I've probably said this before but if I haven't (even if I have), the U.S. Coast Guard is one of the most active branches of the U.S. uniformed services and probably goes the most unrecognized for its efforts. I met Jay Allen when he
was still in uniform for the "Coasties" and was tremendously impressed with the work he was doing in training (he was also a helicopter pilot for like 16 years) at that time. Well now Jay is at the Dept. of Homeland Security and continuing to do his ADL work there. Jay is also serving as the President of the Federal Government Distributed Learning Association (FGDLA)
.
Their
mission is below.
I did want to point out that Jay has created a social network for the FGDLA using ning and it is available here. If you do business in this sector, as a fed or a vendor, please join the network and help further the discussions - I am leading one on game&simulations and kicked that one off here.
| F | Facilitate the exchange of information and the implementation of distributed learning. |
| G | Guide interagency cooperation, economic application of distributed learning methods, technology, and research in the federal sector. |
| D | Develop distributed learning strategies to support a blended media approach to education and training, foster research into distributed learning practices and theory, and promote awareness of distributed learning. |
| L | Lead efforts to promote interagency cooperation and collaboration and provide recognition of outstanding achievements in federal government distributed learning practices. |
| A | Advocate and promote the use of distributed learning for education and training within the federal government and provide a forum for sharing information and enhancing interaction for all government agencies. |
(WebWare Story)
Hi. My name is Mark Oehlert and I used to read and collect comic books. OK. So I still have a couple thousand comics and read the occasional new ones. I think there are a couple of instances in which comics can teach us something specifically my favorite example has been Scott McCloud and his work in Understanding Comics. Brilliant work on visuals and presentation.
Now though there is a new twist. DC Comics, the publishers of Superman and Batman, have introduced Zuda Comics, a series of Web comics. Here is the twist: once a month, the editors pick 10 finalists and then people vote on their favorite and that vote-getter is given a contract to publish 52 episodes of the comic.
This just got me thinking about coupling this with something like a Digg-service...users would vote on their favorite content or managers would look at the content that is getting the most hits or the highest ratings and then use that data to fund the development of the content to the next level (HTML to RIA to game, e.g.).
Karyn Romeis tagged me with the 8 Random Facts Meme. Karyn is one of those great people that I think is very smart and who I've never met in RL. So I was thinking about how to respond to this tagging - I'm a rebel, I live on the edge - you know, blog fast and die young, so I wanted to do something a bit different. First, evidently I am required to post the following:
1) Post these rules before you give your facts
2) List 8 random facts about yourself
3) At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them
4) Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged
After the facts I'll tell you what I did that I think is a bit different.
Now, just the facts ma'am,
Ha-na: I study Tang Soo Do
Tul: This December I will have been married 17 years
Set: I will finish my PhD (but not in history)
Net: I long to win the lottery but never buy a ticket
Ta-sot: I think I'd move to Scotland if I thought I could find a job
Ya-sot: I think we should force-feed children a curriculum full of challenging, creative and inter-disciplinary courses
Il-gop: I think the learning/training community is waaayyyy too intellectually inbred and needs to date outside the family
Yo-dolb: I have been a fast food worker, a busboy, a waiter, a roofer, a contract archaeologist, a contract historian, a teaching assistant, a grad student, a consultant and a federal employee and I'm hard-pressed to tell you which job taught me the most.
So now the last part of this exercise is is that I am supposed to "tag" 8 other people...so I'll do that in a way. The people I choose though occupy a spectrum, some I know very well and some I know slightly and some I wouldn't actually recognize if I met them on the street - the common thread however, is that I respect all of them. Fingers crossed then on any of them responding to the meme. I partially do consider myself the dumbest person on the 'net since I seem to learn something from everyone I meet and these people I ABSOLUTELY learn a great deal from.
The list however, will only include 7 names because the eighth name is reserved for you -the untagged reader. If you read this, and choose to accept this assignment, please feel free to join the meme and let us know where to find you. You, are the one I really learn the most from - thank you.
The Magnificent Seven (+ one) (I also will rely solely on these people having ego-searches (like we all do - it's all good) to look for their own names on the Web and not leave comments on their blogs)
Ben Hamilton
Jerry Michalski
Eugene Eric Kim
Anne Galloway
Ryan Freitas
Andrew McAfee
Dave Gray
Ian Bogost
You
so you sign up for Avanoo and you get to answer and see the results for all kinds of questions like: If you believe in heaven, what do souls do there? and...Should immigrants to the U.S. be required to speak English?
What I thought was interesting (after I waded a bit through a rather crowded page design) was how the answers to the questions include deeper and deeper categorizations (male v female, US v intl, age, etc) but to the see those results, you have to add your responses..I think its a pretty gentle forcing function as those things go. You can also leave comments, rate the questions and flag questions to both track and ignore.
Be a nice way to do rolling questions say at a CONFERENCE....or among a community of interest.....
So like A MONTH AGO, Karyn Romeis tagged me with the 5 goals meme...talk about 5 goals you have and then tag 5 other people...first - what a lout am I that I take a freaking month to respond to something like that? Second - I don't think after a month, I can fairly tag anybody else since I have no idea how far this meme has traveled and who has gotten tagged.
I will mention 43 Things, a site that lets you share and tag your goals and find others who share similar goals. You can even cheer them on.
So what would my 5 goals be? Hmmmmmm...(in no particular order):
Alcatraz. Not exactly the kind of place that brings up thoughts of hope and of people fighting for important causes but this time it is. Brent Schlenker's daughter is part of a group, The Foundation for Aquatic Safety and Training (FAST), is swimming Alcatraz to raise money and awareness for drowning prevention.
The event is happening tomorrow so if you happen to be in San Fran (or Berkeley Jay :-)) , head on down and catch the event. Brent also said that he has set up a USTREAM.TV account for the event but that he does not have an EVDO/air card and does not know if he will be able to catch a WiFi signal at the pier..so if you are in the area, how about lending some bandwidth to a worthy cause?
If you don't live in the area (like me), please spread the word and keep in mind, these are kids themselves leading this effort to save other children so spare a post or a link and help with drowning prevention...worthy training if there was any.
Manifesto for the Reputation Society by Hassan Masum and Yi–Cheng Zhang
Information overload, challenges of evaluating quality, and the opportunity to benefit from experiences of others have spurred the development of reputation systems. Most Internet sites which mediate between large numbers of people use some form of reputation mechanism: Slashdot, eBay, ePinions, Amazon, and Google all make use of collaborative filtering, recommender systems, or shared judgements of quality.
But we suggest the potential utility of reputation services is far greater, touching nearly every aspect of society. By leveraging our limited and local human judgement power with collective networked filtering, it is possible to promote an interconnected ecology of socially beneficial reputation systems — to restrain the baser side of human nature, while unleashing positive social changes and enabling the realization of ever higher goals.
This whole site is great but I love the Buzz-o-Meter!
