CogBlogged Tagged ‘nmc’

New business cards are ordered… I have a new title on my role at NMC as “Vice President, Community & CTO” reflecting a constructive look at work I’ve been doing in the last 13 months and where NMC is going in the future. For now, I’m doing the same stuff and cashing the same check, but a new title feels good. I like the emphasis where my interest lies- in supporting, maintaining, nudging our various online (and F2F) communities. My colleague Rachel and I have had some laughs about our families at home having to ask us, “Can the Vice President wash the dishes now / empty the trash / pick up the dog poop in the back yard / …. ?” Sorry, gotta run. Dick Cheney is IM-ing about our hunting trip next weekend ;-)

Doh! Sound of blog remorse! In writing about the CNI Horizon Project presentation, I was remiss in leaving out one of the coolest discoveries — that Vicki Davis (coolcatteacher in georgia) and 4 other secondary school teachers in Austria, Bangladesh, China, and Australia are doing another fabulous Flat Classroom project — and this one they are having the student groups research and write about the future of education, technology, and society using as a framework the 2007 Horizon Report. Check it out at http://horizonproject.wikispaces.com/ It’s just getting started this week, but we’re very excited to see this unfold. They are using WikiSpaces, blogs, RSS, del.icio.us, Ning, grazr, twitter… and more to work on their projects. And as a P.S. — the way I found this project was via a link in Vicki’s twitter stream … so that is one of several Positives Outcomes From Twiiter just in the last 2 [...]

Yesterday was a eventful day at the CNI Spring Task Force Meeting. My travel arrangements for this conference were pretty tricky — I got in my truck and drove 20 miles downtown to Phoenix. No lost luggage. This was my first ever attendance at a CNI conference; a different flavor of colleagues, so I got to meet a lot of new folks in the library and information architecture fields. My hats off to Clifford Lynch and colleagues who arrange a program that is interesting, not dense with too many sessions, and leaves room for the critical hallway meetings. And there is the touch of Cliff’s Roadmap, which provides a wonderful context for the 2 day meeting. A highlight was getting to co-present with co-conspirators Bryan Alexander and Cyprien Lomas. We did a session on the NMC’s Horizon Report, of which they were both involved as advisory board members, What’s in [...]

Hey, I just finished my 2006 summer project! When I joined NMC, I projected having a public version of a new web site ready by September. I lied. Or grossly underestimated. Or lied. But this morning we flipped the switch and lit up the tree. I could blog about all details of this process (and should have) but that might take me another year. And I’d rather get some work done. But in a snapshot, and some more bits to be written up in subsequent days/weeks/months/whenever… The project was taking a pure static, 1999 vintage site, with is clear gif spacers, tables, but basic style sheets to something “2.0″ish. The old site was quite consistent in design, a credit to the non web developer staff who carried out the design for the last 5 years by replication. But it suffered from the pigeon holes of its fixed navigation set, had [...]

I’ve had a few days rest from the 2 day marathon of our NMC Online Conference on Convergence of Web Culture and Video — which had some phenomenal moments but also are leading me to some un-answered ponderings about these kids of events. Participation. First of all, I attended every session, but that’s because I am working it. I have some serious doubts about the ability for those who participate in an online conference from their workplace being really able to focus on the sessions completely. It’s not like being physically ‘trapped’ in a distance city- so the call of email, colleagues, meetings, projects, NCAA brackets, all compete for attention. Then again, should an online conference assume all are really fully present? Mode. Next, like most F2F conferences, the primary mode of activity is the “expert” led presentation session. One person talking and showing screens, and a room, group “consuming” [...]

We’re less than 2 days out from the NMC Spring 2007 Online Conference on the Convergence of Web Culture and Video, and an awesome array of sessions ins lining up quite nicely. Registration is still open and it gives you at least 60 days post conference access to all materials and archived Elluminate sessions. Yes, you can browse the program, but as a public service, I have compressed all the main words of all the sessions into this Session Title MashDown: Webvideo Politics Web 2.0 Online Learning Film Festival How Video Podcasting Changed My Teaching Life We’re Getting Cinema Studies Production Culture Gaming Learning Web Early 2007 Evocative Spaces Aesthetic Grabs Mediating Dubai Making Memorable Machinima NINA More Less Virtual Exhibitionism Leisure Suit 21st Century You YouTube Singular Plural Creative Expression Collaborative networks Future Learning Beyond Podcasts Contextualizing Media iPod Digital Video Common Good Ideas Help Find Material Want Video [...]

Disclaimer: I work for NMC… We are running our Spring NMC Online Conference with a theme that originally floated through the 2007 Horizon Report, what at one time we were calling “The Small Video”. Just in the last few months, I’ve been tracking how much more prevalent the use of video has become as a media form in the blogs I read, witness the viralness of the Web 2.0 video that has bounced around. Some of it may be the technology, the ability to upload, store, share video in accessible format, but on an optimist side, I see more happening on the creative end, so that more individuals are making worthy, compelling short videos, and sharing/tagging them. While there are still scads of really bad stuff, I am also seeing more than the easy to snicker at genre of diet coke and menthos flicks. And just there in the sidelines, [...]

Last week was long, I am sure there were 16 days crammed into it. This included flying to Atlanta for the EDUCAUSE/ELI conference, presenting twice on Monday, exiting early Tuesday to hop a flight to Dallas, and being part of a trio running a 3 day workshop. After a late Friday night arrival at home, I am fairly sure my wife stacked me in the back of the pickup truck with the rest of our gear for a weekend escape to our cabin. The computer was not touched until late Sunday. That’s a roundabout way of saying I was not blogging. Well, I had something itching to blog, then I deleted, then I itched, then I shut the lid on the computer. Sometimes it benefits to let an idea sit and ferment, or die of neglect. We’ll see which is the advisable course. This has to do with some reaction [...]

I’ve already blogged a summary of our NMC Second Life presentation over at the Campus Observer, so in this lazy state, I am reblogging myself (hey, that ping kind of tickles!). The picture below is what we did to give the Second Life participants a snapshot of what the Real Life participants in Atlanta were doing (hey in both worlds, they were sitting in chairs!)– but unlike the assertions of some naysayers, both audiences were rather verbal and engaged. All in all, given the multiple media inputs, outputs, etc it went amazingly well. Nary a bullet, word slide, or the essence of powerpoint was seen. The summary includes the recording of the audio.

Our second half of an NMC double-header presentation at the ELI 2007 Annual Conference in Atlanta was the official release of the 2007 NMC Horizon Report. This is the 4th year of NMC’s report on emerging technologies for teaching, learning, and creative expression, and my biased opinion (2 years on the advisory board and now part of the team that produces it) is that it again sets the mark high for a practical look at new technologies. And high it was. We were told to expect an audience of perhaps 60, so we prepped 100 handouts, but the room overflowed, people were taking the floor seats and extra chairs brought into the back. We were told later the fire marshall had capped the attendance at 175! So, in NMC fashion we had to do somethings fun, different, and interactive for this presentation (one of many reasons I joined NMC). In [...]