Targeting Public Speaking Skills via Virtual Environments

Recently I shared an a-ha! moment on the use of virtual environments for confronting the fear of public speaking.

The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to claim that the real value of such technology is in targeted skills development.

Once again, I’ll use myself as an example here to make my point.

If I think back to my earliest attempts at public speaking as a graduate student, I’d claim that I did a reasonable job of delivering my presentation. And given that the content of my presentation was likely vetted with my research peers (fellow graduate students) and supervisor ahead of time, this left me with a targeted opportunity for improvement: The Q&A session.

Countless times I can recall having a brilliant answer to a question long after my presentation was finished – e.g., on my way home from the event. Not very useful … and exceedingly frustrating.

I would also assert that this lag, between question and appropriate answer, had a whole lot less to do with my expertise in a particular discipline, and a whole lot more to do with my degree nervousness – how else can I explain the ability to fashion perfect answers on the way home!

Over time, I like to think that I’ve approved my ability to deliver better-quality answers in real time. How have I improved? Experience. I would credit my experience teaching science to non-scientists at York, as well as my public-sector experience as a vendor representative at industry events, as particularly edifying in this regard.

Rather than submit to such baptisms of fire, and because hindsight is 20/20, I would’ve definitely appreciated the opportunity to develop my Q&A skills in virtual environments such as Nortel web.alive. Why? Such environments can easily facilitate the focused effort I required to target the development of my Q&A skills. And, of course, as my skills improve, so can the challenges brought to bear via the virtual environment.

All speculation at this point … Reasonable speculation that needs to be validated …

If you were to embrace such a virtual environment for the development of your public-speaking skills, which skills would you target? And how might you make use of the virtual environment to do so?

Confronting the Fear of Public Speaking via Virtual Environments

Confession: In the past, I’ve been extremely quick to dismiss the value of Second Life in the context of teaching and learning.

Even worse, my dismissal was not fact-based … and, if truth be told, I’ve gone out of my way to avoid opportunities to ‘gather the facts’ by attending presentations at conferences, conducting my own research online, speaking with my colleagues, etc.

So I, dear reader, am as surprised as any of you to have had an egg-on-my-face epiphany this morning …

Please allow me to elaborate:

• Yesterday, I witnessed a demonstration of Nortel web.alive (dubbed by some as ‘Second Life for business’)
• This morning I was brainstorming content with a colleague for an upcoming presentation on computing resources available for researchers at York

It was at some point during this morning’s brainstorming session that the egg hit me squarely in the face:

Why not use Nortel web.alive to prepare graduate students for presenting their research?

Often feared more than death and taxes, public speaking is an essential aspect of academic research – regardless of the discipline.

Enter Nortel web.alive with its virtual environment of a large lecture hall – complete with a podium, projection screen for sharing slides, and most importantly an audience!

As a former graduate student, I could easily ’see’ myself in this environment with increasingly realistic audiences comprised of friends, family and/or pets, fellow graduate students, my research supervisor, my supervisory committee, etc. Because Nortel web.alive only requires a Web browser, my audience isn’t geographically constrained. This geographical freedom is important as it allows for participation – e.g., between graduate students at York in Toronto and their supervisor who just happens to be on sabbatical in the UK. (Trust me, this happens!)

As the manager of Network Operations at York, I’m always keen to encourage novel use of our campus network. The public-speaking use case I’ve described here has the potential to make innovative use of our campus network, regional network (GTAnet), provincial network (ORION), and even national network (CANARIE) that would ultimately allow for global connectivity.

While I busy myself scraping the egg off my face, please chime in with your feedback. Does this sound useful? Are you aware of other efforts to use virtual environments to confront the fear of public speaking? Are there related applications that come to mind for you? (As someone who’s taught classes of about 300 students in large lecture halls, a little bit of a priori experimentation in a virtual environment would’ve been greatly appreciated!)

Update (November 13, 2009): I just Google’d the title of this article and came up with a few, relevant hits; further research is required.

Blended Learning Panel

York University’s Institute for Research on Learning Technologies is sponsoring a panel discussion on blended learning:

“A recent workplace survey reported by Brandon Hall Publishing (2008) indicates that employing a mix of web-technologies with face-to-face learning is more effective than either e-learning or face-to-face instructional approaches alone. To explore the use and potential of “blended learning” further, please join us for a panel discussion featuring experts from various fields …”

This event has been re-scheduled for April 2, 2009 at 12:15 pm in TEL 1009 at York’s Keele Campus. I anticipate a lively and interesting discussion!

