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Web 2.0 Collaboration Tools For Class Rooms

May 1st, 2013

Web 2.0 has revolutionized the education world and brought the world closer. Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with other users or to change website content, in contrast to non-interactive websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them

Today, teachers are using the Web 2.0 tools to introduce lessons in their classroom. Students are collaborating with other students around the world, creating online content and displaying their work to a global world. Web 2.0 facilitates professional collaboration, networking, critical thinking, collaboration, innovation, creativity, global understanding and multicultural learning. Various tools for collaborative writing and editing, private communication, online conferencing, file sharing, and desktop sharing enable teachers to effectively collaborate with the students beyond school hours thus making optimum use of the technology available.

Google Docs: Google Docs is a free service provided by Google to its users. It serves as an excellent application for collaboration where teachers and students can use it to share documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Professionals can too collaborate with their teams and clients in real-time. Another idea is to use Google Docs as a note-taking tool while in class and lectures.

Skype: Skype is an application that allows making voice calls over the Internet (the technology is called Voice over Internet Protocol – or VoIP) that is completely free of cost. Apart from VoIP, Skype also offers in-built features for instant messaging (IM), video conferencing, and file sharing. Skype also launched Skype in the Classroom, a dedicated teacher network. Using the platform, teachers can create profiles that describe their classes and teaching interests. They can also search a directory of teachers from all over the world by student age range, language and subject.

Mind Mapping Tool: A mind map is a visual tool that helps build up around a central idea by creating branches like a tree whereby each branch symbolizes a thought process of an individual using different words. A mind map provides a pictorial image of your thoughts and hence helps to assimilate them. This is especially very useful for teachers and students whereby teachers can use mind maps to evaluate students’ logical bent of mind, creativity and their thought process. For students it serves as a tool to graphically put their thoughts together. Bubbl.us, for example is a simple free online application that allows brainstorming easily by creating a mind map for any topic.

Wridea: Wridea is a brainstorming tool that enables one to collaborate and share ideas with colleagues, students, and fellow learners and organize and categorize ideas onto different pages, providing unlimited storage, and also allowing users to comment on topics and ideas. Features of Wridea are:

Diigo: Diigo is a social bookmarking site that can be used by researchers to mark and highlight pages on the World Wide Web. The can even add footnote remarks, make notes or add comments to these pages and access them later from any computer . “Diigo” is an abbreviation for “Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff”.

Audio Pal: This is a free site to create audio files where voice can be recorded by phone or microphone and uploaded as an audio file. It can also create audio from text to speech.

Gliffy: Gliffy is an online diagram software for creating professional-quality flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, technical drawings, and more. The online diagram editor makes it easier than ever to create great looking drawings. The power of graphics organizers has been verified by research in promoting strong thinking skills and comprehension for all ages. It is a free online tool for creating graphic organizers without purchasing any software. Teachers and students can create the organizers or the class can create them together, such as in a brainstorming session on any topic.

Blogs: The core tool that often gets overlooked because it’s not as glitzy and tends to be viewed as a little older.

Social Networks: Social networks do blogs one better by making the conversation between users instantaneous. That on-the-spot feedback makes social networking more suited for educators to connect and share resources with contacts outside their classroom or institution.

Synchronous live platforms: Tools like WebEx and Adobe Connect, can be referred to as live meetings, web meetings, or webinars. Whatever you choose to call them, they provide a virtual venue for online collaborative experiences that play out in real time–similar to a virtual classroom or meeting room.

SlideRocket: SlideRocket has all of the capabilities of presentation software such as PowerPoint or Keynote, but exists on the web, which gives it a great advantage in the education setting. Teachers can create multimedia presentations that supplement their lessons, share the presentation with their students via a hyperlink, and then track which students viewed the presentation as well as how long they spent looking at each slide.

SchoolFusion: A website development and hosting solution, SchoolFusion is designed for K-12 schools to use templates to build “fusion pages,” or websites, for individual classrooms, student clubs, academic and administrative departments, or other community, alumni, and faculty functions that may call for one. Web 2.0 tools are woven into SchoolFusion’s web pages, giving teachers instant access to collaborative instruments such as wikis, blogs, messaging, podcasts, and streaming video.

Smilebox: The Smilebox Teacher’s Toolbox program is a teacher’s digital companion for creative classroom communication. Teacher’s Toolbox gives teachers at all grade levels an easy and creative way to safely share photos, videos, and classroom updates to students and parents.

