Using transparency to get citizens alert and active, or how Christian Kreutz influenced my thinking

It has been a very hectic period over the last couple of weeks. A tight workshop, planning a facilitator training, a short course with a lot of online activity, budget hassles, my master starting up … and this kept me from writing posts on a regular basis. I was also in an existential dip on blogposting.

Lucky for me I had one fresh and inspiring encounter at the middle of these chaotic weeks: meeting Christian Kreutz. His blog has been an inspiration for the last couple of years and all of a sudden I had the chance to meet him in Brussels.

Engaging citizens by analyzing (internet) data – civil society
We had an informal meeting, but a lot of what I learned from him made sense and sharpened my overall thinking on the use of websites and the internet to get civil society moving.

So what did Christian say that I found so enlightening? He simply said that we have all this data at our fingertips (google statistics, geo information, …), and all of these available data could be used for the better of society and its citizens.
In the past he has been writing about it. He wrote on metrics for social networks and what really happens, focusing on knowledge sharing and learning, he wrote about 6 innovative mashups for transparency, in which you could see the impact certain decisions have on the social fabric of regions (I was especially struck by the Healthcarethatworks – website that shows the New York City wide status for hospitals and its disproportionate impact that recent hospital closures have on low-income communities.) and his most recent post was on maptivism as a new approach of activism (based on the estimate that as much as 80% of data contains geo-referenced information. So, a lot of information can be displayed through maps. Digital maps allow easy ways to present large amounts of data and reduce complexity.)

The internet started out as a Utopia for me. It would benefit people around the world and make the globe a better place. With the increased absorption of internet initiatives into corporate environments, some of that euphoric belief in the WWW disappeared. But after reading the possibilities posted by Christian and after our talk in which he put forward the extra’s a transparent use of existing data (both on regional, national and international level) could bring… I am again a radiant believer. He gave a wonderful and simple example to get people interested in their own social environment. What if we take the data from a specific part of a city and open this data up to the citizens, e.g. people could see where trash bins are located, light poles are implemented, benches are placed... if city council than wants to change the outlines of that specific areas, or do something to create a better living space for all its citizens in that location, it could show the citizens what is already there, and ask them how they think their living area could be improved. I agree that a lot of debate could come from this, but coming to a consensus as a group can also adds to the social fabric of a region. All this data is already available, but in many occasions very little is done with it.

Christian Kreutz blogs qualitatively, which makes his blog a gem, check it out. He is thinking about going fully into consulting, so if you feel the need for a very professional, citizen-oriented web-analysis-expert, send him a note.

If you know of any data being used to make society more transparent, let me know, I would love to get more ideas.

What if a virtual classroom is not accessible and you are left to your own devices to record a session?

Last week I wanted to use a virtual classroom to record an eLearning showcase we were having at ITM (were I work). Unfortunately the hotspot was not stable enough at that time and so I had to improvise to be able to redistribute what was happening in the room on a later date...

So yes, there are different virtual classrooms (dimdim, eluminate, wiziq...) and they have advantages (they save editing time, allow people to join synchronously and add questions), but there are days you simply have to take initiative and come up with workable solutions yourself if the connections fail you. To be honest, those are the type of challenges I like above all. So after two days of intense cutting and pasting, I did realize the time consuming part of it again.

But on the other side, cutting and pasting does have an advantage, you can just add anything you like. In this small - how should I call it? - let's say: asynchronous-presentation-non-socialmedia-mash-up I have pasted real life movies into the powerpoint's that were shown, edited video and audio, got some extra's in (links to some showcases). So overall, I can integrate whatever in my own asynchronous virtual classroom, because I can mash-up anything I like. That is something pleasing.

Of course this does lack interactivity and I could have opened some social media apps, but I do have some solutions for that in mind. Actually, I think I am going to plan a mash-up virtual classroom in which different apps are located in a central portal, but enabling different social media to interact with what is going on... I will get my mind working on that. Because although virtual classrooms are nice, I miss social media of choice interaction in them... and movies...

So for those interested, I linked life recordings, with mp3, with additional movies (original formats ranging from wmv, avi, flv to quicktime) and put it all in a website to give a structured and browsable overview.
(I do apologize for the quality of the movies, I did not focus on the speakers with my camera settings... but next time I will be ready!).

