The email productivity tip of short answers seems obvious yet is a focused goal. District Leadership has begun formalizing and establishing protocols for Edina Public Schools to increase efficient, effective and concise communications.
2. Instant Messaging
This was very good for me to read because it's not a communication I'd chosen to use after initial dabbling with it six years ago. Tonight reading about this being the preferred mode of communication for many, I signed up in Twitter.
3. Text Messaging
This is one I've avoided because our cell plan charges more to text however thumb typing entered my life with the use of a Nokia N810 Internet Tablet.4 Web Conferencing Software
Having participated in webinar seminars many times, it was interesting to listen to Tom Peters and his humor about the software. His insights into the live aspect adding authenticity in real time is true in my experiences. Predetermined end times are a plus, as is the opportunity for participants to converse with each other, which he said is most often not utilized. He is right though about the phone conferencing. Collaborating with colleagues in Education Minnesota's TALL project and Reading Team we phone conference instead of web conference because many schools don't have the technology to support web conferencing. As consumers and organizations work to reduce their carbon footprints, and as flight cost increases, most likely webinars will too.
Notable Web Junctions tips especially the caution to limit to 1 hour, build in some interaction between participants and add humor are take aways from that site.
As Tom Peters lead the discussion in OPAL, on the book of Man Hunters, several aspects struck me, especially the informality of Tom's speech and flow of thought. I was surprised that more people didn’t contribute to the discussion and that the web conference was primarily Tom talking. It was clear that this was not a "presentation" and that Tom was working to share and generate discussion. He openly admits he is not very knowledgeable on the history of Lincoln. He shared the "aha" moments for himself. I did find myself starting to drift during long pauses in his speech; and lack of visuals reduced comprehension as well.
Final Thoughts This Thing did expand my thinking about how much our culture has changed and what communication means to different generations. Last week at NUA they told us that in the classroom most communication is nonverbal and a small part is verbal and auditory. Makes me wonder about web conferencing as a learning tool and if the most effective use would be interactive problem solving.
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