Cisco Systems- WebEx Collaborative Network Learning Enviornment

Cisco Systems under their brand name of WebEx is offering a full suite of enterprise-wide applications or collaborative network learning (CNL) software in the form of WebEx Meeting Center, WebEx Event Center, WebEx Training Center and WebEx Remote Support. WebEx fulfills the need for value-added learning, training and communication through intra-personal, inter personal and group communication in a fast paced world.

WebEx Meeting with its multipoint video capability provides intra-personal communication, in the form of interpreting other people’s non-verbal communication, and interpersonal communication which apart from video is augmented with voice, chat, notes, and annotation tools. Visualization capabilities of the software include allowing participants to share their desktops with other participants and accessing a virtual whiteboard that allows everyone to illustrate their thoughts and ideas. Additionally, shared visuals can include files and applications like PowerPoint presentations or charts, graphs, and system learning applications.

Most importantly, all of the knowledge sharing and comments that takes place during a meeting can be recorded and shared with others in a secure environment. The recording tool allows networked teams to keep everyone updated on the latest status of a project, issue, or situation and can be viewed anytime, anywhere. In a classroom environment WebEx Training Center provides all the functionality of WebEx Meeting but focused on a learning environment offering breakout rooms, hands on labs, and integrated testing capabilities.

One of the key features of WebEx Meeting that supports group engagement is the ability to chat with one person or everyone, allowing side conversations between members that are common in F2F meetings. There is also a hand raising feature so you can make sure you get the chance to ask your question without intruding on the current speaker. Other key features include a whiteboard that allows meeting members to draw up ideas or produce answers in a group effort and the ability for the host to pass control to other members so that they can share their desktop or any other information they may have in an orderly fashion so everyone is not trying to share their creative ideas at once. WebEx also offers the option to mute one or more persons when necessary.

WebEx Meeting promotes communication flexibility and user access by extending its platform beyond the PC to iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, and other mobile devices. WebEx Meeting promotes interactivity in a meeting or classroom learning environment.

General considerations to stimulate your thinking

We need to support the different roles of humans in their effort to use a CNL and a CWL by creating new processes that make their work more efficient. Processes such as WebEx do this. As noted in Eisenberg, Goodall, et al (2010), we need to create team learning environments so that all members function as a whole which will “enhance a team’s capacity to think and act in new, synergistic ways, with full coordination and a sense of unity among team members.” (p226) Today humans transcend over large areas to do their work, they need simple yet robust programs, processes and connections to their employees, employers and customers allowing them to serve their needs. The same dimensions of teamwork in a physical workplace need to operate in a virtual world so that each employee is able to feel a part of a team and do their job to the best of their ability.

Facilitation and leadership--throughput

To support the learning process with a CNL program such as WebEx Meeting, teams need to meet on a regular basis. To encourage dialogue, brainstorm ideas, attend a learning seminar and to feel a part of a group, a video conference is beneficial. WebEx provides tools that allow people to listen, make comments and contributions and participate in a learning atmosphere that create an advanced virtual world where anyone with internet access can go. Prompts such as a whiteboard for sharing thoughts and comments, raising hands to ask questions, areas to make and build on diagrams, pictures, graphs, and notes are essential for facilitating a group/team feeling.

Concept formation--throughput

The power to connect anyone, anytime, anywhere is bringing learning workers together like never before. The old constructs that once dictated formal ideation (the process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas) has been replaced by a worker’s ability to connect with friends, associates, and colleagues immediately in the WebEx Meeting Center and gather instant feedback to new, untested ideas. Knowledge sharing and knowledge polling can be spontaneous, raw, unencumbered, and very advantageous for team collaboration.

Some of the key tools available in WebEx Meeting Center include chat, notes, live annotation, and polls which are very useful in determining how workers really feel about a given subject or idea. Anonymous polling allows every worker to respond truthfully without worrying about the politics of the question. Additional features include:

· WebEx Meeting Center Product Features

· Supports from 25 to 500 participants

· Unlimited meetings

· High-quality video conferencing

· Integrated voice conferencing

· Network-based recording

· Meet on your mobile device

· Compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix, and Solaris

· Localization for 10 languages

Representational tools and knowledge access—input

Tools and strategies such as blogs allow people to put their own thoughts in a place where others can view them at their convenience. Families that live distant from one another or virtual work groups can also blog about the days events so that all members of the team and family can stay updated. Features such as Wi-Fi, 3G, and 4G with smart phones, ipads, laptops etc. allow access to this information from inside or outside an organization.

