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""We do our best work when we're physically connected," says Roy Hirshland, CEO of T3 Advisors, a commercial real estate advisor. Dialing in on Skype will work in a pinch, but it's not a substitute, he says. "When you're in the same room, you can see facial expressions, you can feel energy in a room." The idea is based on Media Richness Theory, which posits that some tasks require face-to-face interaction. Skype doesn't fit the bill. "Skype is a great, free way to communicate with sound and picture, but with glitchy connections, awkward camera angles, the limitations of webcams and cheap microphones, etc.," says Dr. Matthew Lombard, a professor at Temple University and president of the International Society for Presence Research. "It's far from the same experience as talking to someone in person. Face-Time and other tablet and phone methods have the advantage of mobility, but they suffer in terms of the vividness of the experience." "Narrow-bandwidth tech like text-based chat rooms and messaging, and email, are great for specific, relatively straight-forward, 'dry' cognitive tasks but not so good for things that involve ambiguity and emotion," Lombard says. "So there are an awful lot of tasks people need to complete in business (and certainly in life generally) that don't lend themselves well to these technologies.""

tips on making group video calls on Skype--10 people are the maximum #

slide deck from docs.com/officetraining for running more effective meetings with Skype. everything from finding and adding people to your contact list to share your screen to record your meeting to using OneNote to take notes

blog post by Donston-Miller, June 4, 2012 on how social changes how we work 1. website home pages (home pages less of a destination, Facebook timeline becoming more important) 2. Email--with built-in IM systems on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, email less important. Google+ users get tight integration on communication tools 3. Help desk call centers--moving to discussion forms on social networking platforms 4. Resumes-- "Now, social networks are basically living resumes. Or, looked at another way, you are your resume; what you post, how you interact, what you share, who your friends and followers are, and more all combine to demonstrate your value to a company." 5. PBXes--enterprise wide phone systems are affected by Skype and online chat and messaging features

This paper written by George Siemens in 2008 on Learning in Networks raises issues very similar to those we are raising in our discussion at CPSquare. This paper also has implications for how the Women's Learning Studio is launched into practice in its discussion of teacher as learning atelier, concierge, etc. Google Scholar, Scopus, and open access journals offer increased access to academic resources; an extension to more informal approaches such as regular internet search and Wikipedia. Social software (blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, instant messaging, Skype, Ning) provide opportunities for learners to create, dialogue about, and disseminate information. But what becomes of the teacher? How do the practices of the educator change in networked environments, where information is readily accessible? How do we design learning when learners may adopt multiple paths and approaches to content and curriculum? How can we achieve centralized learning aims in decentralized environments? This paper will explore the shifting role of educators in networked learning, with particular emphasis on curatorial, atelier, concierge, and networked roles of educators, in order to assist learners in forming diverse personal learning networks for deep understanding of complex fields.

Excellent Blog post by Chris Munch, July 11, 2013 on stopping his dopamine addiction with graphic mainlining-technology image. Excerpt I have an addiction that cost at least 18 months of my life… This was not an addiction with drugs or alcohol, and in-comparison the 'high' was mundane, just avoiding life and responsibility. Months went by, lost to an addictive and bitter procrastination. Nobody was worried, on the surface I looked busy and hard working, yet around me life passed me by while I was infused in a dopamine haze. I'm a recovering addict to email, Skype, Facebook and so many little fun distractions online. My First Step to Recovery I lost about 1.5yrs of my life to email and chat. And then one day I read something which said turn off all auto-checking of email and IM notifications so that you won't get disturbed when you have work to do. I felt pretty dumb having spent the last couple of years doing the opposite, allowing myself to be constantly interrupted. After I made that little change things began to get better. That's when I realized I had an addiction. Even without the auto-alerts I found myself constantly being drawn in to see the latest unimportant message I had received.

Great blog post by Holly Clark on Edudemic connecting education & technology, September 24, 2014. She suggests: Find another class to do a project, blog or twitter chat with. Change the classroom set up to allow for more student movement & interaction Have students create blogs to foster global interactions Use Skype to promote interaction with the outside world If your class has 1:1, look for other schools to collaborate with Tweet your learning with another class Understand that learning is happening through networks--not textbooks--"Textbooks are a solitary and isolated learning source and their days are numbered. Learning will become about networks. It will be about the people and information you know how to access and create. Your students are not quite savvy enough to do this effectively on their own, so show them how to interact with a network of experts from your subject area. ..."

Jarche lists his top 10 tools: Netflix, Skype, Apple Preview, Pixabay, Keynote, Feedly, Diigo, Twitter, Wordpress

great blog post by Jane on working independently but learning interdependently via the web/internet.

AARP offers tech ed for real newbies who buy the AARP Realpad.