Taking Web 2.0 to the Office

This class has been a great and rewarding experience for me. Keeping the blog going was something that really got me into figuring out what all the Web 2.0 talk was about. I entered the summer with very little knowledge of what the term meant and why I should care about it. During a class with Dr. Robin last semester, I remember hearing him gloss over Web 2.0 momentarily and did not think my need for information would go much beyond there. Heck, even at that point, I did not realize that I was already using a couple of tools from the genre – Google Calendar and YouTube.

Now, these handy little applications have executed a full frontal assault on my daily life. Over the summer, I have begun using Cozi Calendar to organize my family better. I currently have plans to help my father-in-law take all of the pictures he captured on his Rolling Thunder trip in D.C. and putting together a movie. This movie will be shared with the entire family using YouTube. I’ve also been able to help colleagues in Pensacola with some standardization presentations by working with Google Docs. The really interesting part is that these are merely the tip of the iceberg. It seems as though you could spend an entire year dedicated to working through all of the available tools and not get to all of them. Even if you did, they are multiplying at the cyclic rate.

What does that mean for my future? Well, when I graduate next semester, I will be heading to Headquarters Marine Corps in Quantico, VA for a tour in the Education Command. I fully plan to integrate many of these tools into the daily operation of the shop that I will be running. My hope is that I will be able to provide team results that prove the worth of Web 2.0 to the Marine Corps. From there, I would like to help implement the use of several collaboration tools throughout the Marine Corps’ daily processes.

I will be keeping this blog up – although the updates will be less frequent. I hope that my classmates will be doing the same, as I have learned as much or more from their reviews and suggestions as I have from conducting my own reviews. Thanks to all of you for your efforts and your inputs. Finally, thanks to Drs. Robin and McNeil for their guidance throughout the summer session.

Web 2.0 Presentation for Marine Corps Distance Education

The following is a presentation created for the purpose of adding Web 2.0 tools to the Marine Corps Education Command's arsenal.

Bringing Resident School Training to Online Command and Staff College on Prezi

Cozi Calendar and More

I created a presentation with this week's review using Slide Rocket. Here it is:

LinoIt Review

This week's review is on LinoIt. Below is the videocast.

Presentations with VoiceThread

This week, I worked with Angela Byrd and Abdullah Zorba to create a presentation on the rewards and challenges in distance education. We started communications over email then, followed that up with collaboration on a PowerPoint presentation using Google Docs. Google Docs was easy to work, though it did have its limitations. From my experience, the application does not have anywhere near the functionality of the full program. I understand why those limits are there, but a group would have to do some working around the application in order to truly use the power of PowerPoint. For example, on a more long-term project, I would do the collaboration using Google Docs and then, have one member of the group recreate the presentation in the stand alone application.
Next, we uploaded the presentation into VoiceThread. VoiceThread certainly made collaboration easy. We were able to upload two versions of the presentation, edit them both, and then, finalize the presentation by making choices as a group. Adding audio was very simple. My only complaint is the limited editing for audio. I much prefer using an audio editor and uploading the audio. Instead, you must start over with recording any audio that you do not like. For example, on one of the slides, I had to do six takes of the audio before being happy with it. Using an audio editor, I could have made one recording and edited out any mistakes in one attempt.
Going forward, I believe that VoiceThread could be a very useful tool in my professional life. Quite frequently, we have projects that require Marines from across the country to work together. This application would make that work much more concise and effective. By setting a work schedule and sticking to a timeline, this would eliminate the multitude of back and forth emails that must be sent and read during a planning session. Instead, we could upload the shell of our project into the application, add individual comments based on the timeline, and then get together again (virtually) to discuss modifications. While email would not be completed eliminated from the process, the reliance on it would be significantly reduced.