ETC Final Project

The final project for the ETC course was a challenging one for me because I had some technical difficulties while shooting video of my students working together and also when recording their comments about the two tools we used.  Fortunately the audio recording I made was good enough for me to jot down notes with their feedback, however it was not of sufficient quality to include audio excerpts.  I need to figure out a better way to record audio statements that can be imported into iMovie.

I also had some challenges recording the voice-over narration within iMovie.  Every time I tried to record, the recorder would cut in and out and I would lose part of the narration.  I didn’t have the time to figure out what I was doing wrong, so I decided to record the audio as a podcast in GarageBand and exported it to my iTunes library.  I was then able to drag and drop the entire audio file into the project in iMovie.  From there it took me a bit of time to adjust the timing of my visual elements – most of which were photos that I imported from my iPhoto library. 

I really appreciated the assistance of my Executive MBA students in the Lubar School of Business for their help with this project.  They were willing to try out Dabbleboard and Simple Diagrams on fairly short notice and gave me some excellent feedback on the tool.  If you have any interest in using visual thinking strategies, I highly recommend that you check out these tools.  Thanks for your interest in my work.  Feel free to share your comments below.

For those of you who are interested, here is the Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario Plan that I submitted before implementing this activity on January 21st, 2011.  Feel free to try it yourself!

1.  Target Audience: 

The target audience for this Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario (RILS) consists of the 14 executive managers who are currently enrolled in my graduate course in strategic management.  There are 11 men and 3 women in the class and they range in age from 25 to 49.  Five students are employed by non-profit organizations and nine people work at for-profit firms in the financial services, grocery, household fixtures, and a variety of manufacturing businesses.  Each person in the class has at least five years of management experience, however, most have more than that, yet only one student has an undergraduate degree in business.  One student holds doctorates in engineering and computer science and another is a licensed cardiologist.  This course is the capstone in the executive MBA program and is intended to integrate the knowledge students have gained in other business disciplines, such as marketing, finance, economics, accounting, information systems, leadership, statistics, business law and operations management.

2.  Materials: 

In order to complete this RILS activity, each student will need to have a copy of Dan Roam’s book entitled The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, and a copy of Michael Copeland’s August 16, 2010 Fortune article entitled Google: The Search Party is Over.  In addition, each student will need to have access to a computer and Internet connection or be willing to share computers with each other.  It would also be nice to have a video projector and screen attached to a computer so we can project the visual thinking diagrams for everyone to see.  Finally, each student will need to create a free Dabbleboard account.  If students elect to draw their diagrams by hand on a piece of paper, we will also need access to a scanner so we can scan their diagrams and upload those image files to the Dabbleboard website.  Since I will also be interviewing students about their reactions to the Dabbleboard tool, I will need a microphone, digital video camera and tripod to document their comments.

3.  Objectives: 

One of the primary objectives I have for this course is to help my students develop their skills as strategic thinkers and be able to use those skills to solve problems. Over many years of teaching the course, I have realized that it is important to use visual thinking strategies to explore various dimensions of strategic problems, communicate effectively and design practical solutions that add value for the organization.  So in this course I adopted a book by Dan Roam called The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures.  We are just beginning to read and apply Roam’s visual thinking techniques this week, so it is a perfect time to ask students to use Dabbleboard, a web-based interactive whiteboard, to share their diagrams with each other and further develop their visual thinking skills.

The primary objectives for this RILS activity are as follows:

Objective #1 – Help everyone get familiar with the Dabbleboard tool – take a short tour of the site, create a free account, and learn how to share the whiteboard canvas so we can work collaboratively to create visual thinking diagrams.

Objective #2 – Have each student create at least one diagram that applies one of the visual thinking techniques from Roam’s book to the Google article that has been assigned for the week.

Objective #3 – Use Dabbleboard to share and revise our visual thinking diagrams and stimulate face-to-face discussion of the tool and the diagrams that students have created.

4.  Procedure: 

I sent the following email to my students at 12pm CST on Monday January 17 to request their participation in this activity:

Hello members of Team Undefined, EDJE and Road Scholars. 

I hope the rest of your classes went well on Saturday and that all of the Packer and Bear fans in the class were able to enjoy their team's playoff victory.

As you may recall, I am currently enrolled in a Master's program in Educational Media Design and Technology (EMDT).  I was just given an assignment that I hope you will be willing to help me with, since you are the only students with whom I am working right now.  I am also hoping that participating in thi activity will help you get started on the final course project - your review of some Web 2.0 tools that can be used to facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing.

