Transcript of the live chat session that took place Thursday, February 12, 1998. These sessions are normally scheduled for 12 noon-1 PM Eastern Time (GMT -5) every Thursday.
How to translate this transcript into French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, or GermanComment traduire en français, Cómo traducir a los españoles, Come tradurre in italiano, Como traduzir em portuguêses, Wie man in Deutschen übersetzt.
These sessions are hosted by Richard Seltzer. If you would like to receive email reminders of our chat sessions, simply send a blank email message to businessonthewebchats-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/businessonthewebchats and sign up there.
For transcripts of previous sessions and a list of future topics, click here .
For an article on how to make "business chat" work (based on this experience), click here .
Since the chat itself happens at a rapid pace, it's often difficult to note interesting facts in particular URLs as they appear on-line. Here's a place to take a more leisurely look. I've rearranged some of the pieces to try to capture the various threads of discussion (which sometimes get lost in the rush of live chat).
Please send email with your follow-on questions and comments, and suggestions for topics we should focus on in future sessions. So long as the volume of email responses is manageable, I'll post the most pertinent ones here for all to see.
Phil Goodrich -- from Minnesota
Jim Harned (Home Page) -- from Florida
mano -- from Australia (connected to early)
Ken Merwin -- from Wisconsin
chung nahm -- (connected too early)
Eric Snyder -- Hello. Eric Snyder here -- Training & Development Resource Centre. First time here.
Ken Merwin -- Greetings all; Ken Merwin from wintery Wisconsin, grad. student and member of Global Learn Days II event.
Kathleen Gilroy -- Hi, Kathleen Gilroy, CEO of OTTER (Online, Training, Technical, and Educational Resources), Inc., a distance learning company.
Jim Harned -- Hi all. I am Jim Harned with OnLine Training, Inc. of West Palm Beach fl.
Kathleen Gilroy -- Jim, what does Online Training do?
Jim Harned -- Well, I am currently developing an Online GED prep course for the company.-- on demand and for specific need.
Gerald -- Hi My name is Gerald and I'm an MIT student just beginning research on distance learning.
Sudha Jamthe -- Hi Everybody: How are you doing? I am Su, I lead Web-Net Group which hosts this chat.
Marshall Wick -- Hi, I'm Marshall Wick from Gallaudet University.... sorry i had to be late today--meeting.....
Phil Grove -- Good Afternoon, I am Phil Grove from DIGITAL, Internet Marketing
Marshall Wick -- And with a slight lull here, might I ask MCosgrave (i got in late so may have missed introductions) what your name is....i find it ackward to say hey joe, jenny and MCosgrave......
MCosgrave -- Sorry Marshall..its Mike
Ken Merwin -- What's interesting about today is that Bob@micro apparently is not on but we are managing to do some networking so it shows that there is enough energy here to keep going even without the designated "leader"; there was a lull at the beginning but only 5 or so minutes.
Sudha Jamthe -- Ken: I came 10 minutes late and was talking initially thinking Bob was in here :))
Kathleen Gilroy -- Ken, Please send me an email and I'll send you part of our business plan. That is the best explanation for what we do. We don't currently have plans to go into Africa. Our first markets will be Asia and Latin America. We do use a mix of satellite and Internet delivery for our courses.
Ken Merwin -- I will, Kathleen. Thanks.
Kathleen Gilroy -- Ken, What are you thinking about doing in Africa? What kinds of courses? To what end? What delivery systems?
Ken Merwin -- I want to get my "feet wet" in helping to bring basic Internet access to a rural area in Kenya, then tap into a group (or groups) to teach basic Internet (e-mail initially) access, then do a needs assessment of needs and design around that. Also support income generating activities such as sales of craft items, etc. on a web site.
Kathleen Gilroy -- Ken, where in Kenya? I have been to Laikipia (on the edge of the Rift Valley near Lake Baringo and also to Lamu.
Ken Merwin -- Kathleen - we spent most of the time in Mombosa, 4 days on Lamu, then a few days near Tana River (Garsen) and flew in/out of Nairobi. Have family in Mombosa; did not get to Rift Valley. Also time in Tsavo...
MCosgrave -- Oh, also Ken did you know that the Mayaquest people are planning to cycle down africa in sept 98 with a laptop and an uplink?
Kathleen Gilroy -- MCosgrave, our focus will be business/management education--to start. I personally would love to develop courses in the humanities and sciences, but we are starting with where the greatest demand lies.
