[VBbuilders] [globalvillages] why NING after all?
Pamela McLean
pam54321 at googlemail.com
Tue Apr 20 02:01:11 CEST 2010
Hi Franz and everyone.
I am reluctant to enter into serious techie-speak discussions as my comfort
zone there is fairly limited - but I would like to share what I have been
developing with Andy and Ryan for Dadamac as some of our explorations may be
a useful addition to your discussions (and they can follow up later with
techie-speak).
First the background to my online community experiences, then the technology
I have used and some explanation of the thinking behind what has been used
so you can judge its relevance.
My personal "online community" history has been through the development of a
"three part" inter-related network made up of: an online network; a F2F
network in the UK; and a F2F network in Nigeria (and a little in East
Africa). This Internet enabled networking all began ten years ago when a
close friend in London persuaded me to get involved in a community project
that her Nigerian husband was starting "back home" in the ten local
governments of rural Oke-Ogun in Oyo State SW Nigeria.
At that stage my computer knowledge related to using ICT in schools and my
Internet use was mainly email and some web-browsing. I had never heard the
term ICT for Development - and had no intention of ever visiting Africa.
However, that was ten years ago - and "life happens". I now have
considerable experience of ICT4D, of being in online communities, of
nurturing online relationships and communities, and pushing maximum
information back and forth online (and beyond the boundary of the online
network) to enable ongoing collaborations, shared learning and friendships
(with especial emphasis on collaborations between the "bandwidth rich" and
the "bandwidth poor - or bandwidth challenged"), and knowing first hand how
things do work and don't work in certain parts of Africa.
Technically the story went like this (written from a personal perspective,
but within a gradually growing network and aided by a variety of helpers and
collaborators, written in an approximate "starting to get important" date
order - but it all developed organically so things are really very
interwoven and overlapping. I have not included every detail, just enough to
give an idea of the gradual development and scope )
- Emails
- Emails with attachments
- Other people's websites
- Travelling in Nigeria helping to field test a prototype solar-driven,
low-power, email-sending, computer with a touch screen (2004) organised
through my Oge-Ogun network.
- Other people's discussion lists and yahoo groups
- Writing and moderating an online newsletter - for the Oke-Ogun project
(thanks to Kabissa)
- Getting my own yahoo email address (set up in a Nigerian cyber cafe)
- More trips to Nigeria - always including non-formal ICT training
- Setting up and moderating a yahoo group - to support preparations for
an ICT programme called Teachers Talking Fantsuam Foundation in North
Central Nigeria
- A wiki that grew from the information content generated by the yahoo
group. (It was fine as an information warehouse but not so good as an
information self-service store. My TT participants needed 'wiki guides' to
help provide the relevant links. We needed something more friendly and
better suited to the participants' needs)
- Presenting ICT training courses on various occasions with the
limitations of "the Nigerian factor" (also repeated in Kenya) - all
contributing to my growing online network as well as my local knowledge/
- The "friendly wiki" (This was my first introduction to how different
people could relate to information in differently structured ways through a
system of "permissions". It was a difficult learning curve as "content" and
"purpose" ie me, and "technical capability" i.e. my patient Open Source
mentor and collaborator, struggled to understand each other.)
- Yahoo chat
- Yahoo conferences
- Developing a conceptual model for successful online collaboration
(finding there were missing bits and improving it)
- Using the model to initiate a collaboration which gave rise to
People'sUni.org
- Skype
- Explorations with audio-grahic conferencing
- Experiments with digital cameras (video and photos) and with putting
information online
- Regular (once a month) use of the Minciu Sodas worknets chat room
- Experimenting with Moodle (A leap forward from the 'friendly wiki". I
could consider the individual interests of people and allocate them to
appropriate Special Interest Groups. There can be different permissions for
different people within the group. This means for example that some people
can only see "tidy, ready-to-use" information, and others can also see messy
"work in progress', some have information sent out to them, others only see
information if they choose to visit the information store, and others are
able to help stock the information store - or even just leave things there
for their own future use, which is quite handy if you don't have computer of
your own to rely on - especially a few years back before data sticks were
around. Forums can be used for emails between SIG members. )
- Skyping
- Website that I was responsible for generating (Useful experience, but,
as it turned out, not permanent - one of my "eek!" learning experiences)
- Blogs, for communication, as an information store to point to in
emails, and as a temporary web-presence
- Joining with John Dada to form Dadamac
- Joining various NING groups
- Joining facebook
- Joining other social media/web2.0 groups
- More setting up and moderating of yahoo and google groups
- Use of google docs and spreadsheets in our extended virtual office.
