National eXtension Initiative

2009 eXtension National Conference
Call for Abstracts/Presentations

Mark your calendars! The 2009 eXtension National Conference will be held in St. Louis MO. October 20-23 and we are looking for members of Institutional Teams and county staff, as well as CoP members to present abstracts about eXtension implementation at state and local level, effective use of eXtension tools and techniques, CoP successes and strategies, and other key topics for roundtable discussions.

General conference information can be found at:
http://about.extension.org/wiki/2009_eXtension_National_Meeting

Abstracts are due by JUNE 10, 2009 and information about submission and the submission forms can be found at:
http://about.extension.org/wiki/2009_Abstract_Submission

Please note that eXtension will reimburse the conference registration fee ($225) to the lead author/presenter of each presented abstract!

If you have questions please contact:
Carla Craycraft, Conference Planning Committee Co-Chair
carla.craycraft@uky.edu

As of May 5, 2009, nearly 9,700 of all approximately 15,000 Cooperative Extension Service professionals had eXtension IDs. We’re working to increase that number to 100 percent!

One of the first steps to being fully engaged with the eXtension initiative is to create this eXtension ID. By doing so you’ll be allowed to work in the eXtension collaborative space, you can become a member of one of 35+ Communities of Practice, and you’ll be registered to receive routine email updates on the initiative.

If you don’t have your ID yet, it’s a simple process! Just go to
http://people.extension.org and you’ll be taken to the registration page.

Encourage your friends and colleagues in Cooperative Extension to do so today!

eXtension’s professional development opportunities are open to all Cooperative Extension faculty, staff and employees. No pre-registration. Please share this announcement with others and encourage them to pick a topic and try it out!

SPECIAL SESSION:
How To Drink from a Fire Hose
May 6 at 2:00-3:30 ET

With so much information, sometimes it seems like you are drinking from a fire hose. The most effective method of managing and filtering the flow of information is to use a combination of tools. Several people will demonstrate how they filter the flood of information to a manageable stream. Google Alerts, iGoogle, Google Reader, NetVibes, FriendFeed, and TweetDeck are the tools that will be demonstrated in this session. This Professional Development session is offered in partnership with the ACE Information Technology SIG. (all Extension)

Presenters: Google Alerts by Dave Palmer, University of Florida; iGoogle by Rhonda Conlon, North Carolina Cooperative Extension; Google Reader by Stephen Judd, University of New Hampshire Extension; NetVibes by Floyd Davenport, Iowa State Extension; FriendFeed by Kevin Gamble, eXtension; TweetDeck by Vince Verbeke, Penn State.

This session will be broadcast and use your computers speakers for audio, not your phone. Audience interaction will be done using the built-in chat capabilities. This session will be held at our Web Conferencing Center at http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/learn.

30-MINUTE SESSIONS

This month we are offering 30-Minute Sessions on a several topics including learning lessons, the Ask eXtension widget, Google Analytics for evaluating content by category, FriendFeed, and tables in the wiki. Give us 30 minutes and we’ll teach you something useful! These sessions will be held at our Web Conferencing Center 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 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time (1:00 p.m. CT, Noon MT, 11:00 a.m. PT, 10:00 a.m. AT; 8:00 a.m. HT) unless otherwise noted.

* May 5 at 2:00 p.m. ET, a 30-Minute Session on eXtension Mentor Series: Creating Learning Lessons by Krishona Martinson, HorseQuest CoP and University of Minnesota, and Nick Broady, eXtension. In this 30-minute session, an established CoP will cover how they plan, outline and implement learning lesson development. They will discuss some of the multimedia tools and technology they use including things like Googlemaps, Captivate, video, options for adding accessibility to your lessons, and more. (For CoP leaders & members, and all Extension)

* May 7 at 2:00 p.m. ET, a 30-Minute Session on The Ask eXtension Widget- Aaron Hundley, eXtension Software Engineer. How to use the Ask eXtension widget to receive and answer questions directly from your county Extension web site or Extension-related blog. This widget adds question asking capabilities to your site, but uses the power of the eXtension Ask an Expert and FAQ systems to assist you in answering. Take questions from your clients, and use the 40,000 questions in the FAQ system to assist you in providing a timely and accurate answer. Check out the widget tracking feature that allows you to name the widget and monitor questions coming from your site. Also learn about the widget routing capability that will allow you to have questions routed to you from your widgets. This session will introduce you to the tool, show you the latest features developed, and will discuss what is necessary to begin using it immediately in your own county sites and blogs with helpful tips. (For all Extension)