MCosgrave -- Yes..demand for online humanities is there but it is still thin...(the M is for Mike, btw)
Sudha Jamthe -- Kathleen: There is a simple boundary between online classes and online events and presentations. I thought Otter was more into presentations. Do you see a similarity or an ability to transfer core skills from one to another?
Kathleen Gilroy -- We're really not into "presentations." We do deliver information in a presentation style, but we also build many opportunities for interaction into our courses.
Phil Grove - -Gerald, at work I am interested in commercial distance learning, but in my town, I am interested in bringing access to knowledge to the grades k-12. Training that would otherwise be unavailabe to the children.
Sudha Jamthe -- Gerald: Web-Net is a free networking user group. We have online classes (free) organized by volunteers to share and help each other mutually in web topics.
Ken Merwin -- Gerald: My primary interest is education but I've worked a number of years in non-profits; my first job out of college was with G.E. so I can function in the business side as well and I think that there are many points of convergence between "business", "commercial" & "education".
Marshall Wick -- Gerald, my interest lies in higher education preparing students for a business career but what we are sharing is applicable to training after a student has completed their degree also as well as those who do not even have degrees but need some specialized training. My focus is on undergraduate degree-seeking business students. May move into the online MBA area in the future.
Ken Merwin -- Gerald: I follow DEOS and a few mail lists; my sense is that any DE situation involving a larger group requires a lot of management. I'm taking a DE course right now with 39 other students and the Instructor is sharing quite a bit privately with me as she knows I'm really interested in DE for developing countries so I'll have more observations in a month or two. The Instructor really cares about the class experience and it's been terrific so far.
Sudha Jamthe -- Ken: Can you send the announcement about Global Day II to Web-net discussion list at talk@web-net.org Our members will definitely be interested.
Ken Merwin -- Sudha - I sure will. The press release is just out so it is "fresh"; also technology plan is close to being done, etc.
Sudha Jamthe -- Eric: tell us more about CyberTeam. Who is the target audience? Or it is within your organization? We are trying to build communities with discussion rooms within our company.
Eric Snyder -- Sudha: An example of a "Cyberteam" would be a group of people in different locations across the country planning a conference.
Sudha Jamthe -- Eric: Thanks. that way, we can call regular people of this chat room as a Cyber team. Can we? What do you see is needed to build a cyberteam?
Marshall Wick -- Sudha, if we had a task at hand and we, here on the chat, worked towards a plan to complete that task, then we would, indeed, be a cyberteam. At the moment we are really just a discussion group, sharing info, views, etc. on a number of related topics.
Eric Snyder -- Sudha: No, I don't think so. The Cyberteam usually is working on some mutual objectives/projects/tasks.... Not just people chatting
Ken Merwin -- Eric: That's exactly what our Global Learn Day II group is doing; the core group includes people on a global basis. I'm the "newbie" to the group and it is one learning experience seeing plans develop, etc.
Kathleen Gilroy -- Sudha, this is a big topic for our company and I think we will really create a new type of job for the people responsible for this area. We need good facilitators (these many be ESL teachers to start) and we also need content aggregators/facilitators. I don't know yet what to call these folks, but we typically develop a pilot and try out a few things and then go from there.
MCosgrave -- I agree with Kathleen ..facilitation is really important ..it is easier with more mature students but you still need 1 good 'tutor' for every 20 or so students.
MCosgrave -- Sudha, if I can jump in, I think the net skills needed to build interaction are not complex, but the social skills are ..students who have difficulty speaking in F2F will still be shy online
Marshall Wick -- MCosgrave.... i am glad you jumped in. there is a lot of truth to what you say about social skills but i think that there IS less shyness when on speaks on line. One can see what they are saying before anyone else 'hears' it and that gives one more confidence in some ways.
Sudha Jamthe -- MCosgrave: That's interesting. I would think that those who are shy to talk may be more comfortable with writing. Kathleen: You have more experience in this.What do you think?
MCosgrave -- I accept that there is less shyness online, at least now, because the people who venture online are more venturesome than those who don't but there are always quiet ones in any class, and I think that as more and more people come into online DE, the proportion of quiet people in classes will rise.
Sudha Jamthe -- MCosgrave, Kathleen: Richard and I had some discussions about this in a chat setting (like this one) and came up with a moderator and facilitator as two different skills. One is required to keep the flow moving forward. Other should focus on shy individuals and bring them forward. In the long run, as the same people come often, a community gets build and people become more open to interact. What do you think?
