Webheads in Action 30th revived open mic FUNinar and 500th Learning2gether Webcast Party

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You are welcome to download this audio:
https://learning2getherdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/2020-11-29-21.45.29wia30th_l2g500th_audio_only.m4a?

Learning2gether Episode 500!
30th Webheads Revival Weekly Sandbox Open Mic-inar

Navigation

Skip down to the Zoom and Facebook Chat Logs
See our promotion and feedback for this event
Skip down to Earlier Events that happened since the previous Learning2gther post

The mp4 video file generated by Zoom uploaded to YouTube

All were welcome to join us in the one-and-only, never-to-be repeated, 500th episode of Learning2gether, which coincided with the 30th Webheads in Action Open Mic FUNinar to take place since we started regrouping during lockdown last March.

2020-11-29party500poster

Since it was a spontaneous FUN (frivolous unanticipated nonsense) and open mic event, there was no plan per se, except that we could get together and talk about our intersections in this movement, which began ten years ago (meaning Learning2gether; Webheads began 20 years ago!). You can find an index of all 500 Learning2gether events over the past decade here: http://learning2gether.pbworks.com/w/page/34456755/archiveindex

We could also talk about where we see Learning2gether and Webheads in Action heading in the future., connect it with your own projects and directions in life and career aspirations.

2020-11-29partyDorisFB_rock

And of course, not to lose sight of the essential, we can party. Party hats and masks are encouraged, though as with everything in Webheads, not required, and not ruled by any one person’s agenda.

The Learning2gether 500th episode party was attended mainly by Webheads revelers. Attendees appeared in Zoom and in Facebook, and are listed here in alphabetical order:

Aiden Yeh in Taiwan
Claire Bradin Siskin in Pittsburg
Cris Fry in Barcelona
Doris Molero in Argentina
Elizabeth Hanson-Smith in Maine
Evelyn Izquierdo in Venezuela
Graham Stanley · in Mexico at the moment
Grazzia María Mendoza in Facebook
Hanaa Khamis from Alexandria, Egypt
Heike Philp in Germany
Helena Galani in Greece
Jane Chien in Taiwan
Jeff Lebow, in Korea
Jorge Kormpas, a.k.a. Georgios Kormpas from Greece
Kirsty Wood joined us in Zoom and Facebook
Laine Marshall in Long Island
Michael Coghlan, on guitar and in spirit
Mike Byrne, once lived in Alexandria
Minnie Wang in China
Mbarek Akaddar in Morocco
Nahed Farouk, Hanaa’s friend in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Nina Liakos, checking in from Indivisible Montgomery, Maryland
Rita Abdelnour from Lebanon
Rita Zeinstejer in Argentina
Vance and Bobbi Stevens in Malaysia

Links shared by Vance during the webinar

Michael Birch had earlier suggested: “It might be quite fun to look back at extracts from episode 1, 100, 200 etc. Tools still used. Opinions/predictions that have changed.” This was requested as well by other participants in the day’s webinar.

I wasn’t able to monitor the chat and also the participants’ list (with its waiting room) at the same time, so I wasn’t able to post the links I was showing in the Zoom chat as I shared them. But here they are (timings given are from the 1:21:39 YouTube version of the Zoom recording):

Getting back to Jeff Lebow’s question where he had asked me about the first ever Learning2gether episode, at about 17:15 in the recording, I scroll all the way to the end, to where these entries appear (we had called our first Learning2gether sessions “speedgeeking”):

One week before our first Learning2gether event we had one on June 7, 2009 which we called Speedlifing: http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/2009/06/speedlifing.html

  • There’s a picture in the above blog post from the June 7 event (that’s me on the horse)

2020-11-99_sl090607_crop

  • You can see below me the becaped Zorro character who emerged from the Mayan ruins and mingled with us in the speedlife event.  When he motioned with his arms it caused cyclone winds where everything was blowing about chaotically.  I have always suspected that this was the only known detractor of EVO, who used to turn up in his normal avatar at some of our Second Life events at this time, though to be honest I have no proof of that, but I mentioned where I had reported on his antics in my blog post about him 20:23 in the Zoom YouTube recording:
    https://evomlit.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/the-only-known-detractor-of-evo/

Learning2gether Episode 1 – Speedgeek June 14, 2009

At 21:10 I pulled up the post from the first Learning2gether event, Teresa Almeida d’Eca’s presentation on Tag Galaxy (hence the ‘speedgeek’ concept

