This software is my favourite tool for story telling. It will be very useful for many of my projects. Here is an example of the tool and how it is used in the classroom.
I am figuring out the pasting of this code… I will have it eventually…..

Brent Uncategorized social media/tech, storytelling voices

Here is an excerpt from Michele Martin’s Bamboo Blog. Her comments capture my experiences in facilitating a group of youthworkers in a workshop titled “Expanding Your Personal Toolkit“. I had a difficult time setting up the environment and conditions to reflect on how work was being done and what can you as a staff do differently to improve your work. I think some of the reasons for my difficult time ties into what Michele describes below. Creating new ways to facilitate staff to think outside the box and put aside for a minutes their long list of reasons why “you can’t do things like that in my work” is the most important step in designing this type of workshop.

One of my most consistent experiences in working with staff is
dealing with this resistance to change, which they readily see in other
people, but not in themselves. In their minds, change is something that
happens outside of themselves–it’s changes in management, in policies,
etc., rather than changes in individual professional practice that
could take place. My challenge, always, is to get them to see the
places where they can do things differently on their own, regardless of
what other people are doing. I have to help them see that it’s the
accumulation of their individual practices that creates change,
regardless of what’s happening around them. They can wait for the
“system” to change (and there are plenty of things in the system to
change), but they have to realize that they are part of the system.
Even if everything else operated differently, if they don’t start
making some different choices about their individual behavior, the
system isn’t moving anywhere. Read more…….

Brent Uncategorized Organizations, resistance change

From Digizen.org, this report looks very promising as a resource for educators and individuals working with youth using social tech tools.

The project is designed to investigate how social networking services can
and are being used to support personalized formal and informal learning
by young people in schools and colleges.

The work opens by asking “What are social networking services?”
This section investigates current definitions of social networking
services and provides a comprehensive review of current social
networking service types and activities.

In Evaluating social networking services,
this report then describes how to use a toolkit – a social networking
evaluation chart covering six different social networking services, and
an accompanying checklist,
which are available to download from the Digizen website to evaluate
services. The chart is not definitive, but provides a comprehensive
framework covering significant relevant issues such as site age
restrictions, the presence of adverts, collaborative tools, security
issues and data management restrictions.

Benefits and opportunities evaluates
the potential educational benefits to individual users, as well as
outlining some of the opportunities that educators and schools using
social networking services might take advantage of. This section looks
at issues around digital literacy and social engagement, skills and
identity development, and opportunities for better understanding
e-safety and data management issues.

Barriers and risks
looks at current barriers to using social networking services within
education, including staff development and support issues, and risk
evaluation and management approaches. Risk areas that educators should
be aware of are outlined, and approaches to manage these are addressed.
Issues include users’ perceptions of the environment they are posting
in, personal data management, and cyberbullying and potentially illegal
behaviours.

Brent Uncategorized socialtech socialnetworking youth

A friend is experiencing some of the dynamics and unique weirdness in
behaviour that stems from the Founder Syndrome. I had a few excellent
reference documents that I shared with her. The first is called:
Founder’s Syndrome: How Corporations Suffer — and Can Recover and the second is called: Founder’s Syndrome – Who Me?
The articles present an excellent explanation and point out some
options for Boards to follow when this type of situation arises.

Brent Uncategorized Organizations

I love the name and tag line. It really speaks to some of my feelings about moving into this type of work. Beth Kanter started me down this path which brought me to the world of Forrester Research. I liked the YouTube video and as a collector more than any other type (see video) I am posting it on my main blog. I will be setting up a separate blog to collect specific resources related to my social tech goals and also my creator goals. For now, it’s here in my main site.

CHARLENE LI is one of the leading voices in the area of Social Computing and Web 2.0 through her work over the past nine years with the respected technology and market research company Forrester Research. She is one of Forrester’s most quoted analysts. An accomplished and frequently requested public speaker, she often appears at industry events and delivered the keynote speech at Forrester’s Consumer Forum in 2007.

Charlene analyzes how companies can use technologies — like blogs, social networks, RSS, tagging, and widgets — to meet business objectives. She started her own analyst blog in 2004 and is regularly cited as America’s most influential analyst blogger. She shares her blog with Josh Bernoff.

Recent Research

Brent Uncategorized