MCosgrave -- I agree that communities do build; in some chat rooms/channels you get a clutch of 'regs' who are very strongly bonded (I'm thinking for Current Events in Yahoo, for instance or #Ireland) The problem with the facilitator/moderator roles is that it will be rare to be able to have 2 people; the one person will have to fill both roles.
Marshall Wick -- MCosgrove: Well i require all my students to join chat sessions when i have them so there are lots who are not so adventuresome. I think there is a good point that one needs a facilitator to keep things moving and pull in those who otherwise might not contribute. For myself, when i require chat, i ask questions and direct them to specific students much as i would in f2f classes.
Ken Merwin -- Sudha - your comments are so true; this is the 5th session I've been on and I already look forward to seeing some of the people log on and enjoy hearing from the new people too. I have written of this chat several times to my class and to our Global Learn Day II group.
MCosgrave -- Directing questions at individuals doesn't always work ... in F2F seminars here we usually set readings to form the basis for the discussion - if you set a task as preparation then everyone has something to work off.. In some courses like this, we do very little teaching except to fill in the occasional gap in coverage between the readings or comment on them
Sudha Jamthe -- Ken, Phil: Have you checked out CyberEd from the University of Massachusetts? It's a credit course on the web. The creator of the course once spoke at Web-Net meeting. He says he has virtual rooms for his staff online where they post their work-in progress etc. They all work from home and get together for lunch once a month and it seems to build a team and they work together.
Ken Merwin -- Interesting question! I just noticed Richard's picture when I came thru the several pages to log on. My wife is on a maillist (celtic studies) and someone is building a private web page for pictures & short bios and I'm going to suggest such a thing for the class I'm taking. Yes, I think a picture is good. Even a so-called bad hair day pic.
Sudha Jamthe -- Ken: (This is a funny analogy) But being on this chat for me has been like going to a party where we move around different groups discussing various topics :))
Marshall Wick -- Hey Phil, that is interesting..... in what way were they interacting differently? I do know that people really like to put a face on their contacts though.
Phil Goodrich -- There was a lot more interaction about things in their lives and how these were affecting what they were trying to learn.
Phil Grove -- I took 3 correspondence courses around 1975 for high school classes. There was a syllabus with tests at the end of each section. My only contact with the 'teacher' were the corrections to the test and any side bar comments written. It was actually successful, but hard to get motivated to do the work. The Internet would have made the interaction much more powerful and I expect improve the motivation to make progress.
Ken Merwin -- Sudha: The subject of effective communication is interesting; there is a part of me that would like to see some of the people on an F2F basis; but I, too, find the e-mail to be effective and, as I mentioned earlier, without my e-mail access I could not be communicating with people in England, Africa, Canada, Australia, etc. on a daily basis; I can't afford that kind of long distance cost.
Sudha Jamthe -- Marshall: I just saw your web site and could associate your picture to your talks. Ken: Is it enough to see a picture of a person? Do is a FSF once neccessary for members of a chat to bond into a community?
Ken Merwin -- One area I'm interested in is those technologies (like Cu SeeMe) that can work in the mid-to-low bandwidth setting. I think that a long-term relationship of people working over a longer length of time suffers if the *only* medium is text as in e-mail/list serv. However, I always come back to how could I communicate in a forum such as this without the Internet & text-only? I couldn't so I live with the lack of your pictures, non-verbals, etc.
Sudha Jamthe -- Ken: Are you saying its important to put a face to a name? I find it more easy to maintain communication over email/text chats once I have met a person once. I don't need to 'talk' or hear their voice always.
Phil Grove -- There is something to be said for not just a face, but the body language as well. I know that when I attend a F2F meeting or course, I sit down and read the room first. Then I decide how to behave. I find that conference calls and chat session provide much less to work with. This is most evident in a 'new' setting with 'new' people as this chat is for me filled with 'new' people.
Sudha Jamthe -- Phil: Richard has an article on his site about how to make a successful business chat happen http://www.samizdat.com/events.html I don't think it talks about a moderator role as such, but it has good material about the other questions you asked. [Richard -- Also try an article of mine about distance education at http://www.samizdat.com/distance.html]
Phil Grove -- Sudha: Interesting. I'll look up his writings.
Ken Merwin -- Phil: I have been looking at Cu-SeeMe and have the licensed version; I will e-mail you the URL of one site I've found where it is being used for some math courses; also an educational site that provides a reflector, etc.