(Please check the IRLT Web site for the latest updates on the event.)

ORION/CANARIE National Summit

Just in case you haven’t heard:

… join us for an exciting national summit on innovation and technology, hosted by ORION and CANARIE, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Nov. 3 and 4, 2008.

“Powering Innovation – a National Summit” brings over 55 keynotes, speakers and panelist from across Canada and the US, including best-selling author of Innovation Nation, Dr. John Kao; President/CEO of Intenet2 Dr. Doug Van Houweling; chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley Dr. Robert J. Birgeneau; advanced visualization guru Dr. Chaomei Chen of Philadelphia’s Drexel University; and many more. The President of the Ontario College of Art & Design’s Sara Diamond chairs “A Boom with View”, a session on visualization technologies. Dr. Gail Anderson presents on forensic science research. Other speakers include the host of CBC Radio’s Spark Nora Young; Delvinia Interactive’s Adam Froman and the President and CEO of Zerofootprint, Ron Dembo.

This is an excellent opportunity to meet and network with up to 250 researchers, scientists, educators, and technologists from across Ontario and Canada and the international community. Attend sessions on the very latest on e-science; network-enabled platforms, cloud computing, the greening of IT; applications in the “cloud”; innovative visualization technologies; teaching and learning in a web 2.0 universe and more. Don’t miss exhibitors and showcases from holographic 3D imaging, to IP-based television platforms, to advanced networking.

For more information, visit http://www.orioncanariesummit.ca.

An Eight Pack of Leadership Traits

I recently came across an article by Hank Marquis on effective leadership traits for those in IT. 

Marquis distills the following eight pack of traits:

1. Leadership means focusing on the needs of others, not yourself
2. Leadership comes from your actions, not your title
3. Leadership makes you accountable, even if it’s not your fault
4. Leadership is not a 9-to-5 activity
5. Leadership takes trust from your followers
6. Leaders get their best ideas from their team
7. Leadership thrives on diversity
8. Leadership comes from continuous communication

Marquis elaborates on each of these traits in the article.

And as two final nuggets to further whet your appetite, consider the following two quotes:

Effective leaders build a trusted team and then follow the team’s advice.

… always give the credit to the team. The leader’s credit comes only by crediting the team he or she leads.

Injury Time: Remembrance of Things Just Passed …

What happened?

I strained my lower back. Badly. It was the result of two careless acts: 

1. Lifting a heavy prop awkwardly at our annual Mardi Gras event. I felt a twinge of pain, and suspect that this predisposed my back towards injury.
2. Attempting to leave a leg-press machine before completely releasing the 220 lbs of weight that I, back included, was still supporting. 

The pivotal incident (involving the leg-press machine) happened last Wednesday at the University’s athletic complex. Of course, I finished my hamstring curls and rowed for 20 minutes before calling it a day. Doh! 

And yes, I knew then that I was in deep trouble. 

Contrary to my spouse’s advice, I hauled my sorry self off to the University the next day, because I had things that must be done. Doh! With a notable, curvaceous list (upwards to the left), and walking speed 10-20% my normal, I can honestly state that I got a deeper appreciation of what it means to be differently abled. People rushing past me, icy walkways, plus doors stiff to open, were all-of-a-sudden on my radar. 

I barely made it through that Thursday.

I started my formal convalescence (aka. sensible acknowledgement of my predicament) on Friday morning. 

What did I do?

I convalesced. At this point, I had no choice! I took muscle relaxant and installed myself upon a heating pad. Save for attending to primal bodily functions, and attempting to do a few exercises I learned in physio that last time I strained my lower back, I remained in a sub-horizontal state through the entire weekend. I had to pass on a friend’s birthday party and a ski day  

But, I:

• Finished reading Seymour Schulich’s Get Smarter
• Devoured a few Greg Iles novels
• Devoured Rules for Renegades – The free resources at the book’s Web site are terrific, but you’ll definitely want to read the book as well
• Reviewed a book on BES installation and administration
• Am reviewing a book on the GWT
• Started and gave up on (after 50 or so pages) Jack Welch’s Straight From The Gut - I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but I suppose it just didn’t resonate with me in my delicate state … 
• Started reading Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat - I’m only on page 77, but I’m seriously hooked. More on this soon (I hope).
• Provided feedback on a scientific research manuscript on which I’m a co-author
• Thumbed various magazines 

I fretted. About work – not being there, work piling up, etc. And about my exercise routine – that picked me up, and then knocked me down! I communed with my family – when they weren’t making up for my shortfalls – and with our pets (three cats and an obnoxiously vocal husky).

