Second life as a communication medium.

Second life is all a buzz in the Online world. We at Archer college are not ignoring it, this morning Mike Seyfang from Learndog sat in on the EdTechTalk Skypecast and enjoyed closing the Gap between people in different countries. I also was in discussions with Mike yesterday.

Looking at moving into the Second Life as a medium of Training is a idea that has been thrown around before and has not been dismissed yet either. At the moment it seems to me that the Idea of the second life as a meeting place is taking off and Virtual conferences are a real opportunity.

Would you be interested in seeing what second life is all about?

Phil Lomax, Archer College

ICT Skill shortage debated

Bill Cooper, Senior IT Learning Consultant at Archer College, reviews the latest opinions about ICT skills -

A skills shortage is driving up wages for people with the appropriate skills, according to David Raffen, Chairman of the ICT Council for SA. Raffen also believes that the free-trade agreement with the US will accelerate this as IT professionals’ qualifications were recognised there.

Warning for all companies about blogging

I read an interesting article in B&T magazine  about the power of blogging (unfortunately I can't link to the actual article because it requires a subscription to the paper magazine to access the online version).

Paraphrasing an article written by Rosemary Ryan in the 29th June edition, it says that companies cannot afford to ignore bloggers. They are a very large source of good and bad word of mouth and can be a significant risk to a companies credibility (and not just with geeky types). I know that I found out about the dodgy apple ipod battery through the blogosphere (albeit third hand).

This type of badmouthing companies can actually be quite detrimental to a company's image.  It is therefore important for all companies (big and small) to be aware of what is being said about them and monitor blogs as they do with more traditional media types. Being aware of what is being said via Technorati is an important step in combatting problems with bad publicity, with the added advantage that manufacturers can be aware of potential problems with their products and how this affects customer satisfaction. Hopefully companies will view this emerging medium positively as they can use it as an effective marketing tool to assist them in their marketing efforts.

Emily.

Live Meeting 2005

One of the biggest challenges for online learners is developing and maintaining good lines of communication with moderators and other students.

Live Meeting 2005 is a live, interactive web-conferencing program, due to be released in Australia by Microsoft on the 1st of September, that promises to make online communication easier than ever before.

With improvements on most features found in the 2003 version, Live Meeting 2005 also has many new and unique interactive tools to improve online communication and collaboration  - vital for developing and maintaining a productive online learning environment.

Blogging for begininers

I did a presentation yesterday on Blogging and I used a site called Blog lines Which is a great place to start in the world of blogging. It includes a news reader, how to publish your own blog and a place to do it. It is all done web based so it is a great place to start. When you get a bit more into the blogging world then,you can up grade to desktop readers if you feel you need to. I also showed the MSN option to blogging which can be accessed through MSN messenger or the Spaces website. Hope these links help you. Get blogging. Phil

Blogging guidelines

Here are some guidelines for corporate blogging that I have found that may be useful. I will post more as I find them....

A Personal Blog with an attached community

I was checking my personal blog today and found a comment and it was posted by a nice young lady from new casltle. She has a Blog about herself and she talks about what her friends are doing. I as looked closer I noticed and she has a 'Blog community' which are a group of people that leave regular comment postings on a blog. I first heared about this at Wikiopedia and this is the first time I saw it out in the wild. Her friends use is at a type of meeting place to discuss what happened on the weekend etc.
Here is a exerpt from her blog:
' So it's the Long weekend this weekend, Anyone on doing anything interesting that they would like to share with the Group? (haha that sounded like an AA meeting).'

This is a great example of people swapping ideas, infomation, picture, anything. It is commen meeting place. Kara has a 'Blog Community' of all of her friends about what happened on the weekend. This could be applyed the work place it could be a meeting place for your peers, coworkers, anything. Enjoy this food for thought.
Cheers Phil

What in cyberspace is http://del.icio.us/

I have been endlessly surfing the internet on the quest for cool stuff and the latest thing that I have found is Delicious it is online bookmarking facility that solves the problem where you add a bookmark and when you want to use that book mark you are on a different computer. For example find a great webpage at work and you want to book mark it so you can look it up at home. What delicious allows you to do is post this bookmark to a personal website which then can be looked up when you go home.

This webpage also has the option to create an RSS feed which can be used which makes retrieving your bookmarks even simpler! Delicious also supports the function of social book marking which is where you can share a list of cool websites with work colleges or friends. Swing by for a look at my bookmark list

Web based blogging stuff

Blogged by Phil:
Looking at some more Blogging gear, this time it is web based stuff which could be more handy for people who don't have a single computer or move around a lot. I looked at bloglines Which is a website that brings writing and reading of blogs together. Pretty simple to use and it can import Opml files. So if your looking for a good place to start Blogging all on your own check it out!

The corporate world of blogging?

Where is this Blogging going? There is a wonderful article Here on blogging in the corporate community. It raised some interesting questions about 'blogging on company time and management from the bottom up.