The presentation was 15 minutes long (hence the ‘speedgeek’ concept); see http://wiaoc09.pbworks.com/w/page/5316667/SpeedGeeking

I hadn’t noticed it when I visited it at our live session, but at the top of the post there was an audio player which preserved our very first Learning2gether event on June 14, 2009. The audio still works:

Audio recording of Teresa Almeida d’Eca’s official Learning2gether Episode #1

There is also an Elluminate link here (a link to the playback file of an Elluminate, later called Blackboard Collaborate, recorded session; the audio was extracted from that recording). I clicked on it and found that the file downloaded to my computer, good news because it meant the file was still online. The trick would be to open it. To do that you have to install the Bb Collaborate app or launcher on your computer and then associate the file with that app. I was using a newly acquired computer so I didn’t have that software downloaded, and even if you have the software, you might have to do this manually.

I had mistakenly thought that Rita Zeinstejer had done the first SpeedGeek, but she was indeed one of our early presenters. At 23:26 I searched on her name in the recordings archive and pulled up a webinar on WritingMatrix our team had given at the 2007 K-12 Online Conference. That was listed among the precursors to Learning2gether at the bottom of the archive page.

The video presentation on Wrtingmatrix included in the asynchronous K-12 Online conference in 2007

I scrolled up to find in addition this entry, Episode 18, on  Sunday, December 5:

Before I could examine these files, at 23:45 in the recording, Jeff asked me what had prompted me to start Learning2gether. I explained that L2g derived from our Webheads in Action Online Convergences, the world-reknowned WIAOC events of 2005, 2007, and 2009. To reach our archive of those events, I went to my index of all things Webhead, the Webheads in Action portal page at http://webheads.info

2020-11-29weheadosphere

I went on to explain that I had started Learning2gether in order to have to avoid having to mount a 4th 72-straight-hour WiAOC event in 2011. I estimated that we could produce more presentations working at the moderate pace of one per week than we could by doing them all at one go in 72 hours every other year. More importantly, I had detected no interest in our CoP from anyone else wanting to take charge of the event instead of me; hence I moved to the Learning2gether weekly format.

I wrote about the transition from WiAOC to Learning2gether in Stevens (2014, p.162)

2014stevens

At 42:40 Jeff asked yet another incisive question. In early 2020, when educators were forced to go into Emergency Remote Teaching mode, how has that panned out for those of us who have been dabbling in this since the turn of the century?  I thought Jeff might be able to best answer his own question if I pulled up Learning2gether Episode 441, where Jeff describes how he created his DIYLMS (do it yourself learning management systems; see Stevens, 2012) for porting his class materials over to online environments, and helps his teaching cohort do the same:

2020-11-29partyDorisFB_lebow

https://learning2gether.net/2020/03/01/jeff-lebow-drops-by-blended-learning-classrooms-to-discuss-how-he-creates-his-diylms-told-as-a-digital-story/

by 46:48 in the recording, the conversation had turned toward the “Webheads spirit” and as an example, I referred to Minnie’s collaboration with Doris in her transmedia storytelling project, where Doris provided Minnie with an avatar and invited her to play her guzheng (Chinese zither) in a specially constructed theater in Second Life. I referred to the archive of their collaboration here; https://learning2gether.net/2020/08/16/doris-molero-and-minnie-wang-edutain-us-at-the-21st-weekly-webheads-sandbox-open-mic-funinar/

At 1:00:31, I mentioned that TALIN had started thanks to Michael Coghlan, one of the Webheads founders, who had suggested that we revive Webheads to serve as a community to which we could retreat weekly, as in the past, from our respective lockdowns during COVID-19
https://learning2gether.net/2020/03/30/20-years-after-michael-coghlan-and-vance-stevens-convene-a-webheads-in-action-reunion-and-launch-talin/

2020-11-29partyDorisFB_themeSong

In the screenshot above, we are listening to Michael Coghlan playing the Webheads Theme Song
Sing along: the Lyrics

An interesting back story behind the party screenshots and recordings

Zoom provides several options for recording sessions. Many people use the option to record online, hosted at Zoom. For this option to work, the host needs to have adequate space in his/her account for the recording. The first time I had a recording abort because I had run out of space in the middle of it, I stopped using this option (though this happened before the option to generate a backup stream was available; I should probably go back to this method). However, if you trust it or manage it well you can get an immediate link where people can go to view the recording, and the view is the richest available. You get the most faithful reproduction of what the host has broadcast to the screen in that view, and you can see the chat unfold as the recording plays. You also have the option of downloading your files and mounting them elsewhere, so this is probably the best option.

