Or should that be 64 things and 14 academics ? (a number that could be doubled from our reading lists with ease).
What about the others?
What have I missed out?
Some tools:
Do please add some of your own to see if I can get it up to the cliched 101.
I've set myself a challenge to take mobile learning to the nth degree, 'testing to destruction'.
If I thought the iPad would survive the experience I thought perhaps a jacuzzi or sauna?
Signal might not be good.
In my gap year eons ago I discovered that the hotel owner (4 star) thought it great that guests and staff, including a very lowly teen me, could 'chill' out together in 'his' sauna.
There is relevance and that is the idea of 'informal' learning.
Indeed, I wonder if many OU students, enjoying and enrolled in a 'life of learning' practice in a more informal way then us 'regular' students who (and I applaud it) take it reasonably seriously.
I could knock out the TMAO4 in a first draft before lunch today, not bother with much referencing and checking meaning, grammar etc: and submit expecting to scrape through with a 40 something at worst, a 50 something more likely. The problem I have is enjoying the present too much and even with e-learning being fed the latest through the likes of Zite and Stumbleupon.
Recording our hang-out session may have made for fun viewing.
On the other hand by doing so it radically changes the dynamic. I wouldn't want the student me confused with the business me.
(Four months in to a 12 month fixed contract).
That said I'd love a playback of my slow descent below the frame.
This is the trickster at play.
Belbin I believe categorises people and how they work in teams, I know where I belong! The very fact that it has become a catalyst for conversation shows it's value; where now Elluminate?
I've started to make comparisons in my OU Student Blog.
Belbin Team Roles
So who are you?
Shaper
• Highly motivated with a lot of nervous energy and a great need for achievement.
• Like to challenge lead and push others to action, can be headstrong and emotional in response to disappointment or frustration.
• Generally make good managers because they generate action and thrive on pressure.
Plant
Innovators and inventors – can be highly creative. Often enjoy working on their own away from other members of the team.
• Tend to be introvert and react strongly to criticism and praise. Great for generating new proposals and to solve complex problems.
Co-ordinator
• Ability to pull a group together to work towards a shared goal.
• Mature, trusting, and confident they delegate readily. They stay calm under pressure.
• Quick to spot an individual’s talents and use them to pursue group objectives.
• Co-ordinators are useful to have in charge of a team with their diverse skills and personal characteristics.
Monitor/ Evaluator
• Serious-minded, prudent individuals.
• Slow deciders who prefer to think things over – usually highly critical thinking ability.
• Usually make shrewd judgements by taking into account all the factors.
• Important when analysing problems and evaluating ideas and suggestions. Resource investigator
• Good communicators both with other members of the group and with external organisations.
• Natural negotiators, adept at exploring new opportunities.
• Adept at finding out what resources are available and what can be done.
• Relaxed personalities with strong inquisitive sense and a readiness to see the possibilities of anything new.
• Very good for finding resources and heading negotiations. Implementer
• Well organised, enjoy routine and have a practical common-sense and self discipline.
• Systematic approach to tackling problems • Reliable and hardworking.
• Will do what needs to be done whether or not they will enjoy the task. Team worker
• Supportive members of the team.
• Flexible and adaptable to different situations and people.
• Perceptive and diplomatic.
• Good listeners
• Avoid conflict
• Good at allowing everyone in the group to contribute.
Completer-Finisher
• Have a great capacity for follow-through and attention to detail, and seldom start what they cannot finish.
• Dislike carelessness
• Reluctant to delegate, they prefer to tackle tasks themselves.
• Good at tasks that involve close concentration and a close degree of accuracy.
Specialist
• Pride themselves on acquiring technical skills and specialist knowledge.
• Priorities are to maintain professional standards and advance their own subject.
• Very committed.
• Important in providing the technical expertise and are usually called upon to make decisions involving in depth experience and expertise.
REFERENCE
Belbin, M. (2004) Management Teams: Why They Succeed or Fail (Butterworth Heinemann, 2nd ed.,)
Who are you?
It seems counter-intuitive to drive 160 miles to record a Podcast but I will reflect in due course on why this was better than recording a Skype conversation. We recorded onto a Netbook through the mic on a headset while cooking dinner.
This produced audio that was remarkably satisfactory to my professional ear. (I did six months as a sound engineer with a broadacast TV crew once upon a time).
Ian (a director and e-learning 'guru') and I last worked together in 1998 on the launch of the European Stock Exchange EASDAQ and were 're-united' by LinkedIn about five weeks ago.
I need to recognise after thirty years in 'the media' that even recording good sound has been reduced to pressing a button. All the effort we used to make to get 'clean' sound is now redundant. The microchip has given recording devices a brain that filters out the extraneous sound.
We recorded onto Audacity; I will clean up the 'noise' as I would a photograph using Adobe Photoshop.
I'll also edit down as we covered four or five topics ... in as many hours.
We discussed collaboration online, e-learning, video production, podcasting and his intentions to compete in an Iron man in Abu Dabi next March, also his e-lerning work in Abu Dabi.
My visit was in part to spend an hour coaching him in the pool. So we do a podcast my fixing the Front Crawl in a reasonably competent adult swimmer who will have to swim for about 90 minutes in the Gulf waters before doing the mega-cyle and a marathon run.
We've known each other since our teens and have made 30+ videos together and a few short films too.
Would this exercise have been better had I prepared questions?
For us to have jotted down some possible responses?
For the recording to have been done more formerly in a quieter setting?
Should all audio tracks be supported by text? Which may make the audio redundant?
I recall the audio we listened to in week 1 of Robin Goodfellow et al, and having transcribed what they had to say would quite frankly have preferred a Twitter from each instead of a few minutes of audio waffle.
Do we afford waffle credibility by recording it and posting it online for comment and for posterity?
My concluding thoughts?
Forget polish, only content matters.
Somewhere in this podcast (to follow eventually) we dicuss the 8mm footage from 'the hill' shot by Zapruder. He had no skill at all with the kit, or any craft as a camerman, but the event he caught on camera was the shooting of JFK. The 'Zapruder Effect' describes film (or audio) that may be of poor quality, but the content of such importance it doesn't matter.
I think we've reached the stage where audience and listeners don't give a monkeys for 'professional production standards' so long as the content is of interest.
A role for Podcasts in E-learning? Absolutely.
The three hours I recorded of a machine gunner from the First World War can now be made available for everyone to enjoy. Forever?
Or will his voice become lost in the several hundred (or thousand) recordings of other veterans?
On verra.
A shaper and plant.
Shaper
Plant
For this reason, and explaining successes of the past, I need to team up with the following, a:
As we often take on two or three roles this explains how a team of three or a band of four may be enough. They're called:
I was directed towards these key roles within a team by fellow Group 2, Trevor's Group member, Mark Collins
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