Edu 2.0. EDU 2.0 is a lot like online course management systems Blackboard and Moodle, but with a couple of distinct advantages. First, teachers can share their lesson plans, quizzes, videos, experiments and other resources in a shared library that currently hosts more than 15,000 pieces of content. Second, a community section allows teachers and students to network and collaborate with other members who share the same educational interests. And third, everything is hosted in the cloud for free.

SymbalooEDU. he new EDU version comes with academic subject-specific resource pages or “webmixes” and top tools like TeacherTube, Slideshare, Google Docs, Flickr and more are fully embeddable. Teachers with a “Free Plus” account can add their school logo and customize the links. The site also allows students to easily share their Symbaloo pages and projects with classmates.

Collaborize Classroom. This app gives teachers four discussion format choices. Students can either agree or disagree with a statement, answer a multiple choice question, post responses, or have the choice between adding a new response or voting for someone else’s response. Teachers can add photos or videos to their prompts and all of the discussions take place on one class page.

Edublogs. This WordPress-like blogging platform only supports educational content. Since 2005, it has hosted more than a million blogs from students and teachers. Common uses for blogs in classrooms include group projects, reflection journals, school newspapers, class web pages and parent newsletters.

Kidblog. Kidblog is a bit more specific than Edublogs. There are fewer options to adjust the appearance of the main page, and it’s hard to use the platform for anything other than as a system for managing individual class blogs. The homepage serves as a catalog of student blogs on the right with a recent post feed on the left. Having said that, if you want to introduce individual class blogs to your K-8 classroom, this is the perfect tool for it.

Edmodo. Edmodo looks and functions much like Facebook. But unlike Facebook, it’s a controlled environment that teachers can effectively leverage to encourage class engagement. The platform allows teachers and students to share ideas, files and assignments on a communal wall. Teachers can organize different groups of students and monitor them from the same dashboard. Once they’ve organized classes, they can post assignments to the wall and grade them online. They can then archive the class groups and begin new ones.

By using the above tools, the teaching learning process can be made interesting enabling both the teachers and students to collaborate, work and share together. Indeed Web 2.0 has revolutionized the education world and brought the world closer.

Related Stories:

Sources:

  • Digital Learning, August 1, 2010
  • Technological Horizons in Education, August 1, 2010
  • Smilebox Press Release, September 2, 2010
  • Mashable, October 2010

Telecommuting Fast Facts…

April 17th, 2013

A group of researchers at Stanford University partnered with a large travel agency in China that was founded by a former Stanford Ph.D. student. The company’s chairman was curious about whether instituting a telecommuting policy would work for his employees and what kind of effect it would have. The results are interesting and can be found on SmithsonianMag.com.

From the Telework Research Network: If the 41 million Americans who work in a office chose to spend one data a week working at home…

  • Commuter cost savings off $494 million
  • Save 2.3 million barrels of oil, totaling $185 million
  • Traffic accidents reduced by 775, for a savings of $93 million
  • Companies save over $6,500 per employee

From The Telework Coalition‘s Wired Working As A Lifestyle:

  • Businesses save an average of $20,000 a year for each full-time employee who works remotely
  • Employee productivity increased by an average of 22% when remote working was allowed
  • Remote working reduced employee turnover by 50%

Some Interesting Infographics…

Further Reading…

Shopping Local In Surprising Places…

February 24th, 2013

According to a blog post from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there are “28 million small businesses throughout the United States, representing 44 percent of U.S. private sector payroll.  These small businesses also create 2 out of every 3 new American jobs.”

That’s a pretty powerful statistic and just one of many convincing reasons to shop local whenever you can. I have always been a proponent of shopping local mainly because it:

  • Keeps your money in your community. The local shops and services are hiring employees and paying taxes in your town and region. Those employees live and spend their money in the area and the business taxes are helping to keep the doors open at the police and fire stations and fund other services.
  • The service is often much better. A local mom and pop shop is struggling to compete with national chains and online shopping. They can’t always compete on price but they can compete on service. They know you and your community because they live and work here and they can help you get exactly what you need. They’re the company that’s likely to call or email you when something comes into stock that they think you might want. They’re the ones who know their business and product/service and can provide honest and helpful information.
  • Local business makes your town a desirable place to live and work. Vibrant and diverse businesses in your area offer employment opportunities that can reduce commute time for employees (saving money and reducing carbon footprints) and can make it easier to live healthier, happier and simpler lives.