What did I learn?

How good people are to me. From walking the dog to driving Miss Daisy (our teenage princess to/from dance/work/friends/etc.) to countless other things I normally do, my family filled the gaps and still had some energy left over for me in my supine state. When I did hobble into the office, I received all kinds of moral and physical support from my co-workers.

In addition to valuing my health, which I’ve been consistently better at for about the past seven months, I need to be careful – especially during acts of weekend heroism (aka. attempts at being handy) and/or exercise (technique and form do matter – ouch!).

I need to allocate more time for reading. All kinds of reading. Because I really don’t watch TV, except for NFL football, there’s nothing I can do there. Reducing the amount of time I spend handling email is about the only place I believe I can claw back from. In the 4-Hour Work Week, Timothy Ferriss presents some provocative suggestions on this front; I’d better re-read that! 

The BlackBerry is a wonderfully powerful platform that suits me when I am highly mobile, but also when I’m highly immobile – like flat on my back, literally! It’s also the only device my back can actually handle me moving around with at the moment – my laptop in an over-the-shoulder case is a non-starter for me in my current condition.

Why did I share this?

So that I have something to refer back to (sorry), when I’m getting careless!  

Net@EDU 2008: Key Takeaways

Earlier this week, I participated in the Net@EDU Annual Meeting 2008: The Next 10 Years.   For me, the key takeaways are:

• The Internet can be improved. IP, its transport protocols (RTP, SIP, TCP and UDP), and especially HTTP, are stifling innovation at the edges – everything (device-oriented) on IP and everything (application-oriented) on the Web. There are a number of initiatives that seek to improve the situation. One of these, with tangible outcomes, is the Stanford Clean Slate Internet Design Program.
• Researchers and IT organizations need to be reunited. In the 1970s and 1980s, these demographics worked closely together and delivered a number of significant outcomes. Beyond the 1990s, these group remain separate and distinct. This separation has not benefited either group. As the manager of a team focused on operation of a campus network who still manages to conduct a modest amount of research, this takeaway resonates particularly strongly with me. 
• DNSSEC is worth investigating now. DNS is a mission-critical service. It is often, however, an orphaned service in many IT organizations. DNSSEC is comprised of four standards that extend the original concept in security-savvy ways – e.g., they will harden your DNS infrastructure against DNS-targeted attacks. Although production implementation remains a future, the time is now to get involved.
• The US is lagging behind in the case of broadband. An EDUCAUSE blueprint details the current situation, and offers a prescription for rectifying it. As a Canadian, it is noteworthy that Canada’s progress in this area is exceptional, even though it is regarded as a much-more rural nation than the US. The key to the Canadian success, and a key component of the blueprint’s prescription, is the funding model that shares costs evenly between two levels of government (federal and provincial) as well as the network builder/owner. 
• Provisioning communications infrastructures for emergency situations is a sobering task. Virginia Tech experienced 100-3000% increases  in the demands on their communications infrastructure as a consequence of their April 16, 2007 event. Such stress factors are exceedingly difficult to estimate and account for. In some cases, responding in real time allowed for adequate provisioning through a tremendous amount of collaboration. Mass notification remains a challenge. 
• Today’s and tomorrow’s students are different from yesterday’s. Although this may sound obvious, the details are interesting. Ultimately, this difference derives from the fact that today’s and tomorrow’s students have more intimately integrated technology into their lives from a very young age.
• Cyberinfrastructure remains a focus. EDUCAUSE has a Campus Cyberinfrastructure Working Group. Some of their deliverables are soon to include a CI digest, plus contributions from their Framing and Information Management Focus Groups. In addition to the working-group session, Don Middleton of NCAR discussed the role of CI in the atmospheric sciences. I was particularly pleased that Middleton made a point of showcasing semantic aspects of virtual observatories such as the Virtual Solar-Terrestrial Observatory (VSTO).
• The Tempe Mission Palms Hotel is an outstanding venue for a conference. Net@EDU has themed its annual meetings around this hotel, Tempe, Arizona and the month of February. This strategic choice is delivered in spades by the venue. From individual rooms to conference food and logistics to the mini gym and pool, The Tempe Mission Palms Hotel delivers. 

Book Reviews: Coming Soon!

