abject learning

The upcoming trip to Croatia is fraught with peril. There are materials to prepare, workshop logistics to attend to, office and household tasks to square away before Friday’s departure. I’ve noticed a couple of prominent weblogs in the region, including the blog.hr site (scroll down a bit) are plugging our workshop, which is nice. I notice that the site is reproducing the “when the jug is done, the presentation is ready” image with the blurb. Which may give the impression we will be serving beer during the sessions… not a bad idea.

I don’t read the language, but based on web-based translation and phrasebooks I gather that we are taking a kicking on this comments-field discussion — there are complaints about the cost of the workshop (I’m in no position to assess that), and some indignity that “Americans” are coming to tell Croatians about social software, when there are plenty of locals with expertise.

I can understand the latter complaint. I’ve known about the blog.hr system for some time — it’s an amazingly dynamic community. We even gave some consideration to adapting the software for use here at UBC. We’ve invited people from blog.hr to join us in Zagreb and give a presentation, and I hope that comes together, as I’d really like to meet these people. And we definitely want to fairly represent the local scene. I’m getting traffic from links at blog.hr (can’t figure out how to link direct to the post) and a site called Internet Monitor right now. I’d invite these visitors to add links below pointing out good use cases of social software from their own context, especially educational ones. And if they’d care to express their concerns to me here (preferably in English) I welcome all comments, however vitriolic.

Tomorrow I’ll ask my buddy Novak (who hails from Belgrade) to give me a precise translation of the complaints, and help me try to formulate some sort of response. Mainly, I want to communicate that we do want to represent the Croatian scene, and let people know that this workshop is part of a long and much broader collaboration between UBC and CARNet, one that so far has been beneficial to both parties (from everything I’ve heard, at least). I also expect to learn more than I teach, as usual.

…should not be possible. After all, it’s virtually unheard of for someone not from Saskatchewan to play the greatest card game ever invented.

Kaiser is a game of mysterious origins, and is not for the faint-hearted. It says a great deal about the hospitality of Alan and his family that they were willing, and more than able to take on the challenge of learning the game and to compete with both ferocity and grace. The deck of their cabin was undoubtedly the most stunning backdrop for a game that I’ve ever enjoyed, and the companionship was stupendous. Next time I impose, I’ll turn them on to the Roughriders , Old Style Pilsner, and maybe even socialism.

To no surprise, the Wikipedia entry on Kaiser is pretty good (I did correct one small error in the rules section). If you are a Windows user you can play Kaiser online — reason enough to dump Cupertino for Redmond.

When I listen, I imagine the EdTech Posse are playing Kaiser while they record their podcasts. If they ever need a fourth, I hope they’ll deal me in…

One down, two to go. This week’s big event is the BCcampus Spring Workshop on EdTech. Although the workload issues are a little daunting, I’m excited how it’s all shaping up. I’m scheduled to lead a session on Social Software, and by a fortuitous set of circumstances it appears my longtime co-conspirator D’Arcy Norman will be joining me.

What’s planned right now is a variation on the workshop I did with Alan last week. But since BCcampus has funded the Social Learning project, and this gathering is pretty much the intended audience, it seemed like an obvious place to take the nascent site SocialLearning.ca out for a spin.

A lot of people have been involved with the long, at times painfully slow (maybe not-so-slow considering who has been coordinating) evolution of the site: Bryght, Raincity Studios, Katy Chan from UVic, Jo McFetridge from BCIT, and Jason Toal from SFU (among others — I’m not even gonna go into the many organizational hands who’ve been vital). All of whom are simply tremendous talents.

It’s taken me a while, but I am increasingly coming to appreciate the power of Drupal. It is of course an immense help to have had D’Arcy poking around in there lately — the dude knows a thing or two about the system, and he also has a most groovy sensibility. Some fairly small but critical changes that he has implemented (like the improved site tagcloud) have really made the place feel more like home. (And Jason is still buzzing around in there doing cool things.)

I hope that Thursday’s workshop will be, among other things, an effective and persuasive demonstration of the platform. And more importantly, I’m hoping the occasion will give us the clearest possible sense of whether this site is going to be useful to educators here in BC and beyond. I am hopeful that with some work this will be a pretty good collection of resources, a repository with a bit of zip. What we might learn this week is if the site can be more than that, whether it can be a place that promotes collaboration amongst peers. I don’t think that communities can be created, they need to form, so that remains to be seen. Maybe this Thursday will be Social Learning’s coming-out party, maybe Yet Another Flogging Demo. In any event, I think this workshop is going to be fun, and I’ve already learned a lot.

