iterativelearning

I’ve been using Omni Focus for several months as my project/task manager. It’s a Mac software that nicely covers all the bases such as adding start dates, due dates, reminders, project notes, and multiple sorting configurations. One of my favorite features is its integration with Mac Mail where you can convert email items to tasks by forwarding them to your Focus inbox. However, every once in while, I have problems forwarding through one of my email accounts due to firewalls or some other related security measure. Today, though, I inadvertently discovered a work-around for this. If you highlight part of a message and then press CTRL-Click, you’ll see an option to add it to your Focus inbox. It even gives you the option of adding the due date from within your mail message. Pretty nifty.

Educause Quarterly has a piece by Roger McHaney on a relatively new wiki implementation called the Electronic Learning and Teaching Exchange (ELATE). Produced by Kansas State University, it’s a wiki that offers a wide variety of information divided into four categories: Course Issues, Instructors, Students, and Tools. It’s got an inviting UI and has entries that cover both the practitioner (Updating an Online Course) and theoretical (Building Mental Models) ends of the spectrum

A couple of standout points in the EQ article for me are the ANYSITE tool

… the ANYSITE extension, which allows embedding a live website within a wiki page. This feature enables a preview of a related website or distribution of digital artifacts such as e-books.

and the acknowledgement of the challenges associated with keeping a wiki community vibrant and participatory. On the latter, McHaney references Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody and his three elements for facilitating success – promise, tools, and bargain.

The bargain is the most complex aspect of the balance because it involves user behaviors in response to the promise and tools. For ELATEwiki, the bargain becomes that contributions will be maintained, improved, policed, and used by a community of peers.

The direct reference to Shirky I think shows how much we’ve learned about what makes online communities work than in the early days where there was much more of a preoccupation with the tools.

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Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, Roger McHaney, Educause