up with that. we are in a period where our institutions are trying to decide what to do: how to educate people; who is going to control these things; what freedoms do we have. I think it is exciting, because I am a believer that if enough humans know what's at stake they can influence the outcome. And there will be an outcome in ten or twenty years from now, you will know who controls these technologies and who does not have freedom and control.

Originally shot and recorded by Robin Good for Master New Media and Frontiers of Intercation IV and first published on July 2nd 2008 as "The Future And What It Holds: Howard Rheingold Interview - Frontiers Of Interaction IV"

Michael Feldstein: Sakai and OpenSocial: A Different Approach to Distributed Learning Applications

michael@mfeldstein.com (Michael Feldstein) — 2008-07-02T05:20:53+00:00

This is a guest post by Dr. Ian Boston for the On the Horizon series on distributed learning environments. Dr Boston holds a first degree in Engineering and a PhD in parallel computing. During the early 1990’s he parallelized grand challenge applications in science and engineering. After a frenetic period of multiple startups in Silicon Fen, as a founder, angel investor and board member he returned to the University of Cambridge to become CTO at CARET. The University of Cambridge joined the Sakai Project and over recent years has contributed greatly to its development. Ian was honored to be awarded one of the first Sakai Fellowships and speaks regularly at Opensource meetings in the US, Europe and Australia.

The online world has realized that connections and communications are capable of leveraging greater efficiencies and delivery than application silos. This movement started with the scaling requirements driven by the growth curves of the large internet startups like Amazon and Google. Strangely web technology has not changed much for 10 years but we have all started to realise that the web is a simple place where bytes on the wire is all that we are communicating.

Distributed web applications became possible in the late 1990’s, informed by the numerous parallel distributed applications in science and engineering. Although there are challenges in employing wide scale parallelism and distributed architectures, the discipline leads to loose coupling. The loose coupling allows development teams to communicate with one another through standards and interfaces, and allows the skills mix within those teams to compliment each other rather than being in conflict. The absolute key to success with this style of application and development is sophistication through simplicity; as there is plenty of complexity available to overwhelm all stakeholders.

These dreams are not just dreams, over the past 8 months we, at Cambridge, have been practicing this approach and seen the benefits.

(...)
Read the rest of Sakai and OpenSocial: A Different Approach to Distributed Learning Applications (523 words)

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FLOSSE Posse: Campus Party Colombia: Learning with New Media

2008-07-01T21:58:30+00:00

Last weekend I took part in at the Campus Party Colombia in Bogota. Campus Party is a combination of LAN-party, technology conference and a fair sponsored by Telefonica, the Spanish telecom.

Picture by mario_nel2002

I gave a talk about how to use New Media tools (blogs, wikis, micro-blogs, mobile phones) in learning and capacity building in self-organized and formal learning contexts.

When preparing my talk I asked from the organizers who will be in the audience. I didn???t get very good demographic profile. For some reason I assumed that the audience will be more general public and maybe educators. During the talk ??? actually a few minutes before ??? I realized that most people coming to the sessions were bloggers, hackers and other ???native digitals???. So I felt a bit stupid to explain these people what is Wikipedia (although I think many of them were not aware of the other projects of the Wikimedians). In my talk I could have been, however, more theoretical and spend less time on explaining what kind of tools there are for sharing links, websites (wikis), point of views (blogs), micro-content (micro-blogs), and learning environments.

The discussion following the talk and many discussions in the “campus” during the days were fruitful and interesting. Some observations.

Many people and cognitive tools in one place. The gatherings of people with their cognitive tools (computers) are really important. These are event, not only to share your (free) software, but also to strength social ties in a way that is never possible online. It is partly a matter of “bandwidth???”??? yes ??? but will we ever have the bandwidth existing in meetings in a real life? I doubt. The flexibility to formulate group saround some topic is also pretty unique in real-life events.

Role of media (and propaganda) in learning. The role of media in the development of Latin American societies has been discussed in many forums. I don???t want to get political with this topic, but can???t help to mention that if you want to watch news in English in Colombia it is very likely that the only free news channel offered with the satellite package is Fox New. E.g. they do not include BBC in the packages. I have lately spend a lot of time on thinking the role of mass media in education and coming up with a conclusion that more media, the better. If people can access all possible propaganda in the world, they will be confused about the contradictory messages and will find out about the topics themselves. So, if I would have a role in any national media policies, I would aim to provide one TV news channel that would rotate randomly all the different news channels. The channels in the rotation (with sub-titles) could be BBC World, CNN, Al Jazeera, CCTV, teleSUR, NDTV 24x7 and the local news channels in local languages. Actually, this kind of “world view news” could be an interesting website, one could use e.g. in TVs at schools and in media education. Who could write software that will take these satellite channels programming and make out of them a single stream?

Knowledge management in geographically distributed mega-organizations. In Campus Party I also met some people working for a huge organization with thousands of people around the world. These geographically distributed mega-organizations should be the once who will most benefit of the new media tools and applications. They will help people to share their work with their current colleagues, but also with their potential future colleagues. The matter is not only to have a cool “intranet”, but much more on designing and defining the social practices around it. Sharing documents is easy. Sharing knowledge is hard. Building knowledge is something we should aim to.

In our University back in Helsinki we have been building pretty neat tool, called Onni, for our organizational knowledge sharing and building. Onnis main building blocks are (1) people; (2) notes (with flat replies); (3) organizational taxonomy (schools, departments, projects, courses, etc); (4) interests (free folksonomy); and (5) groups (with notes and calendar). The official policy documents will be on a wiki so that anyone may edit them (and will hopefully also know who should and who should not edit them). Onni should be ready for public launch in September. Then we will have all the 2500 people in the system with their picture, profile, projects, interests and groups taking advantage of the system. Still the aim of Onni is not to replace all other tools used at the University. The research staff will still add their results to the official and public Research database, and e.g. study records, traveling and financial issues will be handled with other system. Important is that all the systems will work together. Information of the publications of each researchers will come with RSS to Onni, course information will come to Onni from the study record, etc.

Maybe in the Campus Party 2009 we could also have some kind of social networking site in the Onni way. All the participants could be in the system with their profiles, interests (folksonomy) and list of sessions they are planning to take part in. As the Campus Party is an event of several days some kind of ???centralized news channel??? could be useful, too ??? maybe a big screen with TV-kind of ???latest Campus party news??? every two hours (between the ???official??? news there could be the ???world view news??? rotation from satellite channels.

Thank you for all the people who made the Campus Party Colombia real: the Campuseros (people who were camping in the site), organizers, visitors, and sponsors. A special thanks from me goes to Carolina Botero, the boss of the blogs -track and Offray Luna, the coordinator of the Software Libre -track. Well done!

If you are interested in to see how it was in there, you may have a look of the Youtube channel or the Flickr -group.

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