Step 4: Sharing the [Web 2.0] Love

Trialling “Web 2.0 on the go” is not for the faint-hearted. This week was a major struggle to get through what needed to be done, with numerous problems along the way.

Most days, it feels like I am trying to drive a Lamborghini through the scrub. Each computer is different, each lecture theatre is different, each class a new problem to overcome.

The best move was to get all tutorial classes into computer labs. I am not sure how this will work out later once we are in full swing, but in the meantime, this week all students are signed up to the blog, have made at least one blog post and shared at least one media article on the topic for next week’s submission.

My plan is to develop a model for teaching using Web 2.0 tools that does not require staff to be ICT experts. There is a lot of talk about online and blended learning and incorporating Web 2.0 technologies in higher education, but there is very little in terms of policy, support, even clear legal opinion on copyright issues, duty of care for students in an online quasi/semi-public environment and so on to guide the trailblasers.

Next week, I will be running a workshop on how to use blogs and wikis as assessment items for staff at the University of Canberra. I am doing this as part of the development of our new Winter Term where I am a member of the UC Hothouse (see also the Tumblr blog).

Next week’s workshop will incorporate the following lessons learned:

• Use computer labs for all tutorial classes unless you have documented or video recorded the complete instructions. Don’t believe the hype about digital natives - they don’t know it all about Web 2.0 and there will be lots of hand-holding.
• Students hardly ever read their student emails. You will have to add at least half of the class to the blog manually because they don’t know how to do it.
• Students don’t follow instructions. If you use the Firefox Portable set up I made available in an earlier post, students will forget to use it the next day. Many are unaware of how to add shortcuts to their desktops and many other simple skills shortages which will surprise you.
• Google Blogger requires character recognition confirmation when there are a large number of blog posts. Students will become very frustrated because nobody can ever get these right the first time.
• Google blogger will only allow up to 100 authors for a single blog. This one would be easy to overlook.
• For the media sharing assignment, I have decided to ask students to write a summary of the article they are sharing. This has forced them to read the article, and I require them to comment on the accuracy of their colleagues summaries to make them read these articles, too. This means that each week, students will read three media articles relevant to the subject area. This will be three more media articles than many of them will read in a typical semester.
• Use the tech-savvy students to help you in class. This gives them a great ego boost, and encourages the students to help each other. Once one “gets it”, other soon “get it” and a domino effect occurs.
• Assume nothing, but don’t be discouraged. Once this week is finished, you will see that the digital natives really know how to use this stuff once they know how to use it. But you have to give them the kick-start. The students have started reporting how much they like the subject already!

The Squawk: Murray innovators release regional Web 2.0 community

"The Squawk" is a social and business network for regional communities which provides location-specific content. The site has been "kicked off" by Regional Development Australia, Murray.

I am a big fan of this type of local innovation. In my comparative research into Canada's broadband industry, Australia is lagging in terms of the extent and intensity of community-based communications innovations. But not in the Murray.

In fact, the Murray region has been home to numerous communications policy submissions and leaders in many communications initiatives. And not just focusing on the Murray region, but developing models which could be deployed elsewhere. Regional Development Australia, Murray has been working on community-based wireless infrastructure for some time and pushing on through the legacies associated with Australia's penchant for single national solutions to communications problems. The motto "Think globally, act locally" comes to mind.

Local and regional initiatives must be at the heart of Australia's push to fix our poor standing on broadband. It would appear that the Federal Government's shift in attitude toward funding local and regional initiatives has aided the Murray region to continue its tradition of innovation, but more needs to be done. But this latest initiative is a step in the right direction.

The Squawk is a place where you can connect and share information with others near you. Use The Squawk to build and maintain social and business networks and find support within your regional community

Check out the community and join at www.thesquawk.com.au. Let's hope there will be many more local initiatives like this one and governments continue to promote innovation where it counts.

Communications Innovations: CSIRO must be given greater Oz status

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is arguably one of Australia's greatest assets. Yet little more than lip service tends to be given to this organisation even when its innovations are ground-breaking. To make matters worse, Australia rarely takes advantage of its discoveries in the early stages of adoption.

Traditionally, Australia runs a trade deficit in telecommunications equipment and has been a technology 'taker' since the Canadian Samuel McGowan brought the telegraph with him to Victoria in the 1854. McGowan had to improvise on several occasions to overcome the challenges of deploying telegraph technology where there were manufacturing skills and capability were rare. 

Given that for most of Australia's telecommunications history, the telecoms equipment ndustry existed as a monopsony, it is little wonder that the industry never really developed. But it makes little sense why that should be the case now, unless Australia will simply focus on patenting new innovations.

For example, last year the CSIRO won a settlement for the use of its use of wifi technology by Hewlett-Packard, with many other well-known global communications companies in the firing line. The patent was registed in 1996 with hardly a sigh from the Australian community about the technology's potential.

Today, the CSIRO is producing another world's first with the miniturisation of a radio receiver onto a chip 5 x 5mm in size. The CSIRO has developed the chip with Sappicon Semiconductor which has its headquarters in Sydney. These chips will replace receivers used in radio astronomy which are currently the size of a fridge. 

But there is not even a whisper from the traditional media.

The National Broadband Network could assist with the development of an innovative Australian communications equipment industry. Given its reputation,  the CSIRO is well-placed to lead such an Australian revolution.

But the old debates over Telstra (not that Telstra is a laggard) and whether we need broadband at all are quietly ignoring a weak area of Australia' seconomy that makes no sense at all. In the meantime, Australians should be very proud of the CSIRO and give this national asset the status it deserves.