* May 12 at 2:00 p.m. ET, a 30-Minute Session on Evaluating Your Content with Google Analytics (by Category!) with Google Analytics by Ben MacNeill, eXtension User Interface Designer. Google Analytics (GA) reveals tons of information about which pieces of content perform the best on the eXtension Public Site. However, until recently, it was only possible to look at performance for all content or single pieces of content. If you wanted to find the top-performing piece of content in a specific category (eg. fire ants), you were out of luck. This all changed last month, and you can now use GA to drill down to a specific category. Come learn how to use GA to find your best (and worst) performing content. You will learn about bounce rate, the power of links, traffic sources, organic search keywords and how to get this information emailed to you from GA on a weekly basis. You have to have a Google account to access Google Analytics. (For CoP leaders & members, and all Extension)

* May 20 at 2:00 p.m. ET, a 30-Minute Session on Tables in Mediawiki, by Beth Raney, eXtension Professional Development Leader. Sometimes the information you’re sharing in your wiki article will be better understood if displayed in a table. A WikiTable is an arrangement of columns and rows used to organize and position data. We’ll show how to use a table in the wiki, syntax to build a table, and where to find more help. (For CoP leaders & members, and all Extension)

* May 21 at 2:00 p.m. ET, a 30-Minute Session on Discussion and Q/A of the Ask eXtension Widget, by Aaron Hundley, eXtension Software Engineer. If you are currently participating in answering questions that come from any of the Ask eXtension Widgets, this will be a great discussion to be involved in. This session will focus on answering questions that you might have on the Ask eXtension Widget or the Ask an Expert system in general. We’ll share tips and recommendations for using the Ask an Expert system and discuss surrounding topics. (For all Extension)

* May 27 at 2:00 p.m. ET, a 30-Minute Session on Making FriendFeed your Friend: Part 1 by Kevin Gamble, eXtension. FriendFeed is a service that makes it easy to share with your friends online. It offers a fun and interactive way to discover and discuss items of mutual interest. It falls into the genre of an aggregation and filtering tool. This session will show you everything you need to know to get started in sharing your own information. In Part 2, next month, we’ll show you how to use it to intelligently sift thru piles of information to find only those things of most interest. (For all Extension)

OTHER SESSIONS
* May 13 at 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET, Clash of Cultures: Linking Across a Seamless Spectrum of Access by Dave King, Associate Provost, Outreach and Engagement, Oregon State University and Lisa Templeton, Executive Director, Extended Campus, Oregon State University. Issue: Aligning credit and non-credit university courses and programs so that there is effective synergy across the spectrum of available online access. From Extension and lifelong learning on one side, to fully cost recovery online credit programs on the other, this spectrum creates a culture clash between parts of the University with vastly different histories. However, the future of our institutions is based on being able address these kinds of difficult issues. At Oregon State, we are creating this spectrum of access. (For all Extension) This Professional Development session is offered in partnership with the ACE Leadership & Management SIG and the ACE Leadership Institute.

This session will be broadcast and use your computers speakers for audio, not your phone (VoIP). Audience interaction will be done using the built-in chat capabilities. This session will be held at our Web Conferencing Center at http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/learn.

* May 28 at 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET, Ask an Expert Question Wranglers. Want to help people find answers to their questions? Work with your Extension colleagues from across the country? Help to serve Extension clientele in a new and exciting way? Then maybe you’d like to become an eXtension Question Wrangler. We have new opportunities for our public to ask questions through our new “Ask an Expert” system, but in order to ramp-up this effort we’re needing a good people to volunteer to help make this a reality. If you think this is something you’d like to do please join us to talk about how we can handle this together. (for all who have signed up as Question Wranglers… to sign up, see the article, “Become an eXtension Question Wrangler “) This session will be held at our Web Conferencing Center at
http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/learn.