Phil Goodrich -- Thanks Ken. I have always been interested in using CuSeeMe because it was developed at my Alma Mater Cornell. I have not used it in a course yet. Students do not have all the hardware to use it well.
Sudha Jamthe -- Hi Phil. How are you doing? Can you clarify: Are you looking for filtering content? I think Richard does a fine job keeping the focus of this chat on the topic each week.
Phil Grove -- Sudha, I agree. Richard does well. He is 100% attentive during the chat session. How can we have a continuous discussion with only partial attention. Can we use the 'delay' loop common to live radio broadcasts and hold a forum that way were the 'post' is first checked and then posted?
MCosgrave -- Phil, you can't keep conversations 'clean and productive' in F2F meetings; why try to make people behave differently in the net?
Marshall Wick -- Which raises another point.... does the attempt to form a community where everyone is casual help or hinder business communication? (i think it helps)
Sudha Jamthe -- Marshall: That's a good point. The definition of a community takes a different meaning from a business perspective.
MCosgrave -- No..haven't heard about the Non-credit classes from Harvard...is there a URL?
Kathleen Gilroy -- Sudha, I know Harvard has one course--I believe it is technical in nature. Is that what you mean?
Sudha Jamthe -- MCosgrave: I am looking for the URL too. I heard the announcement on TV (UPN 38) 2 days back.
Marshall Wick -- Phil, that is great.... the less plug-ins/client software needed, the better chance one has of signing up everyone interested in a course/seminar who otherwise does not feel they are really computer literate.
Gerald -- Managing a large number of students at a distance is very difficult. Is anyone familiar with new solutions that address this problem?
Jim Harned -- anyone out there building customer specific training packages. If so, what software are you using?
Marshall Wick -- Well one thing that Richard did well was wind us down and get us off line at 1 so i guess we will just do that... he always asks about next week's topic.... can we make suggestions now before we go off line? Great to be with you all again this week.
MCosgrave -- Well folks its been fun but its 6pm here in Ireland and time for me go lecture on the Normans in Ireland..catch y'all on the transcript
Phil Grove -- Have a wonderful day. Bye. /Phil
Ken Merwin -- I guess it's Richard's call on subject; I am in favor of continued discussion on DE Ken kmgraduw@centuryinter.net
Marshall Wick -- I'd like to continue the discussion of online communication and the ramifications of it. What works best and how and when, etc.
Sudha Jamthe -- Thanks Marshall.
Yes, its 1.00pm and we should close for today.
Richard should be back next week and plans to continue on the same
topic. He has listed some future topics at the end of his transcripts.
Check it out. I'd like to vote to continue this topic focusing on effective
communication (that's where we are closing today). Bye, See you next week.
Su sudha@web-net.org
Phil Goodrich -- Have a great day and I will enjoy some more discussion of using de, Phil
This might be of interest to you and the group. Unfortunately, it's jargon-heavy...
Tracy Marks, M.A. tmar@tiac.net http://www.windweaver.com/
>Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 13:50:42 -0600
>Sender: "The GNA Virtual Community Workshop List (gna-vc)"
> <GNA-VC@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
>From: "S. Kritikos" <napoli@wwa.com>
>Subject: Paper: Defining "Virtual Community"
>To: GNA-VC@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
>I have downloaded a paper by Quentin (Gad) Jones available at: http://jcmc.huji.ac.il/vol3/issue3/jones.html
>Highly recommended on first impressions. He is working on a thesis that
>involves analysing a large number of mailing list archives. ...
I audit the chat and have a few comments to offer: DL in public schools is never going to be accepted, esp. by the teacher unions if the cost per student is higher than the present cost per student for conventional classroom teaching. Every business who attempts to introduce a new cost element into DL, i.e. licensing fees for per use of a Course design template or site moderators or ......, simply drive up the costs and complexity of DL to the point of where I, as the technology coordinator and designer of Virtual Campuses, can't justify it. Public schools are now getting 'free = with a few hidden costs' 56 kb. frame relay service in N.H. and in other states. This bandwidth is generally distributed to a lab or teacher workstations; BUT, it can be used for mid range interactive DL.---between CuSeeMe and ProShare. Until Bell Atlantic sees a market for ISDN in New England, as it has in the mid-Atlantic states, this mid-range service may become a de facto standard. Towards that end, I am beginning to see NET MEETING as a product family of choice.
