National eXtension Initiative

eXtension’s professional development opportunities are open to all Cooperative Extension faculty, staff and employees. Please share this announcement with others and encourage them to pick a topic and try it out!

SPECIAL GUEST PRESENTATIONS
On May 9 from 3:00 – 4:30 Eastern Time (2:00p CT, 1:00p MT, 12:00p PT, 11a AT, 9:00a HT) we are excited to have special guest Beth Kanter present “Tagging for Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing”.

Tagging (key words to describe web resources) and the use of social bookmarking services like del.icio.us can provide relatively easy ways for Extension professionals to collaborate and easily share information with colleagues and co-workers. This two-part webinar will explain what tagging is, why it is useful for individuals as well as for group collaboration, and demystify social bookmarking software. The session will also explain the pros and cons of using tagging and social bookmarking. The group will participate a hands-on action learning activity using a popular social bookmarking application, del.icio.us, to put some of the ideas in practice immediately after the first session on May 9th.

Then, on May 23rd, the group will come together for a facilitated conversation to reflect on what was learned about tagging and how they might integrate the use of tagging and social bookmarking into their existing practice.

Beth Kanter is an experienced coach to “digital immigrants” in the personal mastery of using new web tools. Her work primarily deals with educational technology and working in communities. Many of the things she writes and presents about fit closely with Extension. You can learn more about Beth Kanter at http://www.bethkanter.org/ and read her blog at http://beth.typepad.com/. If you missed it, see the Recording of “Ten Steps to Web 2.0″ that she presented in April. It’s linked from the About eXtension wiki’s Recordings of eXtension Professional Development Sessions page.

Please mark your calendar now to attend “Tagging for Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing” via Connect (formerly Breeze) at http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/learn and with your telephone. Join the session 5-10 minutes before the starting time at 3:00-4:30 Eastern Time (2:00p CT, 1:00p MT, 12:00p PT, 11:00a AT, 9:00a HT) (for all Extension).

30 MINUTE SESSIONS
This month we are offering “30 Minute Sessions” on several Mediawiki topics for those working in the Collaborate or CoP wiki. Give us 30 minutes and we’ll teach you something useful! These sessions will be held via Connect (formerly Breeze) at http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/learn and your telephone. Plan to join the session 5 minutes before the starting time. Each session will be held at 3:30 Eastern Time (2:30p CT, 1:30p MT, 12:30p PT, 11:30a AT, 9:30a HT) unless otherwise noted.

* May 8, a “30 Minute Session” Mediawiki Bare Essentials – what you need to get started working in a wiki. (for all Extension)

Tagging series: May 9, a special one-hour plus Q&A session by Beth Kanter on “Tagging for Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing”; May 9-23 an Online Action Learning Experience; May 23 Facilitated Discussion on Tagging Experience. See Special Guest Presentations above. (for all Extension)

* May 22, “30 Minute Session” Google Juice – Help search engines find your information and ours! The basics of search engine optimization. Includes making good titles and good opening paragraphs. (for all Extension)

* May 29, we’re offering Metadata in the CoP Wiki — want to be sure your contribution to your CoP is being tracked? Want to be sure that you have the right to use photographs? Need to be sure that your CoPs educational content has been through peer-review before publishing? All this information is stored under the metadata tab on the CoP wiki. Come to this session to learn how to better user this tool to manage your CoP’s educational content. (CoP leaders and members)

* May 30, “30 Minute Session” Lists in MediaWiki – bulleted lists, numbered lists, combination lists. (for all Extension)

To participate in any of the sessions…

1. Five minutes before the start time, go to the Connect (formerly Breeze) meeting room at http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/learn.

2. You will be presented with a login screen that has an “Enter as Guest” option.

3. Enter your first name, your last name, and your institution/university, then click the “Enter Room” button to join the conference.

4. To hear the audio of the workshop and participate in the Q&A portion of the workshop we will be using a built-in teleconferencing capability of Macromedia’s Breeze conferencing software. Once you log into the meeting you will be presented with the option to enter your call-back number, your phone will automatically be called. After entering your number you will be automatically called and joined into the audio portion of the Web conference on your phone.

If you or a colleague would like to get notices about upcoming professional development sessions offered by eXtension, go to https://lists.extension.org/mailman/listinfo/learn and subscribe to the “Learn” email list.