Packt Publishing has kindly sent me the following books to review:

• Google Web Toolkit GWT Java AJAX Programming

• BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Microsoft® Exchange

Please stay tuned as I expect to share my feedback here on my blog over the next few weeks …

My Next-Gen Mobile Platform: A Plain Old Cell Phone Plus Jott Plus flipMail?

In April, I stated that my next-gen mobile platform could just be a Plain Old Cell Phone (POCP) with Jott’s solution for “Mobile Note Taking and Hands-Free Messaging”.

In so suggesting, I thumbed my nose at the BlackBerry (my existing mobile platform) and the highly anticipated iPhone.

I’m not down on the BlackBerry or the iPhone, I’m just impressed by the Lowest Common Denominator (LCD) effect of the POCP when combined with Jott. (Please see the Aside below for more on this LCD effect.)

Even though it’s only been a few months, my next-gen mobile platform has just improved significantly – and I haven’t lifted a finger or spent a $!

Enter flipMail from TeleFlip:

The Teleflip beta story At Teleflip, we love creating exciting and innovative services for our customers. Three years ago we introduced our original service that allowed you to send an email to a cell phone as a text message. That service is now called flipOut. Since we first introduced the service, millions of flipOuts have been sent.

We’re very excited to launch our new service called flipMail beta. flipMail allows you to get your email on your cell phone for free.* No new software, no downloads, no new phone necessary. It’s that simple. Because we’re in beta, we invite you to share your ideas, suggestions, and feedback about how we can make this new service even better.

* SMS charges may apply – this, of course, depends on your plan.

This means I have email on my POCP. It could even be a Jott-generated email!

Because this is an SMS-based offering on the POCP, SMS-based limitations do apply:

What is a fliplette?A fliplette is a text version of your email that we flip to your phone. fliplettes are limited to 120 characters each. When an email is longer than 120 characters, you receive a series of fliplettes.

On my BlackBerry, I have the native BlackBerry email client. In my case, this client is integrated with The University’s enterprise messaging platform (IBM LotusNotes). I also have a native client for GMail on my BlackBerry.

So, even on my BlackBerry, I can see the value in making use of flipMail for email services that are not available natively for the BlackBerry.

Aside on the LCD Effect

Nicholas Negroponte’s USD 100 laptop is an excellent example of an attempt to raise the bar of the LCD in developing countries.

Whereas this laptop is intended to “… revolutionize how we educate the world’s children …”, the POCP plus Jott and flipMail embraces and extends the connectivity possibilities for those that already have cell phones:

The international implications for the service are even more impactful, as Teleflip solves a significant issue by providing e-mail access to millions of cell phone users in emerging e-mail-developing countries. As many as 70 percent of the world’s current 2.5+ billion mobile phone users do not have access to the Internet or e-mail. By establishing a flipMail account through Teleflip, this large population will now have instant access to send and receive worldwide e-mails on their regular cell phones, and again, without any new software downloads, special mobile Internet plans, or any new hardware or devices. So their existing cell phone number will be their onramp to the worldwide e-mail network.

While such a platform could have an impact in developing nations, where cell-phone usage often eclipses land-line usage, the POCP++ platform may have a broader global impact.

And although the USD 100 laptop has WiFi (including wireless mesh) capabilities, it may also benefit from cellular-based connectivity. Such a possibility could be enabled by, for example, adding a Bluetooth capability to the laptop’s already impressive array of technical specifications. In other words, with Bluetooth on both the laptop and cell phone, there exists an alternate vehicle for minimizing the connectivity gap.

Negroponte’s vision for the USD 100 laptop is compelling.

POCP++ could be a part of it – or some other humanitarian effort.

ORION’s 2007 Ontario R&E Summit

Last week I attended ORION’s 2007 Ontario R&E Summit.

Although there were a number of interesting presentations, particularly interesting were those from:

• Futurist, trends and innovation expert Jim Carroll
• Health innovator and professor Dr. Alejandro (Alex) Jadad

Also noteworthy were the findings of the EXTREME Virtual Reality (VR) Science Fair winner. To quote from an ORION-Mirarco press release:

Grade 12 student Alexandre Harvey of Temiskaming Shores in northeast Ontario, used open source 3D modeling software to illustrate the results of his research in developing a method to naturally decontaminate wood waste at a recently closed forestry processing facility. The owners of the plant are proceeding with a detailed design phase to implement his findings, eliminating the need to ship waste water to southern Ontario for decontamination.

Some of the presentations are now available online.