I note several hard core MAC users on this chat. For WEB based telcom, the WINTEL platform is far superior to work with, whether product availability, reliability, and a host of other factors. It is simply not worth the time or trouble to 'force' Macs into DL roles, when I can plug n' play WINTEL boxes into a DL role so easily. I would hope that your 'chatters' realize their personal preference for communication on a forum, is a poor choice for workstations or servers in a school setting.
Looking forward to you next chat; things seem to be coming together, but keeping costs down is critical to acceptance by School Boards and others. DL should be much less expensive than classroom based instruction, and this should always be our primary goal. It can, with enough bandwidth to support White Boards and MULTIPOINT, be superior to a classroom. That is my goal.
frank j. heller, technology coordinator & designer of the Virtual Campus.
MASCOMA VALLEY SCHOOLS, NH
From: Richard Seltzer <seltzer@acunet.net> Date: Sun, 15 Feb 1998 10:35:21 -0500 (EST)
Frank,
Thanks very much for your comments. It's going to be interesting to see how the business and technology and education pieces play together over time. I was just down in Fort Lauderdale at Nova Southeastern University. I'm playing "tutor" (support person) for a distance ed class -- a course that is the technology intro for a "cluster" of two dozen Ed.D. students who are focusing on distance education. It's a three-year program; the students come from very diverse backgrounds all over the US; most are in public schools. These are the kinds of folks who are likely to lead the charge in this new direction -- they are betting their careers on it.
Richard Seltzer
From: "Frank J. Heller" <global@gwi.net> Date: Sun, 15 Feb 1998 11:25:47 -0500
Richard --
You might want to 'role play' out the chair of the school board or head of teacher's union some class period, for a reality check on all of this stuff. I'm on the firing line and having to make some 'predictions' come true, esp. cost savings for AP classes with streaming components. Half the industry thinks this is some kind of windfall, and we're down in the trenches trying to get quality, reliable components and wondering what kind of service fees the phone co. and ISP are going to come up with next.
frank.
http://homepages.together.net/~lifelong/dlsites.htm
http://www.aln.org/alnweb/index.htm
Here's are two listservs that individuals may be interested in:
Quick Training Tips
To subscribe to the "Quick Training Tips" email list, send email to loretta@panix.com, with "subscribe tips" in the subject line
TRDEV-L
"TRDEV-L provides a forum for the exchange of information on the training and the development of human resources.Training is designed to improved human work performance on the job, and development prepares employees to adjust and grow with the organization. Training and development plays a strategic role in organization performance, and human resource professionals have a responsibility to explore their field and to expand their knowledge base. Participation in activities such as TRDEV-L assist in accomplishing this task."
To subscribe TRDEV-L send email to LISTSERV@PSUVM.PSU.EDU and include the command
SUBSCRIBE TRDEV-L
in the body of the message.
The following review comes from Larry Chase's Web Digest for Marketershttp://www.wdfm.com/
VerticalNet.com
"VerticalNet got what the Web was all about from the very beginning. In 1995, they began to create vertical Web communities that would allow buyers and sellers in a particular vertical market to meet, communicate, exchange information and do business in dynamic and interactive environments. Circa 1998, they are now the home of over a dozen thriving online business-to-business communities. As for revenues, well, each site is designed to deliver a well-defined audience to advertisers willing to pay to reach them. The sites contain news, original content, products and services, discussion groups, requests for bids, and virtual trade shows, and range from WaterOnline to PublicWorks, SolidWaste to PollutionOnline, EngineersOnline to PowerOnline. With plans to operate over 100 VerticalNets by the year 2000, we say -- more power to them."
I work as a contractor in the Omega group [at Digital] working on something very different than Distance Ed. But in my "former life" I put together Distance Ed systems using SCO 286/386 Zenix/Unix boxes with UUCP as the transfer system. I worked mostly with colleges to provide accredited courses to the underserved, mostly women on welfare in places like the Bronx and Brooklyn as well as St. Croix.
I'm going to try to join your Thursday chat session.
Please inform me concerning your next scheduled chat session. I am interested in offering Web-based classes enhanced with CUSeeMe chats. Your sessions appear to address some of the issues. Thank you.
Mac, Charles L. McDonald, Jr., Ph.D., Texas A&M University - Texarkana
Previous transcripts and schedule of upcoming chats -- www.samizdat.com/chat.html
To connect to the chat room, go to www.samizdat.com/chat-intro.html
The full text of Richard Seltzer's books The Social Web,
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Charge of Your Web Site, Shop Online the Lazy Way, and
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