You can also record on your computer, or stream to Facebook, or you can stream onto YouTube, and you can also invoke more than one of these options simultaneously. I usually record onto my computer (for reliability) and onto Facebook for convenience and for the interaction possible in a social media space. Streaming to YouTube requires you to configure your streaming server in advance. You can do the same in Facebook but there is a quick option to just put in a title and description, and Go Live! I normally invoke this one, so I end up with (1)  a Facebook stream which I can embed in my blog posts (in WordPress just by pasting its link in the post) and (2) an mp4 recording on my computer which I can upload to YouTube and also easily embed in blog posts.

The recordings to computer and to Facebook produce slightly different results. I like to switch often between speaker and gallery view while I’m recording, but during screen shares, in speaker view, you see just the speaker in a thumbnail in the corner, or if in gallery view, you see just a few thumbnails from the audience to the right of the shared screen (the speaker and a few others). The mp4 and Facebook renditions of these vary slightly.

Another option is to make a screen capture of the session as it plays on your computer. This will give you the best view since you can include the text chat if you wish, and it’s WYSIWYG, what you see is what you get; in other words, this produces the most faithful recording of what you as host mean for the audience to see. The participants themselves have the ability to generate their own speaker or gallery views on their own devices, so no one person’s view of the event will be quite the same – but if you screen cast what’s on your screen, you have perfect control over the recording.

Two things happened during our party, both after we had been in session for about an hour. The first happened at about 1:04:36, when Doris showed us a special Webheads / Learning2gether 500th Celebration room she had created for us in Second Life:

2020-11-29partyDorisSL

An unfortunate choice of background music

Doris likes to dance almost as much as she like to be in Second Life, which means that when she is in Second Life, especially at a party in SL, her instinct is to dance, which her avatar proceeded to do. The music she had chosen for this occasion was Jerusalema, apparently a popular disco beat in Argentina, as suggested in one video on YouTube entitled “Dance Video Official© | JERUSALEMA | Master Kg feat Nomcebo – Baila con VITO e STEFANIA”, which you can see here, https://youtu.be/QJgwF_9cl1M

Note the “Video Official©” in the title of the video above. Doris’s version, as it played out in our webinar, was not official. This caused YouTube to flag it for a potential copyright violation. According to the explanation from YouTube posted below, you should still be able to see the video unless you are in the short list of countries where it is forbidden.

Facebook placed a more inconvenient restriction, which prevented me from embedding the video here in this blog post, and including in its notice, where the embed should have been, a link to where you can see the video at my personal profile in Facebook. I’m not sure how many of you can see it there.

Therefore, I decided to make a Camtasia recording of the Facebook stream, while I myself could still see it. This created my own mp4 which I uploaded directly to WordPress, no need to go through Facebook or YouTube and be subject to their filters. If the makers of Jerusalema have any objection they can contact me personally, but their work is available in various versions all over YouTube and ours is a completely non-commercial rendition made only coincidentally and only for the benefit of a community of practice of educators who are celebrating 20 years together, so one would hope there should be no objection. I realize that lawyers and corporate interest might have contrary opinions, but hopefully this blog will be off their radar. Lawrence Lessig (responsible for the Creative Commons movement) is also a lawyer and I feel certain that he would support us in our petty larceny.

Webheads all over the world

The second thing that happened requiring some effort on my part came at the end of the event, and followed the participants’ request, at around 1:09:52, that I play for them Michael Coghlan’s Webheads Theme song, “Webheads all over the world”. To do this I needed to visit http://webheads.info and scroll toward the bottom, play the mp3, and share the screen, having first invoked the option to play computer sound while doing that. Laine explained how each of us viewing the webinar could alter our individual views so that we could see the gallery, by moving aside my screen share on their individual devices, which by default consumes participants’ screens in the manner described above.

