Digital Village History Tour 1998

This picture is from Loviisan Sanomat November 13, 1998. I’m speaking with Annika Malms-Tepponen about Wirby the Global Village a few weeks after the Galaxia Gala event.

Else-Maj Stenvall, the local teacher, and my father Otto Keitel are framed in the picture below.  They both passed away a few years after the 1998 historical Galaxia event.

Irja Kallio and myself returned back from France November 1997  and we were eager to make a contribution to the local development in my home village and in Ita-Uusimaa.

Today, Viirila is a part of the greater Loviisa area, and Ita-Uusimaa as an independent region doesn’t exist anymore.

What started as Wiirila Werkossa Wiikoittain, continues as a second life project 550 kilometers up north, in Sotkamo, as Wuokatti Werkossa Wiikoittain.

Digital Villages as a concept is still figuring in the background. KK-Net still uses it as a service design and community development platform. But we’re looking for an area or region where it could lead to a more permanent existence.

We still curiously look forward to a re-vitalization of some most intriguing digital traditions.

Trends are short-lived. Everything around us is in a continuous motion. Change is such a vital part of everything. It’s fifteen years to those pictures. Life continues, but some of the participants are looking at our thrivings from the heaven.

I’m grateful to everything that happened in my small home village.

Dear friends and fellow villagers, have a great summer, until we meet again ;)

Decreasing the remoteness of Distance Work

It's such a wonderful thing to have all these high-tech gadgets and tools available for the masses, supporting global networking and creative collaboration.

But we're also living confusing times: we've not yet really mentally moved out or away from our  local villages or narrow definitions of space.

There’s a broad gap, and troubled waters, between the immense opportunities created by Internet, Facebook, Twitter, G+, and the myriad of other Web 2.0 tools.

While living in Alsace, during the 90’s, we stayed in touch with our friends in Finland  with a FAX based “news-flash” with the name JataNews. And then came the world wide web and Internet. That was a huge step forward.

Today, with so much better networking tools, I still wonder how slowly we adapt to long-distance collaboration. Most of us rely on face-to-face meetings and common experiences. The traditional office does still have a meaning as a working space, and the coffee machine functions as a social bonding device.

It’s a huge mental and emotional challenge to feel “close and friendly” with people and colleagues working at the other side of the globe, unless they are relatives or friends from your local village.

We don’t even remain in close contact with some of our school friends.

Every single step is taking you deeper into the village

You can never step into the same river or room twice.

We learn new things from every single steps we take.

There’s no limits of learning. Learning organizations are not limited to acquiring knowledge from seminars and meetings.

I’m interested in the ability learn from trivial every day events. Unique things are happening every single day.

Toys and children plays are predicting our future

Toys are telling about our history. Now kids are playing with video games. Drawings and cartoons are low-cost items that also can be used to sketch coming times.

I work with the future idea of Eco City along with the concept of Digital Villages.

Let’s take a look at very ordinary everyday tasks. Going to a bank teller to pick some pocket money is a routine operation but it hasn’t been around for more than twenty years.

Phone boots were located all around cities but I suppose there aren’t a single one in Finland anymore.

My view about Digital Villages has changed during the past ten years. The first ideas were drafted over twenty years ago but Wirby the Global Village became the first prototype 1998.

We’ve much more experience and better tools and networks for distance work. The idea of networking villages emerged 2001 to 2005 but the realization of all the ideas is more realistic today. It takes years to work out and test a new community concept.

Managing business and other processes

We’re great process managers and should take advantage of the national heritage of ultra-rapid industrialization and modernization of the society.

There are billions of people around the world that could take advantage of the silent knowledge of how to make rapid societal changes. Do we understand the potential of what lies behind all this. 

Assuming Too Much About The Web We See | Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English

Assuming Too Much About The Web We See | Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English: "I wouldn't call it disappointment, but rather a dose of reality. I spent the last week in Las Vegas at the Community 2.0 conference and with my family thereafter. Coming back, I must say that the trip gave me some much-needed perspective. Let me explain," writes leelefever on May 20, 2008 - 12:59pm.

We work from home. We make videos, we put them on the Web, people watch them. We track our views, our Technorati links, our mentions in Twitter, our blog comments. A good percentage of people we see in social situations in Seattle are aware of our work. Most of the email we receive is about the videos and of course, it dominates our discussions at home. This is all misleading and a bit unhealthy."

Loose wire blog: Learning in the Open

loose wire blog: "Learning in the Open. Here's a piece I wrote for the WSJ on open source education resources. It's part of the free section of WSJ.com. A revolution of sorts is sweeping education.