Hardware used: logitech pro 9000 HD webcam, portégé Toshiba R600.
Software used: camtasia 6, eXelearning 1.4, AVS converter, FLV player.

Our eLearning team only had 45 minutes to show a small selection of our latest developments to a general audience. So do not expect a lot of technical specifics, but the eSCART and mobile part might be of interest to you. The eSCART features some different solutions we have used in a fully online course and the mobile part focuses on mobile data research software.

The link: http://tinyurl.com/eLearningITM

If you know a virtual classroom that enables you to upload movies and integrated social media of choice, let me know, I would love to check it out.

eLearning mash-up follow-up: Articulate presenter and Flash 10 compatibility

Just a quick note: a useful fix for those working with Articulate presenter and are upgrading to the Flash 10 player.
A couple of months ago I wrote a post about a combination of Articulate presenter, Captivate, Camtasia, social media incorporation and a high definition webcam. It was a quick mash-up, but it resulted in a useful combination of tools that simply look cool.

But when the Flash 10 player came along, that presentation no longer loaded in my browser. This was due to a swf file that was not correctly decodable by any of the browsers that used the new Flash 10. Luckily Articulate came up with a solution, the Flash updater for Articulate.
For all of you that are experiencing the same problem (articulate presenter not loading in browser after upgrading to Flash10) a detailed problem solving page was written.
After installing the updater for Flash, I scanned my swf-files build by articulate. This resulted in Internet Explorer 7 working again. After this I only had to erase the cache in Firefox 3 and Opera 9.64 and Safari 4.

Instructional Design: What do you get when you mix articulate presenter, with captivate, with camtasia, with webquiz ... you could get THIS

How can you mix all kinds of software's AND social media apps? That is one of the questions I have roaming about in the back of my mind. On the verge of my vacation, I wanted to test a new software (Articulate Presenter) and see if other software that we use to build courses with can be implemented.

If you want to, you can see the result following this link (it is an nice mashup for different educational goals). It works with Flash, so sometimes he preloads to buffer the multimedia files.

The final product was produced by Articulate Presenter, but I mixed in Del.icio.us, Camtasia, phpBB, Captivate, QuickCam pro movies, a Ning community, Articulate Quizmaker quizzes, hotspot quiz and even a Canadian Bear!

If you are interested in the production specifics, you can click on the tab 'notes' inside the articulate presenter course.

The font size of the Articulate Presenter is rather small but at this point you cannot change the font-size, but this is a feature Articulate Presenter's developing team is tackling and hopefully they will program a solution soon.

I really enjoyed the first half of the year and so now.... I am off on my vacation (more specifics in the presentation).

Remixing the web for social change, Kenya for peace

Report Acts Of Violence or Peace In Kenya

Take just a little time to support an African initiative that brings the Kenyan situation to the Kenyans, by the Kenyans. This is social media that breathes engagement and the promise of a strengthened future.

In April I am giving a presentation on how the use of social media in emerging countries is reshaping the world at the Annual Gathering of the eLearning Guild. Thanks to Juliana who posts the great Afromusings.com blog, I came across this great mash-up application that is keeping up with what is happening in Kenya.

Since the last elections Kenya has seen a lot of violence, which is now hopefully settling down. In the past we could watch the news, sigh because of the content and … do nothing. Nowadays and especially through social media the world has changed. We can choose our news and our actions.

Ushahidi (which means witness in Swahili) is a mash-up application which gives people live access to post their information and experiences. This African initiative is partly using crowdsourcing and building on existing initiatives to give the people in the streets a way to get their voices heard. The great thing about this initiative is that it does not only focus on riots but it also asks people to submit peace initiatives that have been started. The initiative works closely with the red cross and ngo's in Kenya to make sure the information they get is cross referenced.

You can support this initiative by voting for it. Ushahidi has entered the Netsquared Mashup Challenge and you can vote for this particular initiative by registering at the Netsquared site, register and vote (you can vote by clicking the ‘+’ next to the Ushahidi initiative). I know it’s a hassle to have to register before you vote, but it is greatly appreciate it if you did.

Just imagine this software mashup in areas that suddenly have to cope with an epidemic... this will make the physicians/nurses/researchers life much easier.

Social media is changing the face of the earth… well, at least if the people let it be changed.