When the music played, Webheads being Webheads, and Webheads in Action to boot, they went into action. They started hand-dancing and swaying to the beat. Having myself brought up a full gallery view in accordance with Laine’s instructions, I instinctively made screenshots. When I want to do this spontaneously, I just press Print Screen on my PC.  This produces a notice that my screenshot has been automatically saved in my OneDrive. I made half a dozen screenshots of these precious moments where Webheads were coming together 20 years after our emergence on the web and dancing to the song that Michael had been moved to write for us way back then.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I viewed both the Zoom and Facebook recordings and saw that the screen share views were recorded in each but not the gallery views as I had enjoyed them. Fortunately I found the screenshots, duly saved to my OneDrive web account. And here they are:

2020-11-29 (7)

2020-11-29 (6)

2020-11-29 (5)

2020-11-29 (4)

2020-11-29 (3)

References

Stevens, V. (2012). DIYLMS: Learner-centered Do-it-yourself Learning Management System. In Dowling, S., Gunn, C., Raven, J., Gitsaki, C. (Eds.). Opening up Learning: HCT Educational Technology Series. HCT Press: Abu Dhabi; ISBN 978-9948-16-864-5), pp.103-112. PDF available, pp.0-11  http://www.vancestevens.com/papers/archive/2012DIYLMS.pdf

Stevens, V. (2014). Connectivist Learning: Reaching Students through Teacher Professional Development. In J.B. Son (Ed.). Computer-assisted language learning: Learners, teachers and tools. APACALL Book Series Volume 3. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Available:
http://www.vancestevens.com/papers/archive/2014connectivist_learning.pdf


Zoom and Facebook Chat Logs

Zoom chat logs

21:45:29 From Bobbi : hi
22:03:11 From Bobbi : Hi Claire
22:03:19 From Vance Stevens, to the Waiting Room : Please change your name to someone we recognize
22:06:26 From Jane Chien : hello
22:06:41 From Jane Chien : just want to come in and say congrats!!!
22:07:03 From Bobbi : Thanks! Glad you are here!
22:08:36 From Bobbi : Hi Chris
22:17:30 From Bobbi : hi Mike!
22:18:32 From Mike B : Hi Hanaa, I lived in Alexandria too.
22:18:47 From Hanaa Khamis : Hi Mike
22:18:51 From Claire Siskin : me too! for a short time
22:18:55 From Bobbi : That’s interesting!
22:24:19 From Hanaa Khamis : i didn’t know u could wear glasses on top v a mask @Vance
22:24:39 From Bobbi : He is so funny 🙂
22:24:55 From Hanaa Khamis : 😄
22:37:28 From Hanaa Khamis : Hi Nina 🥰
22:38:20 From Hanaa Khamis : Webhead jargon
22:39:17 From Hanaa Khamis : Impressive mask Heike!
22:41:59 From Bobbi : Hi Laine!
22:44:17 From Nina Liakos : Bolas throwing video: https://youtu.be/TVTWCYULqmM
22:48:52 From Hanaa Khamis : Way to go dear Minnie😄
22:49:04 From Hanaa Khamis : Any warm bodies Minnie!
22:49:09 From Hanaa Khamis : 😄
22:50:39 From Mike B : trying to dream up improvised fancy dress, but I’m just in a rented place not at home…
22:51:21 From Bobbi : Ah no problem. Welcome just as you are.
23:08:58 From Heike Philp : Jerusalema
23:12:21 From Laine : https://lyricstranslate.com/en/jerusalema-jerusalem.html-0
23:18:31 From Kirsty Wood : Hi. Arrived late and I’m eating, so give me a few mins to put my cam on.
23:19:02 From Hanaa Khamis : Thats fun😄
23:22:09 From Hanaa Khamis : Amazing show to end with 🙂
23:22:19 From Heike Philp : YES
23:22:36 From Vance Stevens : http://webheads.info

Facebook chat transcripts

more or less in reverse chronological order
(or however Facebook orders them when you select ‘most recent’)

Aiden Yeh · 44:34 Happy Anniversary Webheads!
Bobbi Stevens · 0:00 Aiden Yeh Thank you!
Nahed Farouk · 0:29 So lovely 💗
Jane Chien · 1:20:39 Beautiful Webheads song!
Jane Chien · 1:19:35 Love the song!!!
Mbarek Akaddar · 1:12:10 Happy 500th anniversary❤️❤️❤️❤️
Grazzia María Mendoza · 1:06:19 Love it!
Evelyn Izquierdo …
Grazzia María Mendoza · 50:49 That sounds great Heike!
Jane Chien · 46:31 Happy 500th anniversary!!!
Aiden Yeh · 45:46 Love the hat, Vance
Jorge Kormpas · 42:13 Nice!!!
Graham Stanley · 40:21 Happy anniversary, Webheads!
Grazzia María Mendoza · 39:47 A hug to Nina, Vance, Claire, Heike!
Grazzia María Mendoza · 37:46 So good to see everyone!
Helena Galani · 0:00 Happy 500th anniversary, and many more to come


Promotion and Feedback

I live-streamed on the Learning2gether Facebook page, but, as you see …
— try clicking on WATCH ON FACEBOOK —

Facebook would not allow me to embed the streamed video as it usually does.

