Community of Practice Trajectories

Our  class readings for this week are most appropriate for our community assignment.  I am currently enjoying the paper written by Dr. Dennen, "Intersecting Communities of Practice: Merging Roles Across the Academic and Blogging Worlds."  I am seeing a common denominator between the community of practice trajectories and being a lurker or full participant.  I really like that word, "lurker" ... it sounds as if I am doing something really sneaky! :)

It is interesting that the more that I learn and my length and degree of engagement, along with my level of commitment determines whether I am entrenched in the community of practice or whether I am on a peripheral trajectory.  I believe at this point, I am on the peripheral trajectory.  I want to be more committed, however, and am trying to figure out a way to become more entrenched.  Hopefully soon I will be on the inbound trajectory where I can become increasingly active within the community.

Reminder, the following will be presented this evening at 8:30 PM EST...

#Lrnchat July 18: The Power of Negative Experiences

by janebozarth

The late 20th century saw an increase in the perceived value of positive thinking, positive experiences, and positive feedback.  But some recent research indicates that we learn more from negative experiences and feedback than from the positive. We’ll explore this in #lrnchat on Thursday, July 18. Join us on Twitter at 8:30 pm Eastern, 5:30pm  Pacific (that’s Friday July 19, 11:30 am, in Oz).

Lurking in Community - negative experiences

I happened to be "lurking" in the #lrnchat community this evening as part of my EME6414 assignment, and ran across an interesting topic that I was unprepared to see - negative experiences, so I decided to check it out.

Apparently there is a meeting this Thursday at 8:30 EST around negative experiences.  While I was on the site below, links to several articles were provided.  How interesting!
http://lrnchat.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/lrnchat-july-18-the-power-of-negative-experiences/

I am tempted to check out the meeting Thursday!  To be honest, however, I am not sure how to attend!  If my classmates can check the link out above and provide some insight I would be most appreciative! :)  Do I just check in at #lrnchat on this date and time and see what happens?  I will give it a try.

Check out this article on negativity:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1817329,00.html

Week 4 Journal

In response to the question, "How do issues such as authorship, copyright and open access impact your desire, ability and willingness to engage in produsage, both personally and professionally?"

I am not too overly concerned with authorship, copyright and open access from a personal standpoint, as long as I do not say anything offensive, etc. However, professionally, there are many things to consider such as intellectual properties and copyright infringements. Therefore, I have to be very careful speaking from a corporate perspective more so than I do on a personal level. The corporate world tends to prefer to hang onto their intellectual properties to ensure they remain competitive.

With Web 2.0, open access, and shared software - everyone joining together - I wonder how this new found way of collaborating affect Corporate America? I would think it would have to change as well.

Light at the End of the Tunnel - A Tool to Use!

I was inspired today after creating our team meeting agenda completely online using blogger. I converted it to a pdf document to use as minutes of the meeting - super cool! I know the exact tool I want to use to create my lesson that is due Sunday for Dr. Dennen's class. Now to only come up with the content! I think I have an idea of a tool I recently discovered during a Design Hive, and I think my class mates will be able to utilize it in their future design work as well.

I'm feeling excited now; to be honest, up to this point, I have just felt overwhelmed and nervous. I am feeling much better now that I have decided on a tool to use for class.

Adding Gadgets to Google Blogger > Easy ... While Procrastinating about Lesson

Adding gadgets and rearranging the layout on my blog site was fun, such as placing a picture of Dave on my blog, and allowing folks to follow my blogs by submitting their emails, etc.  And it was way easy!  I wish all tools and sites were as user-friendly as the Google features.

My peer classmates and Dr. Dennen may realize what I am doing - procrastinating - and hopefully making progress by accomplishing the easier tasks first.  I am still wondering which Web 2.0 tool to use for my lesson that is due this Sunday!  I figured I should be as efficient as possible as I think through the process and tool that I want to use to create my lesson.

I haven't even figured out what I want the lesson to be about yet! Sigh...  My goal is to make it something the class will find informative and will be helpful toward their future projects, etc.  The lesson is due Sunday, and is likely to be a very short one.  Did I mention it is due Sunday!

Best Web 2.0 Tool to Use for Formal Education

I am having a very difficult time deciding which Web 2.0 tool to use for creating a formal educational lesson. I have considered utilizing an Adobe Connect standalone meeting room where participants can enter the room alone or with multiple participants and interact with each other as well as download the necessary files to review and study, and/or using link-outs.

I wonder if Adobe Connect or GoTo Meeting would be acceptable, or possibly even a single web site as a "gathering" place that houses embedded Web 2.0 tools within.  I have also considered Skype because links can be pushed to participants in the messaging area, along with interactive messaging between all participants.

So many choices and so little time!!!  I think I am about to panic!

Week 3 Journal

Collaborative wikis or blogs used within my telecommunications organization would be most helpful.  As an instructional designer balancing multiple projects and client groups, learnings could be shared easily among all of the designers, laying groundwork for best practices and enhanced future projects.  Additionally clients could blog MPP updates to the designers and designers could blog questions back to them seeking clarification or links to reference sites.

Blogs and wikis could replace electronic performance support tools, or they could actually enhance them by adding information from the learners' perspectives and experiences back on the job after training, in the case of Consumer call center representatives.

Possibly design and implementation challenges would be minimal for management employees whereas MPP clients blog with instructional designers and vice versa.  I am not sure, however, how the interface would work with represented employees, such as the call center representatives.

The design and implementation challenges of a user-initiated effort would be the internal firewall that presen6ts access to certain sites.  Any type of blog and wiki would have to be internal to the organization in order for it to work.  However, it is  not to say that the customer service representatives could not blog and tweet outside of the organization using their own "tools" (iPhone, iPad, etc.) to discover learnings.