For our next class on January 21, I have asked you to read Part I of Dan Roam's The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures and apply some of his visual thinking and problem solving techniques to the article on Google that is posted in the Content Area of D2L.  For my EMDT assignment (and your final project on Web 2.0 tools), I would also like you to try out a Web 2.0 tool called Dabbleboard - a web-based interactive whiteboard that can be used to share your diagrams of the Google article with me and the rest of your study group.

I would really appreciate it if you would take the following steps before we meet on the 21st -

1) Visit the website at http://www.dabbleboard.com and take the short tour that is highlighted on the home page;

2) Sign up for a free account and let me know what username and email you used to create your account;

3) Use the Dabbleboard tool to create a diagram that applies one of the visual thinking techniques to the Google article or create your diagram by hand (or by using another diagramming program) and upload an image of your diagram to your library on the Dabbleboard site;

4) If you have access to a laptop, please bring it with you to class on Friday, Jan 21 so we can access and use Dabbleboard during class.  I will have two MacBook Pros available to share if you do not have access to or do not want to bring your laptop to class.  Unfortunately the Dabbleboard site uses Flash, so it is not compatible with the iPad.

5) I will also offer 4-5 extra credit points to the first two people who create a Visual Thinking Toolkit with at least four elements and upload it to the public library in Dabbleboard by class time on Jan 21.  Please send me an email if you are taking advantage of the extra credit opportunity and name your toolkit "Visual Thinking Toolkit 712" so we can all find it easily and copy it to our libraries in Dabbleboard.  The extra credit points can either be used to replace another application assignment or be added to your total points at the end of the course - the choice is yours. 

Toward the end of class on Friday I will ask you to share your feedback on the Dabbleboard tool and how you might use it in the future - feel free to incorporate that feedback into your end of class project on Web 2.0 tools.

Please let me know if you have any questions and also send me an email if you intend to take advantage of the extra credit opportunity.  Thanks for your help and I hope you have some fun exploring dabbleboard.  I'll see you on Friday.  Have a great week.

Dr. Jude Rathburn

On Friday, January 21^st our class meets from 2:30 – 5:00pm and we will spend most of that time sharing our diagrams and discussing the article about Google.  At the beginning of class I will ask for one person from each of the three study groups to volunteer to share his/her diagram with the rest of us using the sharing feature within Dabbleboard.  I will project those diagrams, one at a time, on the big screen and ask the creator to talk us through his/her diagram.  We will then break into smaller groups and each group will add their own ideas to the original diagrams – thereby trying out the “real-time” collaboration features of Dabbleboard. 

After about 15-20 minutes we will come back together as a large group and take a look at how the diagrams have changed, with each group explaining the changes they made to the original diagram.  After comparing the three group diagrams, we will then be able to step back and discuss if there is anything missing from the diagrams.  I will be curious to see if an “anchoring bias” affected the group diagrams or if group members were able to move beyond the restricted viewpoint of the original diagrams to incorporate a broader perspective.  The final step will be to discuss their experiences using this tool and share ideas about how they might use it in their own work environments.

5.  Web 2.0 Tool: 

Dabbleboard, an interactive electronic whiteboard and collaboration tool that can be found at http://www.dabbleboard.com

6.  Social Participation/Social Learning:

This RILS activity incorporates social participation and social learning in a couple of important ways.  First of all, at least three students will share their visual thinking diagrams with the rest of the class and talk us through their diagrams.  I expect that we will discuss the ideas that are presented and also make comments on the various visual thinking techniques that each presenter chose to include in his/her diagram.  The second opportunity for social interaction and learning will occur when the students break into their smaller study groups (4-5 people in a group) and start revising the original diagram that was shared by a member of their group.  I anticipate that each group will have a lively and highly interactive discussion of what should be added or deleted from the original diagram in order for the final product to include elements that each group member deems important.  The third opportunity for social interaction will occur when each study group shares their revised diagram with the rest of the class and talks us through the changes that were made and the rationale behind those changes.  We will also be able to compare the diagrams of each group to determine if anything is missing and if the collaborative diagrams actually incorporated elements from each group member’s diagram.  Finally, in our debriefing session, students will have the opportunity to share their reactions to the Dabbleboard tool and discuss how they might use this tool in their own work environment, thus learning from each other and coming up with a variety of scenarios in which this tool might facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing in the future.