As the site edges closer to full-scale operation, I want to take this opportunity to invite you to join the site as a contributor. Signing up allows you to add materials, and gets you a blog within the blog, here’s mine — as you can see, there’s no rule against repurposing your content for this space. If you have stuff that you think might be useful, but don’t have time to submit it yourself, by all means drop me a line.

And if you will be in Comox for this event, you have until tomorrow to sign up for the workshop. Though there’s no shortage of promising options at this week’s gathering. There are two sessions on wikis (one by John Maxwell, another with Roy Sinn), a podcasting workshop (Frank Fucile and Glen Lowry), and Scott Leslie will be doing a session on reusable content which if history serves will be excellent. And my colleagues Kele Fleming, Tannis Morgan, and Jan Johnson will also be there with a workshop on assessment that is based on a very successful previous iteration. There’ll be some good learnin’ and fun to be had in the valley this week.

The blog here has been a little quiet lately, and with an even higher proportion of inane personal posts than usual. That may give the impression that I have nothing to do these days, or that I’m not interested in happenings in the virtual neighbourhood. Far from it, the days are just packed, with lots of exciting local projects big and small here on campus. I look forward to blogging on many of them this summer as their online components grow.

But posting will likely be quiet over the next few weeks, as there are three events coming up that have a lot in common. Each involves a potentially unique opportunity to try something new in a workshop setting, each time out I’ll be working with a favorite collaborator, and each involves a trip to a desirable location.

* Tomorrow I fly to Arizona for the E-Learning Institute at Northern Arizona University. The exciting part for me is the chance to work with Alan Levine. Together we’ll be delivering a short hands-on workshop and will then lead the closing plenary. As with our recent collaborations for ELI Fish Tacos and Northern Voice we will try to provide a rich experience for the attendees while keeping things relatively open and with a conversational vibe. It’s always great to see Alan, and I’m looking forward to hanging out a bit in his mountain digs once again. I’ll try to behave myself a little better than last year, but not that much better.

* Next week I am taking the family to the lovely Comox Valley for one of my favorite events, the BCcampus Spring Workshop on Education Technology. I’ve been asked to lead a hands-on session on social software, and intend to use this as an opportunity to more aggressively launch the Social Learning initiative, which we’ve been keeping relatively quiet as the site finds its legs. Hopefully this event will provide us with a clear indication of how useful the site is for educators, and where we need to take it. The exciting part here is that D’Arcy Norman will be joining us for the session, and I’m looking forward to tapping his talents for structuring the event, as well as making the Drupal elements of the site really hum. Hopefully we’ll cook up a couple surprises, and I hope the attendees push things as well.

* And on June 9th I hop a plane for a trip to Zagreb for a two day workshop on social software, an opportunity that came about from my work with the Croatian Academic and Research Network’s CARNet E-learning Toolkit and a few other related projects. This is notable because it’s rare to get two whole days to deliver a workshop, I’m grateful for the opportunity to go into greater depth and to proceed at what I hope will be a less frantic pace than usual. And I get to work with Jeff Miller, who has led UBC’s collaborations with CARNet, and he always pushes things in new and worthwhile directions. I’ll have a few free days after the event, and not quite sure what I’ll do with them. My tentative plan is to head south to the Istrian Coast and then fly back via Budapest. If anyone has traveled in this region and has any tips or recommendations, I’d love to hear them.

I will do my best to pass on any notable outcomes from each of these opportunities. But all this goes on while there is plenty to stay on top of here at home (activity in social software is simply exploding at UBC, both through supported programs and from the grassroots). So I ask your indulgence should this blog plumb the depths of lameness over the next month or so.

At some point last week our elderly neighbours across the back lane ceased their residency. No idea what happened. What I do know is that a small pile of garbage left behind in the yard has signaled the clarion call heard by all:

Garbage yard!

A couple days ago we noticed people pitching pails of trash into the yard, and since then the flow of refuse has snowballed. Yesterday we started seeing discarded appliances, and when the sun went down last night trucks and vans began arriving. At one point there was a lineup of vehicles in the alley waiting their turn to unload. One particularly bold family started hacking at the deck looking for usable wood, carting off the stairs and railings, rifling through the shed, carrying it all off on their cart to their house down the block.

The yard is abuzz with activity — some dumping, others picking through the debris looking for goodies. It sure is fun when everybody gets together for a garbage yard!

Garbage yard!

Update: Looks like the party’s over. This morning there was a group of people who entered the house, and engaged fairly openly in pre-demolition type activities. Either they are there on behalf of the legitimate owners, or they are a band of brazen yet methodical looters. Given my unbounded faith in humanity, I prefer to believe the former.