Recordings of past professional development sessions can be found at the main eXtension wiki at http://about.eXtension.org on Recordings of eXtension Professional Development Sessions page.

Add these dates & topics to your calendar, and plan to join us on for one or more of these sessions in May!!

“Oscar,” aka Hidalgo, endorses and supports eXtension. At the recent Everything Equine in Burlington, Vermont, Oscar was one of three American Paint Horses that starred in the John Fusco’s screen story of Hidalgo. Hidalgo was based on life and long distance riding ability of Frank T. Hopkins.

Hidalgo was a Mustang stallion, considered the spirit horse of the Cimarron. Hidalgo is now part of the HorseQuest Community of Practice. Oscar starred in the opening scene of the movies, was the horse used in the village scene rescuing the Princess, and was in the desert scene involving the pit with spears and fought off the leopards.

Oscar’s manager Stephanie Lockhart (www.red-road-farm.com) said eXtension is a remarkable site with a tremendous amount of information that will be very useful to horse owners. She and Oscar both really like the site and find it very worthwhile and are extremely excited to be a part of the National eXtension initiative.

Beth Kanter, blogger and cutting-edge Web tools expert, will present a 90-minute session, “Ten Steps to Web 2.0″ on Tuesday, April 24 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time as part of eXtension’s professional development series. Her presentation will be available through your web browser at http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/Learn and your telephone.

Are you interested in new ways of working collaboratively? Do you use the Web? Would you like to participate in the Web? Do you wonder where extension and new Web collaborative tools may intersect? In this 90-minute session, Kanter, who is a trainer, coach, and consultant to nonprofits and individuals will discuss strategies and demonstrate the effective use of Web 2.0 community building technologies. You can learn more about Beth Kanter at http://www.bethkanter.org/ and read her blog at http://beth.typepad.com/.

This professional development session is open to all Extension colleagues across the country.

Event: Beth Kanter, “Ten Steps to Web 2.0″
Date: Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Time: 3 p.m. Eastern (9 a.m. Hawai’i, Noon Pacific, 1 p.m. Mountain, 2 p.m. Central) 90 minute session
Web Location: http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/learn

For more information, see http://tinyurl.com/32rho3

Come learn with us!

eXtension systems staff will be doing maintenance on all of our servers that drive our eXtension web sites and services on this coming Saturday, April 21, 2007, from 8am until 12pm Eastern Daylight Time.

Each of the *.extension.org sites will be unavailable for a period of time during this maintenance window ( our public www.extension.org site may be unavailable for up to 30 minutes, our internal sites such as cop.extension.org and about.extension.org may be unavailable for up to 2 hours during the window).

[UPDATE: April 21, 2007 - 1:30pm(EDT) Due to an unannounced power outage to one of the primary server facilities, the maintenance took longer than expected - and the actual outage began earlier than expected, www.extension.org was completely unavailable from 7am until approximately 11:30am EDT. All services were fully restored by 1:30pm(EDT)]

Is Twitter TOO Good? Kathy Sierra has a very interesting post about Twitter.

“Twitter scares me. For all its popularity, I see at least three issues: 1) it’s a near-perfect example of the psychological principle of intermittent variable reward, the key addictive element of slot machines. 2) The strong “feeling of connectedness” Twitterers get can trick the brain into thinking its having a meaningful social interaction, while another (ancient) part of the brain “knows” something crucial to human survival is missing. 3) Twitter is yet another–potentially more dramatic–contribution to the problems of always-on multi-tasking… you can’t be Twittering (or emailing or chatting, of course) and simultaneously be in deep thought and/or a flow state.”

In the “The Secret Language of Success: Using Body Language to Get What You Want” by Dr. David Lewis (1989), Dr. Lewis suggests you can determine how a person on your team views change by having them repaeta a simple phrase.

Dr Lewis recommends you get each of them to repeat the following 5 words out loud without thinking about it too much:

“We can’t do that here”

Listen carefully to which of the five words they stress – if its:

1. We – they are worried about their Identity
2. Can’t – they are worried about their beliefs and values
3. Do – they are worried about their skills
4. That – they are worried about their behavior
5. Here – they are worried about the environment

It might be nonsense, they might laugh at you or you might just learn something important about one of your fellow team members!

You might give it a try!!!