7.  Making Connections:

Throughout the first eight weeks of the course we have used a variety of different techniques to encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing.  Students have worked in their study groups to create concept maps, design and deliver short presentations, participate in online discussion forums and provide peer reviews of presentations.  As we discuss their experiences with Dabbleboard, it will be fairly easy to ask them to compare our use of this tool with the experiences they have had throughout the course using other collaboration tools.  I am also curious to see if any students take advantage of the extra credit opportunity and create a visual thinking toolkit that can be copied and used by other members of the class – another way to build connections among team members.  Finally, I am curious to hear their reactions about how the use of Dabbleboard made them feel about their drawing skills – did it make it less (or more) intimidating to share their drawings with each other?  We have already had some thought-provoking discussions of our fears about sharing our visual thinking and drawing skills in public – so it will be interesting to see if this type of tool impacts that fear.

8.  Create/Produce: 

Each student will create a diagram that applies the visual thinking technique of their choice from Dan Roam’s The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, to the article entitled Google: The Search is Over.  Students have the option of creating their diagram using the Dabbleboard tools or by using some other diagramming program or hand-drawing and upload their diagram to their Dabbleboard library before class.  During class we will also create some collaborative diagrams as we share the diagrams created by individual class members and revise them in real time to incorporate insights from our face-to-face discussion.

9.  Reflection: 

Each student will reflect on his/her experience using the Dabbleboard tool to create their individual diagrams and also the process of sharing diagrams with each other and updating them in real time.  Students will also reflect on how they might be able to use this tool in their own work environment to facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing.  In addition, students will have the option to include this tool in their final project – reviewing three Web 2.0 tools that can be used in the workplace to help people share ideas and collaborate more effectively.

PE5_Dabbleboard vs. Simple Diagrams

I just came across another cool visual thinking tool that is actually a bit easier to use for simple diagrams, like those suggested in Dan Roam's book The Back of the Napkin.  This tool is called Simple Diagrams and the free version is available at http://www.simplediagrams.com.  Here is an example that illustrates the same info that I shared in BP4_Dabbling with Dabbleboard.  I am going to share this tool with my executive MBA students too and see which one they like the best.  Actually we might end up using both of them because the Simple Diagrams can be exported as PNG files and then uploaded to Dabbleboard.  I'll let you know which tool my students like the best.

Simple Diagram of Google's Where Problem

After playing around with the free version of Simple Diagrams and watching a video review of the tool that was posted by Chuck Frey on his Mind Mapping Software blog, I decided to spend $15 to upgrade to the full version and get access to a few more tool libraries.  One of the things I really like about the libraries in Simple Diagrams is that the elements have the "hand drawn" look - for some reason using these images has lessened my anxiety about actually having to draw the pictures myself.  It is easier for me to "think in pictures" if I can just drag and drop images that will work, rather than having to draw them freehand as is the case in Dabbleboard.  It will be interesting to see if my MBA students are able to create some easy to use visual thinking toolkits for Dabbleboard that will reduce or even eliminate this weakness of the Dabbleboard toolkit library.  My second example uses the Simple Diagrams program to illustrate a How and Why problem confronting Google as they must deal with changes in how customers use the web and figure out an effective response to those changes.

Simple Diagram of Google's How and Why Problems

The final example shown below is a test of how it will look when we import Simple Diagram images into the Dabbleboard canvas to evaluate and revise them in small, collaborative groups.  Having the two tools juxtaposed against each other like this reinforced my impression that the Simple Diagrams tool is much easier to use than Dabbleboard without an appropriate toolkit for our visual thinking strategies.  If you end up trying out these tools, please come back and post a comment to let me know which one you like best.  As always, thanks for your interest in my work.

Importing Simple Diagram image into Dabbleboard for comments

PE4_Dabbling with Dabbleboard

After many hours of thinking about how I could use a Web 2.0 tool as the basis of my Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario, I decided to go back to Dabbleboard and try to figure out how the students in my executive MBA class might use this tool to share their visual thinking skills. Over the next four weeks we will be reading and discussing Dan Roam's book called The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures.  For next week I have assigned Part I in the book, along with a Fortune article by Copeland and Weintraub (2010) entitled "Google: The Search Party is Over."  I asked my students to apply some of the visual thinking techniques outlined in Roam's book and draw at least one diagram that highlights some of the issues raised in the article about Google.

Screen shot of Dan Roam's book

Earlier today I emailed my students and asked them to use Dabbleboard to share their diagrams with me and the members of their study group.  During class on Friday, January 21st we will view each others' diagrams and discuss the various types of problems confronting Google as its search business slows down and the company needs additional sources of revenue.

