This is an archive of the Dadamac.net website, as it was in 2015, it is no longer being updated.

Pamela's Blog

Collaborators Connect on ICT4Ed in Kibera

Submitted by Pamela on 19 April 2011 - 10:57am
An email sent by Ken Owino on 17 April 2011 really lifted my spirits. He plans an ICT4Ed initiative that is rooted firmly in reality, and will link teachers in Kibera in Kenya with teachers in Denmark. Ken belongs in both communities. He knows Kibera slum well and cares about the children there. He is the leader of a troup of acrobats. As an acrobat he led work with schools in Kibera, with the acrobats acting as "visiting physical education instructors", training the children in the skills of acrobatics. You can see Ken (with other acrobats and the children) in...

Don't share an idea - show a prototype

Submitted by Pamela on 11 April 2011 - 9:21pm
The benefit of a prototype is that people can see it and prod at it and give feedback of one kind and another. The feedback may not be helpful and it may not be kind (although it might be) and so it is tempting to keep the prototype hidden from public view until it is reasonably robust and well tested. ` Idea or prototype It may seem preferable to simply share "the idea" of the prototype - how it will work, what it will look like, how useful it will be. However when people give feedback on an idea there...

An approach to online community building - TOCI and COTW

Submitted by Pamela on 2 April 2011 - 6:35pm
The approach When it comes to online collaboration my interest is in the “socio-tech” side of things, so I consider three aspects. The people who are collaborating (who are becoming in some sense an online community). Their overlapping interests (the information they want to share, the initiatives they want to collaborate on). Tthe technology they will use during their collaboration. Many of my contacts come from a background of “ICT” in education or development., and this led me to use the letters “I”, ”C” and “T” as a memory jogger for my three categories. Normally (in ICT4Ed&D) the “ICT” is...

Online collaboration in action

Submitted by Pamela on 29 March 2011 - 12:21am
For me, the Internet is about collaboration. The past weekend has made me think about the similarities and differences regarding some of the collaborations I am currently involved with. I'm also thinking about how best to enable collaboration between those collaborations. Three collaborative groups The three collaborations I was connecting with over the weekend were, in order of the time they have been around: Kabissa, Coalition of the Willing, and Collaborators Connect. I came to Kabissa when it already had an impressive reputation and track record and I was very new to Internet enabled collaboration. I came to Coalition of...

Reflections on a good week at Dadamac - the parts and the whole

Submitted by Pamela on 21 March 2011 - 5:48pm
I haven't blogged here for a couple of weeks, so a rather longer one today - giving details and context. Talking with people Tuesday - and smart phone software Wednesday - Indigo - and ICT use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Thursday - developing Dadamac.net Flexible Fridays Think Africa Press - Information sharing and visibility Culture and mobility in the Dadamac community Systems thinking around education, ICT, the Internet, and “socio-tech” Wikis, Diigo, Dadamac and tagging ICT for climate change - and other purposes - how to avoid talking past each other Conclusion 1 - Talking with people Not so long ago,...

Networks within networks

Submitted by Pamela on 28 February 2011 - 1:45pm
I am very aware at present of the networks I am part of, how they are relating to each other, how to best enable our networking online, etc - I think of the dadamac commuity, its core groups, its wider network, the other networks I belong in, the overlaps between them and so on. iCentro Today (Monday 28th February) I have a Skype chat with Randy Fisher, exploring Dadamac in the context of iCentro RSA Tomorrow is my first meeting as a fully paid-up RSA fellow–a meeting to meet other new fellows in London. Wednesday Wednesday is our regular UK...

Making haste slowly

Submitted by Pamela on 19 February 2011 - 8:11pm
So - what's happening next? Diary dates - with more links at the end of the blog Sunday is another Coalition of the Willing online meeting - for the matching project Ben Carson and I are hoping Monday will be a possible day to meet up. I will try harder to get to School of Everything Unplugged this week - Fred is leading the session (though "leading the session" is probably an overformal description of the unplugged sessions). Reducing the information bottleneck I'm trying hard to increase the accessability of what goes on in the background at dadamac. This is...

Two weeks back and one week forward

Submitted by Pamela on 14 February 2011 - 5:35pm
I've decided to flip over from my "looking backwards on a regular basis experiment" to looking forwards instead. So what lies ahead this week? (And what about the two weeks back that I haven't covered yet?). I'm hoping it's going to be a "catch up with things and don't go out so often" week. I'll try to get to the regular School of Everything Unplugged on Wednesday after our usual online UK-Nigeria team meeting but exept for that I just want to get on with stuff. I have a mountain of new contacts to get back to, and I also...

A fortnight flew by

Submitted by Pamela on 1 February 2011 - 12:47am
The last couple of weeks have flown by - School of Everything Unplugged , Global net events , Co-working at the Clouds , a couple of mind-stretching eveings and mornings with David Pinto, two long meetings and several phone calls with Mobin Rafiq , and my first ever face to face meeting with Olalekan Lawal after many years of e-contact. The real deadline for the pattern language book is also looming so I have been putting time into my contribution. I hope I have learnt enough about patterns in the shepherding process for my two pattersn and a case story...

Lots about learning

Submitted by Pamela on 16 January 2011 - 3:12pm
This week the dadamac learners group began to emerge - see Dadamac Learners - now we are eight On Thursday I decided we were becoming a group, and I should do something about making it easy to communicate online. A shared space using posterous seemed a good idea. The first post at the dadamac learners posterous is by Ken Owino - Ken Owino is a Dadamac Learner I feel we are now on the way to becoming an online learning community. By the time I went to Be Bettr on Friday and BETT 2011 on Saturday I was starting to...

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