While I’m meandering through the highways and byways of my town, I shop local. I don’t, however, expect to be shopping local when I head into Boston to go to the New England Home Show. I fully expect that hubby and I will be buying silly things that we can’t find locally and get new ideas for home and garden renovations. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

First local encounter was at the Aerus-Electrolux exhibit. My Dyson vacuum is dying a slow and painful death and we are in the market for a new vacuum. Our house actually has a central vacuum system but it’s at least 25 years old and hasn’t worked very well since we bought the house. We stopped at Electrolux to look at the upright vacuums and got into a long conversation with the salesman,  Bob Wing. Bob really knows his vacuum cleaners and pointed out to us that, for the same amount of money spent on an upright vacuum cleaner, we could simply update our central vacuum system. Definitely a no-brainer as far as I was concerned and he made that sale no problem (it’s getting installed next week). The real beauty of this conversation, though? Turns out he’s a neighbor of ours. He’s Vice President of the Wankinquoah Rod & Gun Club which is just down the street from where we live. Not only did I get to shop local but we made a new friend in the community – that’s a win for everyone involved.

Next up was the Generator Locker exhibit. After the Blizzard of 2013 knocked our power out for 91 hours, hubby and I decided that our top priority “big purchase” is a generator.

While we haven’t yet bought a generator – still researching what we need and which to buy – we did notice the Generator Locker display at the Home Show. This nifty creation lets you store and secure your generator when it’s not in use and makes it incredibly easy to start the generator up when your power goes out. Turns out, Joe Cavallaro, Jr. of Middleboro, Massachusetts is the man behind the genius of these lockers. We had a great conversation with Joe and will definitely be looking to buy one of these lockers once we’ve purchased our generator.

Joe is also the owner and operator of The Bulkhead Man, another Middleboro business. Each steel bulkhead that he sells is custom-made and fitted for your home’s bulkhead space. The bulkhead on our rental property is in desperate need of replacement (along with the stairs that lead into the basement) and Joe’s company can not only replace our old bulkhead with a custom one but he can also do the stairs that need to be replaced.

Joe was also telling us that Middleboro’s Housing Authority has ordered a  bulkhead from him for one of their properties and, if all goes well with that install, they may be looking to order more from him. Not only will I be buying my next bulkhead from a local source but it was great to hear that the town is trying to shop local whenever possible as well. Another new friend and two possible local purchases – more wins for everyone!

The final shop local shout out is to Chris Mahoney of Carver, Massachusetts for giving us the tickets to the New England Home Show. We stopped by his exhibit at the home show as well and recommend that you give him a call if you’re looking to do some renovations or building.

Shopping local is easy and you never know who you’ll meet and the new friends you’ll make in the process. Give it a try – you might just like it!

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Communication…

February 10th, 2013

With the U.S. economy the way it currently is, cities and towns across the country are trying to figure out ways to cope with the loss of state and federal money. Most locales are looking at budget cuts and new or enhanced taxes and fees to help support local services, schools and other things that make their town run.

In 2009, Simon Moores wrote an article for Computerworld, titled “Can social media save local government?” This is what got me thinking about this topic and how it relates to Middleboro(ugh), Massachusetts. It’s a terrific small town but it seems that the few times that we make “the news” it’s bad news. In the past couple of years, my town has been in the state and national media for Eastern Equine Encephalitis, a failed attempt to bring an Indian casino here, a horrific rotary that needs to go, and other such miserable topics. If media were your only source of information about Middleboro, you would be led to believe it’s not particularly idyllic.

Middleboro, Massachusetts is the self-proclaimed “Cranberry Capitol of the World.” (I say “self-proclaimed” only because there are other towns and states across the country that also claim this title.) We’re a town close to major interstates and we have commuter rail into Boston. We’re ideally located close to Boston, Cape Cod and Providence, Rhode Island. We have some terrific local businesses and restaurants, a strong sense of community, and offer up country living without giving up proximity to city life and activities. Surprised? Probably. Our local officials seem determined to be very quiet about us.

I’m not knocking Middleboro’s town government; they have a lot on their plates. I’m suggesting, however, that if those same town officials spent a little bit of time proactively communicating instead of only reacting and speaking to a small audience behind closed doors, I think that we could be drawing new business and people – which in turns bring money – into town. That new money could then perhaps fund things like schools and open space and preserving our way of life while still enjoying what the current century offers.

