Digital Dialogues

The Future of Adult Education in NSW

Free Lunch Time Lecture for Adult Learners Week

Hon Verity Firth MP, Minister for Women, Minister for Science and Medical Research, Minister Assisting the Minister for Health (Cancer), Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change, Environment & Water (Environment) will deliver the Annual Dr Bob Frew Memorial Oration.
[Minister for everything?]
Her topic is:
“The Future of Adult Education in NSW.”

Details:
Monday 3 September ,
Time: 1pm,
Where: The Sydney Mechanics School of Arts Auditorium, 280 Pitt Street Sydney.

To register or call 02 8752 7555 to reserve your place.

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More - No - no more Facebook!

Well - while I've been searching for the elusive Surf Control report quoted all over the Australian media and the world... there's not a peep about on their own website... I scoured the media release sites and couldn't find anything more than a brief press release statement - so no report to examine - now that's what I call security!

In the meantime - I thought I'd run my own mini-research project on Facebook usage/wastage at work.
According to my research using incredibly reliable data sources (my Facebook friends, conversations in corridors etc) the average time spent per day is about 20 minutes but... that was only 50% of respondents.
The other 50% either declined to answer my question (meaning they weren't wasting time on Facebook) or didn't know what Facebook was!

So - just when you thought it was OK to use Facebook - and that you weren't going to make the country broke by wasting time (no, we waste money by holding APEC meetings) along comes the next article:

No more Facebook at Work

   

"ABOUT half of workers are being blocked from accessing the Facebook social networking service at work, with employers citing concerns about security and productivity loss as the reason for controlling access.

A poll conducted by tech security outfit Sophos of 600 workers found that 43 per cent said their companies blocked access to Facebook, while a further 7 per cent said access was restricted to people that had a specific business requirement for being on the site.

In contrast, 50 percent of respondents said that their company did not block access to Facebook, with eight percent specifying that the reason was fear of employee backlash."

[but wait... there's more....]

   

"Sophos says Facebok presents serious security concerns.

The company said large numbers of Facebook profile pages contain users' current employment details, which could be used together with other stolen information by cybercriminals bent on committing corporate fraud, or to infiltrate company networks."

And if you want to find out about how to steal someone's identity from Facebook - drop by the Sophos site! They can explain in detail how they set up a fake ID with a green plastic frog and then invite friends - What an interesting approach from a security company, kind of like entrapment?
Their results are based on who responded to the placcie frog!
Brilliant piece of research!
Now readers, the moral of the story: beware green plastic frogs - they could be hidden security company researchers!
And stop wasting time reading blogs about wasting time using social networks and green plastic frogs!

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10 Ways to a Killer Blog

I was cruising around SlideShare today - just looking for some engaging resources - and I came across this contribution from Robert and Maryam Scoble !
OK - so it's not brand new (10 months old) but it makes some good points and with a couple of hundred students all starting up their edublogs, I think this slide show can add another voice to the "Why?" & "How?" & "What for's?"!

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Facebook - a A$5 billion waste of time

Here we go again!
The media has previously inflamed panic about internet surfing, blogging and Googling - all related to time wasting at work... and now, fasten your seat belts... here comes the social networking scare mongering!

According to this article in the Sydney Morning Herald Facebook may be costing Australian businesses A$5 billion a year !

"THE next time you see an employee hunched intently over the computer, don't imagine he or she is slaving over the office accounts or a report for the next shareholders meeting.

Employees are more likely to be whiling away the hours on the social networking site Facebook, a report says.

Richard Cullen of SurfControl, an internet filtering company, estimates the site may be costing Australian businesses $5 billion a year. "Our analysis shows that Facebook is the new, and costly, time-waster," he said.

The report calculates that if an employee spends an hour each day on Facebook, it costs the company more than $6200 a year. There are about 800,000 workplaces in Australia.

One anonymous enthusiast, quoted in the SurfControl study, said: "Of course everyone checks Facebook at work, duh! I don't have neither internet nor a TV at home because I like doing more useful things with my time when I'm off work."

Another user was even more candid. "I work full time as a tax accountant," she said. "For the past two weeks I'd say I have averaged about 15 minutes of work per day."

The site has even replaced internal messaging systems and emails, themselves legendary guzzlers of work time, for communicating within offices."

Of course, there's no questioning the intentions of the company who authored the report - an internet filtering company - is there??!!
This is a perfect example to share with my students - about critically evaluating content presented on the internet. Understanding the implications and how this may influence their practice as educators.

The selected quotes from the report are perfectly positioned.... actually made me giggle... if someone can manage only 15 minutes of work a day then it doesn't say much about their workplace... or job role!
And of course, it neglects to address what exactly people are doing with Facebook, doesn't it..??.!
Perhaps, like blogging and Googling, they might just be working... perhaps social networks can include some effective work practices that the authors aren't aware of ... ! 
I think this report says more about the naivety of the authors of the report - and in fact the journalist, than it does about the negative aspects of social networking!