- Weekly use of typed online conferencing (first yahoo, then skype) for
regular weekly Dadamac UK-Nigeria team meetings
- Treating UK-Nigeria team as one of our Moodle SIGs and using Moodle to
send out agendas, store relevant documents, keep meeting archives etc.
- Drupal as an alternative way of generating a website (setting up
www.dadamac.net on Drupal with help from Ryan of Equitas and Andy
Broomfield of NewMediaThinking
- Adding blogs to Dadamac.net
- Various experiments in collaboration, especially related to roles of
teachers and learners now we have the Internet.
- Start of experiments with containers and forums on Drupal - to be
followed up later - just a learning experience so far, no real migration of
our community activities to that space.
- Continuing to develop use of Moodle - and using that for some community
activities that I hope to make more visible later by moving over to Drupal
- Use of twitter
- Setting up a NING group as a learning experience for the Dadamac Social
Media SIG
- Discussions with Andy about CCK and development of better Drupal
enabled discussion groups and "community happenings" at
www,dadamac.net(CCK = Content Construction Kit and is what allows you
to set up different
content types / fields sets etc.)
- Experimenting with posterous as a mid-point between private emails and
letters written as "open letters" for my blog
As I read the discussions about people's NING groups and why they want them
it seems to me that there is a considerable overlap with Dadamac's interests
and efforts so far, and so there might be beneficial opportunities for
collaboration. Dadamac recognises various kinds of "currency" for win-win
collaborations - money, time, skills, knowledge,information, trust-building,
etc. It is small, flexible and independent so is open to new ideas,
strategies and projects.
Pamela
Pamela McLean
UK-Africa Connections
Dadamac Ltd - Knowledge Brokers
www.dadamac.net
On 19 April 2010 07:43, Franz Nahrada <f.nahrada at reflex.at> wrote:
> In a discussion with Markus I wrote up some points that I find essential
> about NING.
>
> a) the potential to form groups of individuals that have thematic
> coherence;
>
a very good balanced relation between community spirit and
> embeddedness in a larger space where individuals can move freely (you can
> bring your friends from other networks) , fractal in its approach that
> gives us sense of belonging. (*)
>
> b) in the framework of this: the ability to request theme specific
> profiles and not just general profiles like in Facebook or Wiser Earth.
> This is very important to understand the degree and kind of motivation
> that people have from the beginning.
>
> b2) in the framework of this: the ability to add one level of fractal
> subgroups in a theme, with its own membership and discussion fora.
> *** I wanted us to do this in the videobridge NING, so we can identify our
> technological etc. capacities.
> *** I wanted us to do this in the globalvillages NING, so we can identify
> our research base
>
> c) a very good and fine tuned email notification system that allows me to
> leave the community and only be drawn there only when it is necessary.
>
> d) a very flexible way to upload files in thematic contexts. I lack that
> for example in even similar systems like MIXXT.
>
> I gladly learn from others how they feel about this. I think its important
> to think about ways of organizing cooperation online that are realistic
> and coherent.
>
> And I know tons of things are missing in NING. But I feel we need a kind
> of center or several types of centers to group other patterns around them,
> like Skype, GoogleDocs, Facebook,
>
> The natural centers for me are mailing list and social network.
>
> Franz
>
> (*) Wiser Earth is not fractal enough, it gives me endless lists of people
> and solutions and does not carry through even its internal order system
> which would provide ordered fractality. The internal order system is
> detailed but it lacks some categories.
> Also, WE is still extremely buggy - I tried a test network there also and
> it behaves weird. http://www.wiserearth.org/group/globalvillages
>
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