I wonder whether because we have such sophisticated tools with which to create magnificently designed, crafted and polished solutions, that we simply spend too much time on them and get side-tracked by the possible enhancements to the original solution that we effectively “lose the plot” and don’t see that the situation has changed already.

I also wonder whether we actually develop solutions too far. I know that I am afflicted by that tendency. Perhaps this is an age where younger people (generalising here) expect the media they consume to be pretty good looking we feel that we have to add that quality all the way through all our solutions too – to make them palatable to savvy media consumers.

I wonder, then, if we might be right in that consumers do like resources to give them a “Wow” moment, but perhaps we could trade off some of our all-singing / all finished mindset to create the foundation with the wow and then build in tools whereby learners themselves can pick up the ball to get involved and continue building the solution in collaboration with us as an important part of the learning process.

It may well be a hard sell to older generations and to corporate clients who generally like complete solutions but it would be interesting to explore the possibilities. Could it be that some might also be happy to operate in a Beta world?

Now, along comes WiZiQ which offers a very much simpler interface (good) but also more limited features (no app sharing that I can see), no privacy and it seems to run a lot slower. However, it is free and can cope with up to 25 simultaneous participants.

The no privacy point is an interesting one. Teachers can offer public lessons through the system and make PowerPoint presentations available by uploading to a shared library which can be browsed by all members. You can even search for teachers or students who share your interest.

I suppose it’s a question of “You pays your money and you makes your choice”.

I like the ethos of making the content open but I wonder if system performance and uploaded content will be credible enough to satisfy demanding and increasingly savvy participants.
WiZiQ

technorati tags:WiZiQ, on-line, presentation, Elluminate

I tagged along and arriving a few minutes early noticed that there was an increasing number of people standing and strolling around, just like people do – tourists, office workers, etc. Quite a few had iPods plugged into their ears. Again, this is totally normal.

More people kept arriving. At a few seconds to 6.46, a countdown was started then, at zero, almost everyone turned up their music and started dancing (OK, we did too). A great and enthusiastic time was had by all then 30 minutes later the party dissolved again.

A few tourists were left looking rather bemused by the best part of 1000 people dancing to the apparent silence.

What particularly interests me is the mashup of social networking going on here:

• the mix of electronic viral connections through the phones, Skype, MySpace, sites such as www.dontstayin.com and word of mouth,
• the fact that real people actually came together in one location for a communal activity (and the synchronisation of the start was an important element),
• the almost complete lack of direct face-to-face communication (everyone having ear-buds jammed in their heads),
• the fact that everyone was dancing, as much “together” as they would be in a club, but to their own chosen tune,
• the way that the mob evaporated away at the end
• by 11 today (16 hours later) there are 773 pictures of the event at: http://www.dontstayin.com/uk/london/st-pauls-cathedral/2007/jul/19/event-131750

I wonder what parallels and lessons it holds for us about how we might engage people in collaborative learning and how we connect with each other in the 21st century.