At first I didn’t know the reason, but we had two musical interludes during our program, and that is often the problem. Eventually, this appeared in email from YouTube

A copyright owner using Content ID has claimed some material in your video. As a result, your video has been blocked in some countries. This means that your video is still up on YouTube, but people in some countries may not be able to watch it.

This is not a copyright strike. This claim does not affect your account status.

Video title: Webheads in Action 30th revived Open Mic FUNinar and 500th Learning2gether Webcast Party
Copyrighted content: Jerusalema (feat. Nomcebo Zikode) (Edit)
Claimed by: WMG
Blocked countries: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria

Why this can happen

Your video might contain copyrighted content.
Copyright owners can choose to block YouTube videos that contain their content.
If this copyright claim is valid

You don’t need to take any action or delete your video.

So, it was Jerusalema!  In revanche,  I recorded my view of the stream in Camtasia and uploaded it here

This event was announced beforehand at these Facebook groups

And shared with …

A calendar event was also created at https://groups.io/g/webheadsinaction/message/32748

I noted in my announcements that the Facebook live stream
would occur NOT in the Webheads in Action group
but in the Learning2gether one, since it’s Learning2gether’s 500th:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/learning2gether

2020-11-29party500
Bobbi and Vance in party guise 🙂


Earlier Events

Fri 27 Nov 1400 UTC 1st Online CLIL-Ren Cafè – Focus on learning technologies for CLIL

https://learning2gether.net/2020/11/27/1st-online-clil-ren-cafe-focus-on-learning-technologies-for-clil-panel-with-greg-kessler-nicky-hockly-and-vance-stevens/

Sat 28 Nov noon UTC – Free Graphic Design from EVO Moderator Omal Peter

Please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system.

Weekly: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/tZMsdOygpz8tHNc_WLlu_kPfIuQ_zb0fF75W/ics?icsToken=98tyKuGvrzgvEt2Rtx-ERpwEBYjCZ_zxmClago1eoyjJDzVsaTPwH_dzDah9QN72

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87135894763?pwd=eXRsQXpMSTVuL2VVUThwV2U5dHU4QT09

Meeting ID: 871 3589 4763

Passcode: 6Bgf8n

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdRULA65zf2gVN5J_V4q4Yg4Vk1eRGd3RFqgtqdFrcMmhIesw/viewform?usp=sf_link

Remaining sessions, all at 07:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Every week on Sat, until Jan 9, 2021

Sat 28 Nov 1300-1500 UTC – VSTE Second Life Saturdays – repeats each Saturday

About this intitiative, https://vste.org/upcoming-events-virtual-environments-pln/

Nov 28, 9-11 am EDT, 1300 UTC

Jaz and Thunder are at VSTE Space in Second Life every Saturday morning from 5 am to 7 am Pacific time.

Feel free to come learn more about the VSTE VE PLN there. Follow VSTE on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VSTEVEPLN/

Below are directions for joining the VSTE VE PLN in Second Life and Minecraft

Basic directions to join VSTE Spaces

If you don’t have a Second Life account get one, it’s free. We recommend setting one up at the Rockcliffe University Consortium’s Gateway here: https://urockcliffe.com/reg/second-life/

  1. Download and install the software.
  2. While your Second Life viewer (software) is open click this link http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Soulgiver/155/144/58
  3. and voila! Look for an avatar on VSTE Island and say, “Hey, I’m new!” We will take care of the rest.

Mon-Sun 23-29 Nov Cambridge Assessment English free MOOC on Teaching English Online – Week 4 of 4

The Cambridge Assessment English MOOC on Teaching English Online aims for participants to learn how to transfer their teaching skills to an online context and start teaching English online.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/online-tutoring/7

Started Nov 2, 2020, lasted for 4 weeks

This was a freemium course. You could take the course for free for its 4 weeks and have access to it for two more weeks for free.

It appears to be an xMOOC with a prescribed course to be completed in each of 4 weeks. Here is the beginning of Week 3’s syllabus

 There was more, as you would have seen when you registered for the course.

___________________________________________________________
This blog is written and maintained by Vance Stevens
You are free to share-alike and with attribution under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The date of this update is December 4, 2020 01:00 UTC

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