At Which Location Are You Most Productive?

Gist created a wonderful infographic on devices and work mobility. One of the items in this info- graphic represented people indicating the location they where they felt most productive: Office (46%), Home (38%), and "No Preference"(9%). The "No Preference" categories included planes, hotels, public transportation and coffee shops.

I now work from home, and sometimes go to a coffee shop when I need a change of scene to buoy productivity that seems to have slowed. While traveling I work from multiple locations, and this is now even easier with the wifi hotspot capacity from my phone.

In the last two organization-based positions, one employer did not see why a person would possibly want to work from home. I shared that I could get up in the morning, pull on running clothes, work hard till noon, go for a run, then clean up and finish the work day. The time not spent getting dressed until after I worked and exercised added to my productivity.

The other organizational workplace had a set day where all employees were on site for meetings and interactions, then had a schedule for when some teams were on site while the others telecommuted.
Because there is benefit to having face time and proximity, this seemed like a great solution.

What's been your experience? One question--have you been able to get a hotspot while riding Amtrack?

I Want to Be Like Carin Goldberg

   It's good to have people to admire: Descriptors and Thoughts from Carin Goldberg, Book-Designer

Wordle Based on"Hall of Femmes" entry by @Brainpickings

Twain on Plagiarism and If I Ever Get Sent to Hell

@brainpicker shared a letter from Mark Twain to Helen Keller on the subject of shared ideas and the subject of plagiarism. To quote her, she wrote, "If you read nothing else this week, make it Mark Twain's letter to Helen Keller on plagiarism:
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/10/mark-twain-helen-keller-plagiarism-originality/

And so I did. Because I figure if I ever get sent to Hell, it might well involve dealing with plagiarism in one form or another--which I here define as the use of others words and specific ideas without acknowledgement.  I spent years teaching research and writing in higher ed, worked in training units where we produced training materials, did a plagiarism webinar, wrote papers, worked to persuade other faculty into making first events teachable moments rather than range wars, and learning from a student who bought a paper that she because she bought it she could use it however she pleased--which was to submit it for a grade.

But back to Mark and Helen. In this letter, Twain declares that most everything in the human condition comes from our shared pool of ideas:

          "...and there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the discoloration they get his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing"

And it is the "characteristics of phrasing" that invokes the great plagiarism tempest--the fixed form the idea takes. Copyright law protects a persons right to make a living based on those fixed forms, and academics base their value on the contribution of both ideas and words (which is nicely acknowledged and shared via Creative Commons).

Twain was a man unafraid to wrangle with trying circumstances or recognize an albatross for what it was-- and at times teaching of appropriate acknowledgement certainly falls into either category. I agree with Twain the ideas we express very likely come from a long line of others' ideas. And I support saying where they come from, an idea which communicates our shared history.

LinkedIn and Slideshare

Just as the last post embedded a slideshare presentation, the news has broken: LinkedIn has acquired Slideshare and Twitter is hopping with the news: https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/linkedin%20%2B%20slideshare

And here's is LinkedIn's Cute (yes, Cute) Release using Slideshare

LinkedIn and Slideshare

Sharing Out My ELCC Presentation

The E-Learning Consortium of Colorado has been hosting a conference for over 20 years now, and it is a wonderful conference because it is truly a peer-led teaching and learning event.

Here's my presentation. Additionally related sites can be found at this Delicious link:
http://delicious.com/constantlearningorg/elcc2012

Start the Video

Evaluating the Khan Academy App on Ipad

So many people were excited with the 60 Minutes feature on the Khan Academy. Additionally, I was excited when the Khan Academy broadened its model to include other disciplines, specifically the art video discussions from Smarthistory--the open art history textbook.

And then the iPad and iPhone apps were released. I was euphoric. So I downloaded it to my iPad.
As did a reviewer Lisa Caplan: http://www.appolicious.com/education/articles/11373-the-khan-academy-goes-mobile-with-new-ipad-app.

Compare with The Wasteland app, for T.S. Eliot's great poem: http://www.touchpress.com/titles/thewasteland/ The Khan Academy would benefit from the tips feature in this app. Validating that is this blogger's observation: http://ipadinsight.com/ipad-app-reviews/quick-look-the-waste-land-for-ipad. What I also love about this app is all elements are contained within so you don't need to be online once you've downloaded the app to your device.

My first app was the History of Jazz timeline--it's newest version does provide some tips on the features, an improvement over it's earlier iteration and videos are now embedded in the app:
http://www.appsafari.com/books/15576/the-history-of-jazz-an-interactive-timeline/.

But back to Khan Academy iPad App. Future iterations could incorporate some tips from the apps above. I found it difficult to find the exercises and videos -- they were available as small links in my profile. Not all parts of the app are populated with content, and while it gave me "energy points," with no orientation, I am not clear on what the points indicate. Additionally, the points for watching a video were not tracked, though I did watch more than one. So here's to future iterations--with Smarthistory added to Khan, it will be great to have these impressive resources available on a variety of devices.

Sharing Resources With Colleagues at ELCC: Start the Video

I love attending the Colorado E-Learning Consortium Conference, now in its 23rd year. This is a great
peer teaching conference. My session explored multiple sites with great academic video, how to use bookmarking to track those finds, and what opportunities there are for involving students. Many of the related sites for this session are bookmarked here: http://delicious.com/constantlearningorg/start_the_video.