Dan Roam argues that all problems can be classified into one of six categories -

• Who and what? - problems that deal with things, people and roles
• How much? - problems that require measuring and counting
• When? - problems associated with scheduling and timing
• Where? - problems regarding direction and how things fit together
• How? - problems about how things influence one another
• Why? - problems related to seeing the big picture

I decided to use Dabbleboard to create my own diagram that reflects a where problem that was mentioned in the article about Google.  Now that the growth of Google's core business in search has slowed down, Copeland and Weintraub (2010) suggest that Google must figure out from where its next big source of revenue will come.  I created this drawing in Dabbleboard to depict the possible paths that Google can follow, at least according to Copeland and Weintraub (2010).

Dabbleboard Diagram - Where problem at Google

The first path is the one that Google appears to be taking right now, as illustrated in its recent acquisitions of YouTube, Double Click and Ad Mob, for $1.6 billion, $3.1 billion and $750 million, respectively.  This path continues Google's reliance on selling advertising as its primary source of revenue and profitability.  According to Copeland and Weintraub (2010), in 2009, approximately 91% of Google's revenue and 99% of its profit came from selling display advertising on its various Internet properties.

More recently Google has entered the mobile Internet business with the release of the popular Android operating system for mobile phones.  Unfortunately, at least according to Copeland and Weintraub (2010), Google's decision to share the operating system at no cost to mobile operators (e.g. AT&T,  Verizon, US Cellular, Sprint and T-Mobile) means that the company will continue to rely on revenues generated through advertising, rather than licensing fees.  Ultimately, what this means is that Google has not been able to diversify its sources of revenue beyond the collection of fees from advertisers.  I agree with Copeland and Weintraub's (2010) conclusion that Google's stock will continue to decline in value and its growth will slow down even more if the company can not find new sources of revenue that are independent of advertisers.

In this class (ETC) we have explored using a few Google applications, such as iGoogle, Blogger, Google docs, and Google forms, etc., but most of us have not paid any licensing fees to use these applications.  Google does license a suite of productivity applications to companies in an effort to get them to switch from providers of other office applications, such as the Microsoft Office suite, but these licensing fees only provided approximately $350 million in revenue during 2010 (Copeland and Weintraub, 2010).  I doubt that Google will be able to gain much market share in the office applications market, no matter how low they set the price for licenses per employee.

I agree, to some extent with Copeland and Weintraub (2010), that Google needs to figure out how to tap into the popularity of social networking, which in many cases has eliminated a user's need to turn to Google to search for product recommendations or answers to questions that can be answered just as easily by posting a comment on Facebook or Twitter and getting immediate feedback from Friends.  I am not sure what the answer is for Google's where problem, but Dabbleboard helped me to diagram the different options and make the dilemma more visual.  It will be interesting to share my diagram with my students on Friday and see how their diagrams differ.  I guess you'll have to come back at the end of the week to see my video documenting what happens when Dabbleboard goes to the eMBA classroom at UW-Milwaukee.

References

Copeland, M. V., & Weintraub, S. (2010). Google: The search party is over. (cover story). Fortune, 162(3), 58-67.   

Roam, D. (2009). The back of the napkin: Solving problems and selling ideas with pictures. New York: Portfolio.

BP7_One Minute Movie

For this One Minute Video assignment I visited http://www.dabbleboard.com and used the Apple Grab utility to take some screen shots as I toured the website.  I saved the screen shots to the ETC One Minute Video project folder on my desktop and then imported them into my iPhoto library so I could access them through the media browser in iMovie. 

I then used Telestream's screen capture software Screenflow to create a simple screen cast using the Sports' Toolkit in Dabbleboard's Public Library.  After editing the screencast to include callouts that highlighted the movements of my cursor, I exported the screen cast as a .mov file (Quicktime) and added the file to my iPhoto movie library so I could easily import it into my iMovie project.

At that point I "went analog" and sketched out a storyboard to show the order of the screen shots, along with the script I would use in the voice-over narration.  With my script and storyboard in hand I opened up iMovie and used the drop and drag feature to collect the screen shots and Screenflow video clip from the media browser and add them to my ETC One Minute Movie project.  After adjusting the timing of each still photo (i.e. screen shot) and trimming the screencast clip, I was ready to add titles and transitions to bring the video to the one minute target duration (no more, no less - per Rena's instructions).  Once I had all the visual elements of my movie working properly, I used two takes to add the voice-over recording.  (Much better than my last narrated iMovie which took about seven takes and more than three hours to complete.  I guess this is what we call a "learning curve" in the education business).