Representational tools such as WebEx Training Center allows for live interactive online instruction and training. This program will help expand and improve the learning experience of students or team members in a work environment. Some of the features include:

· WebEx Training Center Product Features

· Ability to share documents, applications, streaming videos, and more

· Multi-point video

· Breakout sessions and hands-on labs

· Online polls and quizzes

· Chat and threaded Q&A

· Attendance registration and tracking

· Integrated audio (using a telephone bridge,VoIP, or a mix of both)

· LMS support

· Up to 1,000 participants per session

Socio-emotional messages and trust--throughput

All of the features in WebEx Meeting and WebEx Training Center are essential for a collaborative learning environment and originally designed to enhance productivity. However, a number of features like multipoint video, active talker, on-demand record, and polling provide a context where members can build and maintain trust with one another. Of all the features, I would argue that video and active talker promote trust the most. Sensing the verbal and non-verbal communication between members allows us to give our trust and thereby gaining trust from others.

WebEx Meeting allows the host to pass control to other members in the meeting just as would be expected if all the members were having a F2F meeting experience. Communication norms can easily be managed by the host allowing a loosely-coupled structure on one end to a highly structured presentation format on the other. Feedback can be in the form of chat and notes or even more integrated through document, application, and desktop sharing and file transfer

http://www.webex.com/overview/index.html

Eric M. Eisenberg, H. L. Goodall, Jr., Angela Trethwey (2010) Organizational Communication: Balancing Creativity and Constraint (6ed), St. Bedford/St. Martin's.

For any additional comments and/or questions

Don Hows

Jasmine Lester

Dawn Andalft-Newman

Colwiz (collective wisdom)platform for Collaborative Learning Work

Collaborative learning-work within and among groups has many parallels to a research process moving from intrapersonal idea creation to the final stage of creation of an artifact of the process such as design specification, publication or functioning application software. Oxford University scientists have launched free software that seeks to provide researchers the tools they need to collaborate more efficiently and quickly with colleagues working in different research areas. The colwiz (collective wisdom) platform manages the entire research lifecycle from an initial idea, through a complex collaboration, to publication of the results. Colwiz combines a publication library with communications and collaboration tools for brainstorming, research tasks, and schedule management. The colwiz R&D platform manages the entire research lifecycle from an initial idea, through a complex collaboration, to publication of the results. By breaking down the research process into its key components the developers figured out which tools were potentially the most important and then custom-built each tool from scratch and integrated them seamlessly into a single platform for individual and group productivity. New free software, launched today by Oxford University scientists, gives researchers the tools they need to collaborate more efficiently and quickly with colleagues scattered around the world and working in a variety of different research areas.
At the moment researchers are using a dizzying array of different applications to communicate and collaborate,’ said colwiz Chief Scientist Professor David Gavaghan of Oxford University. ‘These might include Google Apps, Microsoft Live Services, LinkedIn, Yammer and Social Text. But because these are separate applications they don’t do everything and don’t always talk to each other, and this slows researchers down. colwiz replaces this hotchpotch with an integrated suite of tools custom-built for fast and efficient management of the research process.’ Colwiz is now available to support some of the essential demands of collaborative learning-work at the group and organizational level. To continue to follow the developments of this promising new platform for interdisciplinary collaborations visit colwiz

Shared public display for F2F team collaboration

Advanced collaboration suite for small groups engaging in F2F collaborative networked learning. Some folks are still sending out series of emails when they can use a shared display to work more efficiently. Discuss issues and make decisions as you go so that everyone stays aligned. Since the work happens on the big public screen, everyone can see exactly what has been done and offer opinions about changing the content in real time. Networked, co-located groups can share and manipulate content on shared public display. All the team’s joint work is done on the big screen, which is driven by the TeamSpot “Host” computer. Rather than huddling around a individual’s computer in a small group setting that only one person controls, anyone in the team can set to, and manipulate content, on the shared public display that no one person owns but everyone can share. A team member can make their content available to the public display or go “off line” to research additional relevant content to enhance their contribution to the group while others work on the public display. Anyone in the group can redirect their own cursor onto the public work surface and work on the Host computer’s display as if their mouse and keyboard were plugged directly into it. Multiple people can even work on the big screen at the same time, each with a uniquely identified cursor. In addition, “save archive” creates artifacts of the group knowledge which is a record which can be studied by all participants and shared as a mobile artifact of the group collaborative learning. I am hopeful that the same software could be shared by virtual groups but it does not appear to be an option at this time. I do believe that the design features evidenced in this package are a step forward. Of course, one will have to consider the overall pricing and implementation of this particular package in relation to individual enterprise needs. For more information on the related products and pricing contact Tidebreak

"I think, therefore I am" contrasts "We participate, therefore we are"