SECOND LIFE
Second Life is an immersive 3-D virtual environment, inhabited by over a million users from all over the world. You can learn to use Second Life to meet with colleagues, to create 3-D models that would be too expensive or impossible to make in reality, to provide guest speakers for a real life group, to teach using role play or group problem solving, to make content in your subject area available to a worldwide audience. This is an emerging and transformative technology, much like the early days of the Internet, and is expected to change the way most people experience web content within the next five years.

In Second Life, you will find that eXtension has a virtual fairground, a model county office, projects in development on assistive technology, turf grass, pest management, and more. In Teen Second Life, we have Bailey Island available for any 4-H educator to use for programming. Each month eXtension hosts several community events in Second Life. It is best to spend two or three hours orienting yourself to the Second Life environment before attending an event. You should know how to walk, sit, chat, use voice, and teleport.

Instructions for entering Second Life are here:
http://collaborate.extension.org/wiki/Cooperative_Extension_Second_Life_Educators
LuAnn Phillips, Second Life educator, is available to assist you, and can be reached at luann.phillips@extension.org or by instant message to Thynka Little in Second Life.

Please consider joining the Facebook group “Cooperative Extension Second Life”.

May Second Life Events:
May 11, Avatar Express 9:00-10:00 a.m. Second Life Time, Noon – 1:00 p.m. ET. Q & A for eXtension SL newbies. Meet at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland/60/46/21

May 14, Second Life Roundtable 2:30-3:30 p.m. ET — web conference, meet at http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/learn Topic: Virtual conferences, are we ready to offer one? Saving travel dollars is a hot topic right now with many of our colleagues are unable to attend upcoming conferences. What would it take to offer a simultaneous event in SL?

May 15, Second Life Meetup – 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. SL time (Pacific), 2:00-3:30 p.m. ET. Meet at the Virtual State Fair, Morrill Island, in Second Life http://slurl.com/secondlife/Morrill/130/174/25 Topic: Making your own giver objects: offer web Urls, objects, note cards.

May 20, Live demo of SL at CYFAR 2009. Noon-1:00 p.m. Second Life time (Pacific) New avatars will be registered and introduced to Second Life on eXtension’s Morrill Island. If you are at CYFAR, join us! If not, join us in SL! Volunteers are needed to greet the new arrivals. Please message Thynka Little in world if you can make a commitment to be there.

May 29, Second Life Meetup – 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. SL time (Pacific), 2:00-3:30 p.m. ET. Help decorate/plan/set up for the eXtension Mixed Reality Mixer event planned for Monday June 8 in Des Moines and Second Life. We need your assistance to make this upcoming conference showcase event a success!!!! Meet at
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Morrill/130/174/25 and from there we will teleport to the venue.

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

TO PARTICIPATE in any of the sessions held in our Web Conferencing Center…
1. Five minutes before the start time, go to our Web Conferencing Center 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 Adobe’s Connect Pro conferencing software. Once you log into the meeting you will be presented with the option to enter your callback 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.

EMAIL LIST:
If you or a colleague would like to get notices about upcoming professional development sessions offered by eXtension, go to https://people.extension.org/communities/learn and Click “Join Community.

RECORDINGS:
Recordings of many past professional development sessions can be found at the main eXtension wiki at http://about.eXtension.org/wiki and scroll down under Professional Development heading and find “Recordings of eXtension Professional Development Sessions”, or search on the word Recordings.

Looking forward to having you join us to learn something new in May!!

eXtension is pleased to announce a new Community of Practice on Companion Animals. The leader of this CoP is based at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. More information on the CoP will come in future Updates.

Three additional Communities of Practice make information available to the public. The Niche Meat Marketing Community and the Goat Industry Community have released content. The Bee Health Community will “soft launch” content this month. This community provides information on pollinator species.

eXtension, in response to current public health issues, has released Cooperative Extension resources on influenza A (H1N1) virus (Swine Flu). The site provides articles, news items and other related information on the virus. The content is a trusted reliable source of information for end users.

For more information on Communities of Practice and Content Development contact Craig Wood, craig.wood@extension.org or Ashley Griffin, ashley.griffin@extension.org.