Helge: Open source collaboration is closer to me but we can learn from each other

In the past few years, educational material, from handwritten lecture notes to whole courses, has been made available online, free for anyone who wants it. Backed by big-name universities in the U.S., China, Japan and Europe, the Open Education Resources movement is gaining ground, providing access to knowledge so that no one is 'walled in by money, race and other issues,' says Lucifer Chu, a 32-year-old Taiwanese citizen and among the thousands world-wide promoting the effort. He says he has used about half a million dollars from his translation of the 'Lord of the Rings' novels into Chinese to translate engineering, math and other educational material, also from English into Chinese.

Helge: Gaining access to knowledge...

The movement started in the late 1990s, inspired in part by the 'open source' software movement, based on the notion computer programs should be free. Open-source software now powers more than half the world's servers and about 18% of its browsers, according to TheCounter.com, a Web-analysis service by Connecticut-based Internet publisher Jupitermedia Corp. Behind its success are copyright licenses that allow users to use, change and then redistribute the software. Another inspiration was the proliferation of Web sites where millions share photos or write encyclopedia entries."

Helge: Computer programs should be free... Search is free... Blogs are free... Facebook is Free... Jaiku is Free... Twittering is Free. What isn't? We are sharing things. Great. What are we going to see next?

10 signs that you aren't cut out to be a telecommuter, from Jody Gilbert - Downloads - TechRepublic

10 signs that you aren't cut out to be a telecommuter, from Jody Gilbert - Downloads - TechRepublic:

Overview: Successfully telecommuting -- being productive, staying in the mix, keeping yourself on the executive radar, and not allowing work to bleed into your home life until you can't tell which is which -- definitely requires some discipline and vigilance. It's not for everybody. If you've been considering a telecommuting arrangement, you'll want to be aware of some of the ways it might go off the rails. Here are a few indications that maybe your commute to the office isn't so bad after all.

• This download is also available as an entry in our 10 Things blog.
• (Is this item miscategorized? Does it need more tags? Let us know.)

FLNW » The future of Learning

FLNW » home: " OVERVIEW | PARTICIPANTS | CONTRIBUTORS | SPONSORS | ITINERARY | CONFERENCE | FLNW is A TALO initiative.

Helge: I've been following a Future Learning process at the Otava Opisto in Mikkeli. Ville Venalainen is one of the initiators of this networked project. More information about the Mikkeli event to be found on The Wisdom of the Crowd blog. I contributed with my first short story.

The future of learning in a networked world is a contentious one and no harder than in countries with poor infrastructure, crime, poverty and corruption. FLNW endeavors to build connections, explore new possibilities, expand individuals horizons and network knowledge in traveling open space un-conferences where anything can happen and does without regularity. TALO supports open networked communication and this ensures the conversation remains collaborative."

VENUES

A number of synchronous online platforms including Secondlife and Skypecast will complement discussions occurring in the TALO and FLNW Google groups and various distributed channels through blogs. Follow the Twitter conversations or subscribe to the blog and podcasts to keep informed of progress.

Second Life - need to add SLURLs for all particopating venues, need to attract as many open venues as possible and delegate one central inworld venue and consistant signage for all venues.

Connecting Through Conversations

Hello, I just got connected to Robin Ellis through Twitter. Robin Ellis is applying the same tools for classroom and learning environments as we are using for collaboration between networking companies and individuals. The tools are the same, the goals aren't so much different. Knowledge workers are continuously struggling with learning issues. But we tend to call them marketing, management or product development. Still, innovation and customer relationships are about learning from each other.

About

• Name Robin Ellis
• Location PA
• Web http://connectedt...
• Bio educational technology for 12 years now

Connecting Through Conversations

Sharing ideas as we learn in an ever changing world

Connecting Through Conversations: "Our second week of Social Software in the Classroom was a great success! Our initial set up, getting everyone into our skype conference call did require patience on everyone’s part, there are limits as to how many you can have participating at one time.

Once over that hurdle our class moved through review of wikis, wonderful conversations as why use social software with students and also for personal professional development.


The expression of viewpoints during the conversations were varied and lead to an engaging exchange of ideas, which I believe are so valuable. Next week we will be talking about google tools, what they are, how to use them.

This is a learning experience for all of us, not only through the use of the tools, but the conversations we participate in as we go. Thanks to all who have joined us, see you next week. still a couple of glitches with technology, but compared to the week before things worked smoothly.

We had a some additional people join us which was great, our conversations were very good and it was another step in building a new community of learners for all of us."

Connecting Through Conversations

Helge: Connecting through Conversations rises the issue of how to educate digital citizens of the 21st century. The word Conversation is in the blog presentation. Blogging is a conversational media. Social Media sounds great but it's too general. A conversation and dialog is something that is easier to grasp. I work with issues, how to use the modern tools in business and community development. There's a long way go, these tools are familiar to a small minority. I did read that 8 % of US citizens have a blog. Europe is far behind. The European blogging capitals are Stockholm and Paris. UK and Sweden are strong in Social Media. Finland is proud of its High-tech heritage, but we aren't great bloggers and social media is just about to emerge. Early adopters are out here now.

