Hybrid presence an emerging format #OEB16

Last week I had the pleasure of being part of a virtual connecting meeting at OnlineEducaBerlin. The initiative came from the VConnecting group. For this session, onsite buddies Christian Friedrich, Hoda Mostafa, and I spoke with guests Jeanine Reutemann (Jeanine researches the affordances of video and has great insights on it!). Ilona Buchem (Ilona has a long standing tech record, her latest research looks at open badges) and Aziza Ellozy (Aziza is a leader in faculty development, and making learning visible). The recording can be seen below (it was a hangout).

For those who are not familiar with the concept of Virtually Connecting through online buddies, have a look at the website. During Online Educa Berlin 2016 there were four virtual connecting meetings (I only could attend one, as I was chairing or speaking at the other moments), and it really provides an additional layer of interest to conferences. I had a previous experience with Whitney Kilgore at eMOOCs2015 which I blogged about here, and which worked inspiring as well.

The format has a basic idea behind it: connecting people with similar interests across conference boundaries (so those who can attend a conference, share knowledge that is provided within the conference to others who are unable to attend the venue).

Although the idea is simple enough, what is interesting is the emerging layer of knowledge that is transmitted. In some way those who attend get a meta layer going. Or at least that was what I felt when joining one of the virtual connecting sessions. When reflecting on why this extra - and to me meaningful layer of learning emerges - I had the idea that it might come from the available expertise in all who entered the conversation. The shared yet complementary expertise gave spice to the conversation, sparking new ideas and links to previous experiences on topic. And I think it was also related to similar interests that come together at that point, and drive the conversation forward. 

In the session that I was in, the conversation covered the plenary keynotes, some ideas coming from the keynote speakers and how we (participants in the virtual meeting) agreed or disagreed, the overall feeling of the conference, the formats and the consequent results of the sessions...

Attend a free webinar on Measuring Learning success

The eLearning Guild Research 360° Report on Measuring Learning Success is just out. As usual the research reports of the eLearning Guild are interesting to read. They give a quick overview of some of the latest trends and results in eLearning.

But what makes this research so interesting is that both Steve Wexler and Will Thalheimer will have a webinar on the findings in this report. This might be a rich extra, because it gives you the possibility of getting your questions out to them. 'Might be' I write because I am not sure if there will be a lot of time to discuss, but at least you will hear it from the report writers themselves.

This report focuses on two fundamental issues that are at the core of learning endeavors:
1) When you test, are you truly able to show that someone has learned something;
2) Are you able to show that your learning interventions benefit your organization?

You can look at the abstract of this report or - if you are a payed member, you can download it completely at the same page.

The facts on this free (but you need to register) research webinar:
Duration: one hour;
Date: Thursday, September 4 at 8:30 AM Pacific Time;
Hosts and speakers: Steve Wexler and Will Thalheimer.

This webinar is free but you need to register.

7 places teachers can turn your expertise into cash online today

So building upon the previous post on identity and personal marketing I am adding this very practical way to earn some extra bucks while exploring social media sites and getting cracking with your expertise and softwares for audio/video teaching.

WiZiQ offers public sessions about a lot of topics (basics of Linux, basic German…) and one of the latest public sessions that can be viewed for free (after registering for free as well) is this session:
“7 places teachers can turn your expertise into cash online today” by Meri Aaron Walker (English spoken).

The core of the presentation is to be ‘Thinking seriously while imaging wildly’ as to get new ideas on how to take advantage of the global marketplace as a teacher. Teachers have always added value to a lot of learners, but with the new international connections, teachers are starting to sell their services worldwide. Meri takes the viewer on a tour and points out some of the opportunities teachers can dive into nowadays. Although there are a lot of new opportunities time is a constraint in many cases.

A lot of learners are increasing their online learning time. To prove this dictum, Meri asked the learners from a session to give examples of their number 1 favorite online knowledge marketplace? These were some of the examples that were given (and take a look at these great! Resources):
Learning times
Curriki
WiZiQ
Nicenet
Verbalplanet
LearningPlanet

Here are the 7 organisations that Meri mentions to make money from as an online teacher. If you register yourself for these 7 places you can take start offering your services and start to make money for yourself. These sites are set-up with teachers in mind = people that sell learning products.
If you are an adept of written reports, you can get a copy of the report on which this presentation is based at Meri’s blog. Where you can send your hottest educational question on Web2.0 and you will get a copy of the report for free (38 p report = ok deal):

freeIQ
Social networking site on which people sell the information they know something about. (like DVD’s on how to train for basketball, how to repare your car …). It works also by putting up your profile (only a profile, you do not need a website or similar). You can post audio, video, pdf-files and you can give them for free or ask money for them.