The last step was to add the royalty-free music jingle (i.e. Acoustic Sunrise) from the iMovie media browser, apply ducking settings so that the music did not over-power my voice-over narration and, after about two hours of work, preview my final production.  I then exported the file to Quicktime, uploaded it to my Viddler account and copied the embedding code into this blog posting.  I am actually fairly pleased with how it turned out and the new Dabbleboard, Screenflow and iMovie skills I used in the process. 

You might want to click on the FULL SCREEN button at the bottom right of the video player in order to be able to read all of the text in the screen shots.  Let me know what you think...  And thanks again for your interest in my work.

BP6_Comment on Sheri's Blog

One of my Full Sail classmates is also considering using a wiki in her classes, so she posted a review of the Web 2.0 tool called Wikispaces.  Follow this link to my comments on Sheri's blog about Wikispaces.

I decided to check out Wikispaces myself and created a wiki called 4edtechies as shown in this screen shot.  Now I just have to figure out how to use the wiki to support my teaching and my Action research project.  Stay tuned for future posts about my use of Wikispaces.

BP5_Comment on Cheryl's Blog

Follow this link to my comments on Cheryl's blog about a Web 2.0 tool called Ge.TT, which allows people to share files easily to facilitate effective collaboration.

When I visited the Ge.TT website I found this Prezi file that gives viewers a feel for the site's functionality.  If you keep clicking on the PLAY arrow you can navigate through the entire Prezi pitch.  Now I am really looking forward to trying out this new tool.  Let me know what you think!

Getting to know Gett on Prezi

BP4_Dabbleboard

One element of my action research project focuses on improving my visual thinking skills so that I can incorporate more visual-spatial intelligence in my teaching, as well as strengthen my ability to think and learn through images.  So when I was looking for a Web 2.0 tool to review in this blog post, I went to the website at http://www.go2web20.net/ and searched for visual thinking tools.  The tool named Dabbleboard caught my eye, so I clicked on the link to check it out.

Dabbleboard is a web-based digital whiteboard that makes it easy to draw diagrams, brainstorm, create mind maps, flow charts, decision trees, organization charts, floor plans, user interface designs and use a variety of other visual thinking strategies with a simple click of the mouse.  One of the most interesting features is that a user can draw a shape that approximates a circle or one corner of a rectangle and the tool automatically recognizes the shape and creates a perfect circle, square or rectangle that can be easily scaled, moved or copied - all with a click of the mouse.  There are also toolkits for flowcharting, drawing floorplans, sports, network design, etc. that other users have created and shared in the Public Library.  The tool also makes it easy to draw freehand objects, change colors, group objects together, enter text and save drawings for later use.

Here are two examples of how I used Dabbleboard to test out some of its features.  In the first example I drew a simple floorplan to help me to decide where to put my new high definition 40" LCD television and the two new chairs that are being delivered to my house on Thursday - just in time for Saturday's big playoff game between my Green Bay Packers (yes, I am an owner) and the Atlanta Falcons. 

Dabbleboard - Simple Floor Plan

In the second example I conducted a short brainstorming session (with myself) to come up with some of the DOs and DON'Ts I have been reading about as I review peer reviewed articles on using PowerPoint in university and corporate settings.  I must admit that I was skeptical at first when I read the description of all that this whiteboard tool can do - it seemed too good to be true.  But sure enough, the tool is fast and easy to use.  There are a number of tutorial videos that demonstrate the possibilities and it appears that more and more users are sharing their content in the public library.  The tool seems quite flexible, especially since no hardware is required besides a computer, mouse and Internet connection.  Users can also easily share their drawings with others and you can even import other file types, like jpegs and pdfs and then use the Dabbleboard tools to highlight key sections of those documents or suggest revisions with team members who can see and write on the same interactive whiteboard from distant locations.  I can't wait to try this tool out with my executive MBA students.

Dabbleboard - Brainstorming session

There is a free version available, which can be easily upgraded to a pro version that has increased functionality.  Prices for educators include a 50% discount, although the only subscriptions that are available right now are month-to-month for $4.  One major downside of the tool is that it is not compatible with the iPad and the customer service representative told me via email that they do not plan to create an iPad or iPhone app - at least not in the near future.

All in all, Dabbleboard seems like it could be a great tool for me to use to strengthen my visual thinking skills.  I am looking forward to trying it out and sharing it with my critical friends.  Stay tuned for future examples of how Dabbleboard adds value to my action research project.