Connecting Through Conversations: "In looking back on the process I believe my vision of education and what changes need to take place for students to be good digital citizens of the 21st century and the focus of the IU at this point are very different.

I strongly believe in the conversations taking place in many blogs which center on how pedagogy needs to change, and I am an agent for this change in the district I work. I have the privledge of working with teachers and students to change the way instruction is delivered and assessments are viewed.

In the last year I have worked with teachers and students who are interested in learning how to use the tools now available which enable them to become producers of information, not just consumers, and it has opened a new window into the classroom for some.

I get so excited when someone else has that aha moment when we talk sof using wikis, podcasts, blogs, images, to incorporate into the classroom."

Helge: I got this information throug Twitter. It's a great news distribution system.

robinellis new blog post http://tinyurl.com/3e55gr knowing I am where I am meant to be in life right now.

Teemu Arina, CEO, Dicole Ltd.

Teemu Arina, CEO of Dicole Ltd., presentation Serendipity 2.0 at a learning conference in Italy. Teemu has been an entrepreneur since 16 years of age. His company has a central role in the Enterprise 2.0 Yritys book project.

• Distributed cognition
• Blogosphere
• Wikipedia

We distribute what we know through a network of people. With virtual means, we can extend our cognition. The electronic age extends our nervous systems. How should pedagogic change? Slow pedagogic models for out of school learning. Creating new social objects that people are interested about.

Lifelong Learning

The Lifelong Learning paradigm recognises that, in a knowledge based economy, education and work are integrated throughout people’s lives. All citizens need ongoing access to learning to enable them to work. Technology is playing an increasing role in mediating this learning. However, if this technology is inappropriate and introduced with insufficient support, disabled people will face even further exclusion from the interlinked worlds of education and work.

Kurt Linderoos about Innostars

"Last week I participated the IST 2006 conference, Helsinki, Finland." Writes Kurt Linderoos in his blog PERSONAL EU. More than 4000 innovation society professionals from all EU countries and the rest of the world, 3 days with parallell programs, 105 network sessions and workshops, 150 stands spread over 9000 square meters.

We were both there with Kurt representing the open source innovation tradition of Finland. Our initiative is to open up the innovation process and get into and over to cross-border innovation networking. Finland has a great innovation culture, but we are only one promille of the world population. The added value of our innovations can only be found in cross-border and cross-cultural projects.

What an unique chance to choose exactly right themes and minutes for meeting face-to-face the exactly right international team for making them interested in the "Personal EU" idea! Theory and truth are different: Too many interpassive school class presentations, too few opportunities to comments and short 1 slide point of views, too poor capacity to recognize the real key persons.

"I was lucky tp found some exceptional interesting - and interested - individuals and potential project partners." Writes Kurt and I agree. I counted that I had the opportunity to speak with people from all over the world representing over 30 nations, ranging from China to Colombia or from Barcelona to Espoo.

"The challenge now is to take practical interactive steps forward - connecting all essential new resources - not just with me but - with eachothers, to really work out something that is more than a sum of its components. " Blogs Kurt, and I agree.

This week (Nov 29th 2006) my friend Helge Keitel and I started an interactive Google Documents & Spread Sheet document "Innovation Society"/"InnoStar", fully editable by invited experts from different (mostly EU) countries. We started the document from scratch - and today just we 2 have joined it.

The Google Documents is the Writely web based word document platform aquired by Google this autumn. If you are one of those who should be invited, so please let me know - by email or comment to this blog. Successful cooperation! Kurre. www.personaleu.net.

PS. If there is below a "very strange" document, it can be a present but closed version of that "InnoStar". The work is in progress all the time.

• The document is open for collaborative actions
• We are practicing open source innovation methodology
• The work is in a continuous progress
• The first step is a learning experience
• How to cooperate over long distances
  

eLearning

We continue to talk about the possibilities for e-learning with the help of mobile devices. Quite a few new ideas and pracitcal working models are emerging. Mobile devices can be used by people on the move. Podcasts can be a way to train truck drivers or you mobile sales and support work force. We have experimented with how to use on-demand information delivery but also in addition how to add interactivity into a time shifting environment. The integration of public radio into this model is also a part of the whole concept that could work well when elearners want to reach a very large audience.

We've already published a Podcast about some very practical ways to elearning by using mobile devices. The podcast can be streamed or downloaded here: MP3. The economist from Romania, Dorita is inviting us to Romania.