John Seely Brown, innovator, scholar and scientist weighs in on the differences between the older modes of knowing and CNL modes. Brown contrasts Cartesian individual learning, “ I think, therefore I am” with “ We participate, therefore, we are” mode of learning which allows us to link together to be and learn with one another in a group. In Mind's on Fire: Open Education, the long tail, and learning 2.0, John Seely Brown and Richard Adler contrast the two modes in this way:

The emphasis on social learning stands in sharp contrast to the traditional Cartesian view of knowledge and learning—a view that has largely dominated the way education has been structured for over one hundred years. The Cartesian perspective assumes that knowledge is a kind of substance and that pedagogy concerns the best way to transfer this substance from teachers to students. By contrast, instead of starting from the Cartesian premise of “I think, therefore I am,” and from the assumption that knowledge is something that is transferred to the student via various pedagogical strategies, the social view of learning says, “We participate, therefore we are.”

This perspective shifts the focus of our attention from the content of a subject to the learning activities and human interactions around which that content is situated. This perspective also helps to explain the effectiveness of study groups. Students in these groups can ask questions to clarify areas of uncertainty or confusion, can improve their grasp of the material by hearing the answers to questions from fellow students, and perhaps most powerfully, can take on the role of teacher to help other group members benefit from their understanding (one of the best ways to learn something is, after all, to teach it to others).

Today and in the future, we have technology in place that allows us to direct our own CNL into and with a community of practitioners in learning in any field that will permit us to participate in their endeavors

Facilitation of Learning-- Interpersonal Communication

I would now like to turn my attention to interpersonal communication process in collaboration with others and the how to support the interpersonal communication processes of the learner.

Messages which facilitate interpersonal communication.
The work of Dr. Mildred Shaw is useful in helping to understand the types of task-oriented messages that facilitate learning. As part of her work in personal construct psychology, Shaw has identified different behaviors to help individuals attempt to extend and understand their own thinking in networked groups. The messages which facilitate the learning processes, helps individuals to:
• see the relationship of their points of view to those of others;
• explore differing terminology for the same mental constructs;
• become aware of differing constructs having the same terminology;
• extend their own construct systems through interaction with others;
• share with others constructs that they have found valuable;
• and finally facilitate areas of disagreement or agreement among members of a group.

Additionally, two specific types of task oriented messages can be discussed--(1)messages that facilitate individual meaning and sharing of meaning,(2) messages that lead to a shared meaning among all members, e.g. consensus or knowledge pooling.
Facilitating individual meaning or construct formation.
The availability and accessibility of relevant examples is critical to the on-going learning process. However, the example must be of personal relevance. Relevance would result from one of three conditions: the facilitator understands the learner and the state of processing at the time well enough to provide relevant examples, the individual is aware of his current state and is able to request the required knowledge independently, or the individual and the facilitator negotiate a strategy for discovery or uncovering the required information. One key advantage of message sharing in a networked environment is that collaborators theoretically have the possibility to draw on relevant information and knowledge from a wide range of sources, either from other participants directly in a synchronous channel such as through audio or video networks or through asynchronous channels such as CMC or by accessing information stored in any database.
Creating shared meaning, knowledge in a team.
Another important category of facilitation involves messages that create shared meaning among the group or work team. Rather than using the group as a "sounding board" or context for testing out their own meaning, members may attempt to create shared knowledge and understanding in a particular area. For example, a work group engaging in the process of design would ideally need to pool their individual knowledge in order to create a new product. They will eventually want to create a shared meaning, which would allow them to take action together to carry out the design. For example, the activities of groups who are using a combination of media to share individual drawings, an audio conference to discuss their meaning, and electronic mail or conference to exchange on-going messages are engaging in group learning and knowledge creation. The final integrated design is new knowledge which the group created through their collaborative efforts. Reaching a shared meaning such as occurred in this example involves a process of differentiation and integration, according to Johnson and Johnson (p.244). Differentiating messages proceed the integrating messages. ‘’’Differentiation’’’ involves seeking out and clarifying differences among members' ideas, information, conclusions, theories, and opinions. It involves highlighting the differences among members' reasoning and seeking to understand fully what the different positions and perspectives are. All different points of view must be presented and explored thoroughly before new, creative solutions are sought. ‘’’Integration’’’ involves combining the information, reasoning, theories, and conclusions of the various group members so that all members are satisfied. After differentiation the groups seeks a new, creative position that synthesizes the thinking of all the members.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1998) Learning Together and Alone: Cooperative, Competitive, and Individualistic Learning (5th Edition) (Paperback), New York: Allyn & Bacon.