LivePerson (used to be Kasamba)
Give advice in all areas of expertise, to give counseling/tutoring/technical programs...
With an interesting profiling section: you chose your area of expertise and your profile connects immediately to a per minute charge if people want to connect to you. This is based on a rigourous process. With a widget to put on your social networking pages. (23% for livePerson).

Mindbites
Especially focussed on tiny video lessons, so mainly a self-publishing portal connected to a social market place. The videos are linked to credits (1 credit is 1 $ 60). Membership for mindbites is free and they have a great training program on how to edit a 60 seconds promo video. The first 60 seconds of your video lesson is free for all learners, so that interested parties can check out what the video will be like. (a bit like the incomparable Lynda.com videos).
What is interesting on this site is that you can give the mindbites the possibility to donate your money to your favorite sharity.

Current
A video site (Al Gore site J ) More educational content than youtube. Content that is posted in Current is linked to direct.tv, warner… so what current offers all users is if you start posting your videos, if you express your views on camera, current gives you instruments to improve your audio and video. If you video is chosen by the current-editors, you will get money for them.

Revver.com
This site pays you per person that is watching your video. So this can add a bit to your income.

Metacafe.com
This site also pays you per person that is watching your video.

Skype prime
A special division of skype, that allows people to connect to you through skype (paid by the minute) to get access to your expertise.
(similar is Wengo (more European and Middle East))

Teachers pay teachers
Free membership. You can search and buy or sell materials that are based on your specialist topics. 30 day free trial period for you selling. So you can see if there is (29 dollar annual fee to become a member). Paid out on a quarterly basis. This site is being used extensively by home teaching parents.

We are teachers
Free social profiling with a knowledge market place (video, audio…). Teachers that are sharing their expertise and that exchange specialist knowledge. Nice stuff: pageturning widget.

Of course what gets to me is whether or not I should ask money for any expertise I might have. Some days I feel like I should, at other days I feel that knowledge should be free to all and should be dispersed to all at no cost. Most of the time I am promoting the second option, but now and again I see what my bank account look like and I am in trouble with my ethical principles.
Thank you very much Meri Aaron Walker!

In relation to the SCoPE seminar on social media in research I am currently facilitating, I have planned a live session. So let’s get together and exchange ideas live on social media that is used in research, I have set up a session through WiZiQ.

After an intro of about 20 minutes in which I will give a short overview of the big outlines on social media and how it is linked to research, the floor will be completely opened to discuss possible thoughts and questions you might have. These questions can be the basis of discussion threads during the ongoing seminar in SCoPE.

Practical:
The session is planned for Thursday 8 May
12 PM Halifax, Nova Scotia time = ADT;
8 AM Vancouver, British Columbia time = PDT;
5 PM Brussels, Belgium time = CEST;
If you are not sure of your time zone, you can look it up at the World Clock.

You can access the online session here.

On WiZiQ
WiZiQ is a free tool. It is an online virtual classroom and allows interactivity (audio/video and chat and 'raising hands', the last feature enables you to ask for the virtual floor. The presenter can give you the floor (= give you the possibility to say something if you have a microphone connected to your computer).

To participate in this session, you need to register for WiZiQ.
Once you are registered you can access all the sessions for free, BUT you need to be signed in to be able to open the sessions!
This session is audio/video enabled, which means you can use a headset with microphone. This will enable you to give audio comments if you ask for the floor by raising your virtual hand.

Technical tips:

• it is a good idea to surf to the link a couple of minutes before the session starts. This allows you to test your audio/video devices.
• Please keep in mind that you need a headset with microphone if you are planning to talk. This enhances the audio quality, open speakers give the microphones a hard time.
• (a small side remark: if you have been using audio/video software during the day (f.e. for camtasia or captivate) and you want to link to WiZiQ, sometimes the settings are intertwined and do not function correctly. In that case you will have to log out and log in again.

Feel free to join!

tokbox

Willem Karssenberg put me onto this tool: tokbox
A good review on this tool (in Dutch) can be found here at Pierre Gorissen's blog.

The great thing about tokbox is that you do not have to install anything and you can simply embed this videotool into a lot of social softwares. People can just click on the embedded frame and start videoconferencing. Nice!

You can even send me a videomail if you want to, simply by clicking the 'mail' button underneath. Neet.

Get your own TokBox at www.tokbox.com.