Great video on how new media can turn learning into a fun and creative endeavour. But it should not end in the classroom: you can apply this method for any meeting, workshop, and conference and use the face-to-face time in so much more valuable ways than to listen to someone read PowerPoint Slides out loud!
If you are then you might be doing some of the following:
- Taking the time to reply to people
- See things from another’s perspective
- Invite others to join in
- Reach out and connect. Build the human connection.
- Having conversations awakens the collective intelligence of the system to grow itself.
- Be vulnerable and allow yourself to be transformed.
The book Technobiophilia: Nature and Cyberspace questions the either or approach we tend to have towards cyber-technology and nature. Do we have to live without technology to live a healthy and wholesome life? Do we have to cut out nature if our gadgets determine a large part of our lives?
5 Transformational Forces That Should Be Driving The Social Sector (But Aren’t) | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation bookmarked on diigo
The future is already here for the mainstream global economy, built on open data, mobile and social connectivity, and the wisdom of crowds. The social sector, by contrast, is showing few signs of the future, continuing to operate in an increasingly outdated paradigm that places a premium on control; a reliance on experts and one-way communication flows; and exists purely in the physical world.
It is important that we become aware how our micro-decisions affect what we do online. What are we paying really attention to? what are we really focusing on? Are we following a specific direction, contributing to something of value, achieving something or just losing ourselves and out time among all the things one can do, find, share?
Howard Rheingold on how the five web literacies are becoming essential survival skills » Nieman Journalism Lab bookmarked on diigo
More structure can be better than more freedom to foster collaboration. Yet, it is not the goals or the processes a team leader needs to define. Rather, the roles of each team member need to be clarified so they are well understood by all.
The Biggest Mistake You (Probably) Make with Teams – Tammy Erickson – Harvard Business Review
At least from my experiences, I believe that most businesses don’t understand collaboration. How many of your colleagues or customers are still emailing Word and Excel documents as attachments? If you are over 30 years old, chances are your business processes are still heavily influenced from the Microsoft dominated days of installed software more than two decades ago. The world is a different place now. There are plenty of examples of dynamic, young companies are prospering even when the partners are global dispersed, but they are still the exception.
Why Collaboration Often Fails and What to Do About It. | IdeaEconomy.Net
Rather than focusing on future jobs, this report looks at future work skills—proficiencies and abilities required across different jobs and work settings.
Post on Triple Pundit on online collaboration lists some of the limitations of current crowd-sourcing efforts, and asks:
[H]ow can we use social media not just to inspire more flavor names but more of what matters? How might we leverage the power of the crowd to change what it means to build a brand and be a brand in the wired age?
The author’s conclusion is to build real communities for co-creation:
Based on our experiences to date, we believe private communities like The Collective offer a compelling way to move faster on more substantive issues. And when it comes to sustainability, specifically engaging conscious consumers offers a more effective way to gain perspective, explore new ideas and identify opportunities in any number of mission-critical areas, from supply chain optimization and certification to sustainable design, category growth and positioning strategies.
So for us, the crowd is out. The collective is in. Here’s to putting the “social” back in social media.
Interesting podcast on NPR, in which game designer Will Wright interviews Biologist E. O. Wilson about games and collaboration.
Besides encouraging everyone to listen to the entire interview, I want to highlight two points:
The importance of bridging the disciplines to answer fundamental questions about human behavior – is altruism learned or in our genes?
Wilson says that he thinks we can’t have any answers before we’ve done a lot more science to find them. And he believes that the best way to do that is to integrate science with the other great branches of learning — the social sciences and humanities.
The importance of new education standards to prepare young people for life. Experiential learning is how we as a species learn best and games are a risk free way to learn experientially.
“I’ll go to an even more radical position,” Wilson said. “I think games are the future in education. We’re going through a rapid transition now. We’re about to leave print and textbooks behind.”
Tim Hwang’s presentation at Participation Camp 09 adds some more thought to the role of games discussion.
I wonder if games can also play a role to bridge disciplines towards more integrated research.
Sustainable Teams 