E-flections

To borrow a phrase from social networking guru Danah Boyd, my life seems to be in ‘perpetual beta’ these days. She used it in a talk at the microsoft research lab to describe how the pace of innovation is so fast that a product is never fully finished before an upgrade or a competitor comes along, and I feel that is how the various projects I am working on are going, they are always changing and adapting so fast as I learn new things and find new opportunities to do things in new ways.

 Just finished week one of the Work literacy workshop, an experiment on group social learning sponsored by work literacy and the E learning guild, led by Michele Martin, Harold Jarche and Tony Karrer.  At the same time, I’m writing a piece for the British Journal of Photography on the liberation of the Belsen concentration camp in 1945, getting ready for the start of the new term on the f2f and online masters in photojournalism and documentary photography that I run, scheduling tutors, classes etc etc; trying to find some time to work on reading for my PhD on photography and genocide; following so many blogs I’ve lost count: trialing and setting up a variety of web 2.0 tools: working on developing ways to enhance our blackboard environment by using open source resources – we are looking at wordpress MU and drupal/elms as possibilities both for blogging and course content creation.

 So an overload of information and activity that is constantly changing – I signed up to the WL course only a week or so ago, and already it has had a sizeable impact on my practice. So I feel that Danah’s phrase is absolutely appropriate for my life at present, and I’m going to start using it as a catchphrase from now on!

When anyone asks how a project is going or how I am, I’m going to reply, “I’m in a state of perpetual beta”!

 For me one of the real benefits of the  work literacy network has been the incentivisation to go out and try things I had been toying with for ages. So I finally set up my linkedin account, and quickly got lots of connections and several recommendations, which was great. And I’ve now started using it as a research tool to find experts in areas I’m interested in and then contact them via linkedin, preferably thru a recommendation. I’ve found its a great tool if you encounter someone on the web, either in real time in a synchronous session or asynchronously, you can quickly get an idea of who they are, who they know, and who you know that knows them, in a faster and more useful way than googling them I think- I’ve already used that several times and it has worked really well.

I also resuscitated a dormant ning account I had set up some while ago as a possible vehicle for enhancing engagement and collaboration and communication on the online masters programme that I teach at the UAL, we plan to trial this for a term to see if it brings the group closer together and establish a community of practice. And I now plan to trial another ning site as a pre-enrollment tool to help new students before the even join the university to navigate around all the issues they face, and set up one for all UAL staff interested in e learning.

 So all in all a great experience so far, not even to mention the new contacts and great posts and links that are flying around on the site. It’s been fascinating to see how an online community grows and develops, and I can’t even imagine how and where it’s going to go from here….

more perpetual beta I guess!!