Ross Gardler and Michael Maranda October 19, 2010

Hello Pamela & Ross --- Pamela, thanks for the introduction!   I'm slightly behind schedule with events less than 2 weeks away, so I just wanted to respond with a hello!

MM

On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 5:05 PM, Pamela McLean <pamela.mclean@dadamac.net> wrote:

Hi Ross and Michael,

Ross–it is great to be in contact again. Thank you for including Dadamac in Camelia.

Ross and Michael– You should know each other - perhaps you already do - but i want to make sure. For this introduction I shall take the Ted video you both know as the poitn to overlapping interest

• Michael refers to here - http://www.digitalexcellence.net/2010/10/accelerate-innovation-and-the-movement-locally-globally/
• Ross refers to it here http://www.drumbeat.org/project/camelia (n.b. the link includes a video of Ross–the first time I've seen him). The theme is collaboration.

Both -  Obviously the reason I am introducing you is to enable collaboration.

Wider context–I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Ross. He was a key participant in the Teachers Talking support group–either the first or second person to join the group–at the point where I was like a nervous hostess wondering if anyone was going to turn up to my dinner party.

Not only was he a key participant, he did more. He created a wiki, using the content that the support group was contributing. My conceptual model for the wiki was based on my work as a primary school teacher. If I was preparing to teach, then I wanted a “resource cupboard” packed with useful stuff, so that when “my class” showed particular interest in a topic we could follow it up, and build on that interest with resources ready to hand. Ross gave me that resource cupboard.

When I came back from presenting the course in Nigeria he helped me to reflect on the benefits and disadvantages of the wiki. It simply was not “friendly” enough for the needs of the course participants. We therefore worked together to explore what a “friendly wiki” would be like. (This was all completely unfunded, with Ross freely contributing what must have been weeks, or even months, of his time.)

We were working at that difficult interface where user meets techie. It is where the fluid “analogue” information flow of users splash and surge around the rigid, disciplined, digital, information channels that the programmer can provide. Ross gave me clear simple options and instructions, often referring me to the most elementary level of help provided for people in Apache, but I struggled to make any sense of it all.

At that time Lorraine Duff was also able to give generously of her time. Lorraine and I would get together by phone, reading and re-reading Ross' emails that referred to permissions and suchlike, trying to refer back what he had already explained to us, and to apply what we thought we had understood. We would struggle to figure out how the things he was saying related to what we wanted, regarding our new and improved “collection of information cupboards” with different “shelves” and “information packs” ready for various people to collect.

Thanks to Ross's patience and explanations, and all the practical work we did, I began to get a glimmer of understanding. As a result, when I came across Moodle I could see how the separate “courses” might serve as my separate “cupboards” and how the “units” could be “shelves” and I could put my “information packs” on “shelves” ready for people to use. The concepts and vision that I am now trying to realise on Drupal at dadamac.net are all based on what Ross taught me.

Ross–I will introduce my connection with Michael more briefly - October 9, 2010 - DIN and MovementCamp.org - from Michael Maranda

Both - You would not believe how relieved I feel to see this coming together of different initiatives - I guess it is like the feeling of seeing the cavalry coming over the hill :-)

Pamela

Pamela McLean - http://www.dadamac.net/about/pam
Email pamela.mclean@dadamac.net
Twitter @Pamela_McLean and #dadamac
Website http://www.dadamac.net
Dadamac's Posterous http://dadamac.posterous.com/

Dadamac - "We introduce people to each other (mostly UK-Nigeria) and help them do useful stuff. How can we help you?"