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Know How Now - Web 2.0

The Australian Businesswomen's Network is presenting a series of business success webinars: Know How Now !

The first webinar is Web 2.0 for your business - presented by - yep, me!
Date: Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Time: 10.00am– 11.00am AEST (Australian Eastern Standard Time)
Venue: Your computer - from the comfort of your own home or office.
Price: ABN Member -A $35.00 Non-Member - A$49.00
Not a member? Membership is just A$20 a month!!
Register here!

Other webinars in the series are:

Customer Service Success
Date: Wednesday, 5 September, 2007

Publicity Success
Date: Wednesday, 19th September, 2007

Planning for Marketing Success
Date: Wednesday, 26th September, 2007

Sales Success
Date: Wednesday, 17th October, 2007

Branding Success
Date: Wednesday, 24th October, 2007

PS. It doesn't matter if you're not a businesswoman... these sessions will be of value to anyone in business!

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Rich Media Communications - LTUG Event

This is an LTUG Product Showcase event
Date: 12 September
Time: 9am - 9:45am AEST (Aust Eastern Standard Time)
Where: Your computer
Topic: Rich Media Communications
Presenter: Julian Lefebvre

Content:
Video over the Internet is exploding in all forms, as evidenced by the recent acquisition of YouTube by Google.

This presentation will explore the emerging world of live and on-demand visual/audio communications combining elements of Web 2.0, webcasting, online content search and knowledge retrieval into a powerful new form of information exchange, also known as rich
media communications.

Julian Lefebvre will reveal some of the new ways the industry and Sonic Foundry, Inc. are advancing this technology and communication medium and transforming the way corporate, government and education enterprises capture and convey knowledge.

Along with continuous advancements in its Mediasite® communications platform, Sonic Foundry has recently begun showcasing its advanced rich media search capabilities, allowing for easy identification and retrieval of specific content within rich media presentations.
You will see demonstrations of new search solutions encompassing speech recognition, phonetic search, optical character recognition, language processing and contextual analysis resulting from years of extensive technology research and development.

Register now!

mana

Apec - forced public holiday in Sydney

Now - I'm not against public holidays but... forced public holidays.. and only for people working in the Sydney CBD and certain council areas (read: most of Sydney).
I visited the APEC site to find out some more:

"Why is there a public holiday on Friday 7 September?
The holiday will greatly assist in the safe movement of APEC leaders as they arrive to attend their meetings.

The public holiday will apply to people whose workplace is located in the following Local Council Areas (LCA)

Ashfield, Auburn, Bankstown, Baulkham Hills, Blacktown, Botany Bay, Burwood, Camden, Campbelltown, Canada Bay, Canterbury, Fairfield, Holroyd, Hornsby, Hunters Hill, Hurstville, Kogarah, Ku-ring-gai, Lane Cove, Leichhardt, Liverpool, Manly, Marrickville, Mosman, North Sydney, Parramatta, Penrith, Pittwater, Randwick, Rockdale, Ryde, Strathfield, Sydney, Sutherland, Warringah, Waverley, Willoughby and Woollahra."

So it's all about where you work - not where you live but ... and as you read on - you start to realise that bascially the city is becoming an enforced no-go zone... next they'll be publishing curfews!
Actually - I've just read some more... I don't see time limits but there are "declared zones" and "restricted zones"..

We have been advised to avoid travel to the CBD on the Apec "long weekend" and all classes have been cancelled... although we still have access to the buildings and Library...
oh - and then there's those attractive concrete block and wire fencing constructions going up around the main parts of the city - for protection purposes, of course!

Hmm - how can the disruption to business, personal lives, and just day-to-day living be justified? And who is footing this bill?  Could this money be spent more effectively on say... environmental issues, disaster recovery, poverty... hmm?

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BarCamp Sydney is back!

When?  Saturday 25th August
Where? University of Technology Sydney (UTS) - Building 10, Jones Street.

What is a BarCamp?

A BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from participants. Here is a quote from the Wikipedia description:

'BarCamp is an international network of unconferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies and social protocols.'

BarCampSydney is a gathering of creative tech brains for learning, sharing and collaboration.

For the Sydney BarCamp we're making topics open to those beyond technology to include entertainment, art, marketing, other technologies and content such as podcasts and so on.

Details:
Who? Anyone who is interested in technology, the Internet and related topics. We have room for 200 people, so bring your colleagues.
What? A good opportunity to share ideas and projects and to work with like-minded individuals.
Website? The BarCampSydney blog is located at: www.BarCampSydney.org. We'll be posting updated information about the event there.

See you there!

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Thought for the day....

"If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run - and often in the short one - the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative."
- Arthur C. Clarke, The Exploration of Space, 1951

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Edublogs 2.0 + 200

Happy birthday to edublogs - turning 2 years old and to the new, superdooper upgraded version 2.0 (I guess everybody has to be 2.0 these days, right?).

Keeping in synch with all the 2s, it's timely that the 2nd semester of University started this week and another 200+ students will be starting their edublogs in the 2nd week of semester (next week!).

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