Once again the eXtension Virtual News Room has increased the number of releases available with 288 posted by 33 institutions. Releases were posted in 25 resource areas:

By source–sorted in descending order

University of Arkansas–24
Iowa State University–22
North Dakota State University–22
Kansas State University–21
University of Illinois –21
University of Minnesota–19
Ohio State University–17
Purdue University–16
Texas AgriLife Extension–15
University of Nebraska–12
Oklahoma State University–10
University of Kentucky–10
Montana State University–9
Mississippi State University–8
South Dakota State University–6
University of Missouri–5
University of Nevada–5
Utah State University–5
Alabama Cooperative Extension–3
Michigan State University–3
Oregon State University–3
Washington State University–3
Clemson University–2
University of Georgia–2
University of New Hampshire–2
Virginia Cooperative Extension–2
New Mexico State University–1
Penn State University–1
Rutgers University–1
University of California–1
University of Idaho–1
University of Rhode Island–1
University of Wisconsin–1
University of Wyoming–1
Original releases–3
Other sources—10

TOTAL–288

This month, eXtension added a special topic—swine flu. During the last four days in April, 15 new releases had swine flu tags as well as their primary category tag, usually ‘disasters.’

Another special topic is financial crisis. It too is a secondary tag. (Releases are often in the personal finance category.) We had 43 April releases tagged financial crisis.

By topic category
Corn, soybeans–42
Personal finance–36
Horticulture–33
Disasters–26
Beef cattle–23
Entrepreneurship–16
Dairy cattle–16
Parenting–16
Family caregiving–15
Horses–12
Organic production–7
Wildfires–6
Wildlife damage management–5
Science, engineering, technology–5
Swine–5
Diversity–4
Ag energy–4
Cotton industry–3
Small meat processors–3
Drinking water–3
Fitness–3
Goat–2
Animal manure management–1
Geospatial technology–1
Food safety–1

For more information about the eXtension Virtual News Room contact Lynette Spicer, virtual news room manager, lspicer@iastate.edu.

Students from six freshman soil science classes at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln recently visited the Smith-Lever Farm on one of the Cooperative Extension islands, Morrill2, in the Second Life ® virtual world. Their mission was to study a problem the farmer has with herbicide treatment of a cornfield and suggest possible solutions. This in-world experience will be compared with control groups of students that studied the problem in a regular classroom using text documents only.

A machinima of the students’ in-world experience can be viewed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7KSxSiqlzA

The project is a collaboration between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, the Institute of Agriculture & Natural Resources, and the Cooperative Extension System’s eXtension initiative.

Data about student behavior was collected during the event and findings will be shared when available.

To visit the build yourself, go to http://slurl.com/secondlife/Morrill2/190/56/24

For more information about Second Life contact LuAnn Phillips, eXtension’s Second Life educator at luann.phillips@extension.org.

eXtension has recently distributed our first edition of state and institutional reports for eXtension. These reports are intended to keep you informed of eXtension activity that can be reported by state and institutions. The reports include state and institutional metrics from the eXtension public website (visits, pageviews, cities visiting, average pageviews per visit, average time on the site, and the percentage of new people visiting the site). They also include metrics on Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) from states and institutions, as well as individuals with eXtension ID’s and their membership in Communities of Practice (CoP) from states and institutions. We plan on publishing these reports twice a year with the next report being distributed in July; it will describe system use and participation through June 2009.

To access the reports, go to

http://about.extension.org/wiki/eXtension_State_and_Institutional_Reports

and then scroll down and click on a state to view the report.

We hope this report will provide you with important data about state and institutional involvement in eXtension.

If you have questions or comments, please contact Mike Lambur, eXtension Evaluation and Research Leader (mike.lambur@extension.org).

This week, eXtension added many news releases and all kinds of resources such as experts lists for media folks, special pages and sites extension units across the country have posted.

We’ve got many angles, as you’d expect from land-grant universities. How to ease children’s concerns, how personal sanitation is a top priority, how the swine industry is suffering from misinformation…..and much more.

News and updates will keep going up as long as the virus has repercussions in this country. Send anything additional you have that eXtension folks have not posted.

http://www.extension.org/pages/Cooperative_Extension_Resources_for_Swine_Flu

–Lynette Spicer, news room manager