One step that Middleboro needs to take is to have someone who is responsible for coordinating communications internally and externally. The department heads have a lot of information that could – and should – be shared with various stakeholder groups. But they don’t necessarily have the time or the expertise to pull that information together and communicate effectively. Call this role whatever you like (Chief Marketing Officer, Public Liaison, Goddess of Goodness and Light, whatever) but this person would be responsible for getting that information to other internal people who might need it, get it up on the town’s web site in a timely fashion, communicate with the media, the business community, residents/taxpayers and other audiences as appropriate.

Along with the town’s “sanctioned” vehicle – www.middleborough.com – this communications role would be responsible for working with the town manager, board of selectmen, department heads and committees to create modern strategic marketing and communications strategy. I say “modern” because the person in this role needs to be comfortable with new channels – and effective use of those channels – to support the town’s goals and objectives.

How are other communities communicating with their constituents? What tools are they using?

Michael Riedyk wrote a good blog post on DotGov.com about how local governments can use Twitter. In this blog, he highlights some ways Middleboro could use this free tool to start communicating:

News & Events: Use Twitter for press releases, news and events and feeding information – via RSS feeds – from the town website out to a larger audience.

City Services and Transportation Announcements: Tweeting about street closures, town activities and departmental activities is a natural for Twitter. A natural next step is adding City Service Announcements to the feed. The City of Bryan in Texas is a great example of how this works  (@CityofBryan). Twitter is extremely useful in any situation when service delivery may be changing quickly, like a pandemic situation or Public Health and Safety in general.

Job Postings: Not that Middleboro has a lot of job openings, but when we do, we might garner attention from a larger pool of candidates by tweeting out that information. The State of Georgia combined resources and tweet all open job positions via @galocalgovtjobs.

Board of Selectmen and Other Departments:
Now, we have our city services and announcements up and running, our next step is to open up the decision-making process by bringing the town’s government to Twitter. The City of Seattle (@SeattleCouncil) has a very active feed with everything from city council agenda’s, live video, vote results and discussion and is a good example of what Middleboro could be doing.

Election Time: The City of Regina in Canada (@CityofRegina) used Twitter to provide information on the 2009 civic election and better engage citizens in the process. As candidates submitted their papers a ‘tweet’ went out to let people know. It was a good way to get the information out to a large and interested audience (residents, media, etc.). On Election Day, Twitter acted as the most direct channel for the vote results.

Innovations & Ideas: Get your citizens involved and come up with great ideas that can help lower costs or solve complex problems. The City of Manor, Texas (@manorlabs) started with “The Open Innovation Tweets”, a brainstorm channel were every citizen can share his ideas for a better local government. This is also a great way to bring into the light citizen groups and Twitter streams that are providing useful news and information about Middleboro but are outside of town government.

According to Facebook’s own statistics, there are more than 750 million active users on Facebook. 50% of their active users log on to Facebook in any given day and have an average of 130 friends.

Did you know that some of Middleboro’s departments are on Facebook? Nope, neither did I until I started writing this post. Kudos to the following, forward-thinking folks in town government who are reaching out and – GASP! – talking to their “fans.”

There are also some terrific community businesses, services and non-profit organizations who are utilizing Facebook to “get the word out” about themselves and the community in which they live and work, including:

These local Facebook examples are just a few of the groups that I found on Facebook. At a minimum, some of these groups should be linked on the town web site and be promoted for the good work that they do. If the town created its own presence on the largest social network in the world, it could easily connect, communicate and collaborate with these groups and other smart people and businesses in the community.

Google+ (G+ for short) is Google’s entrance in the social networking space. Actually, I think it’s going to be much more than that but let’s stick with the basic concept for now. Three weeks in, Google+ hit a solid 10 million users, and that was while invitations were still pretty scarce. That number just shy of doubled to 18 million less than a week later, and two days after that Google+ hit 20 million registered users. That’s especially impressive considering that it’s still technically a field test. Even public figures like Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper have jumped into G+.

Off the top of my head, one of the things that G+ offers is the concept of “Hangouts.” I can see Middleboro events like “Ask The Department Head…” For example, Middleboro’s new town clerk could be the featured speaker. With a bit of publicity and planning, Allison could answer questions about what the town clerk’s office does, what their hours are and simply introduce herself to the people her department serves every day. What better way to put a human face with what can seem like a cold, faceless government entity?

Are sound marketing/communication principles and social media going to solve all of Middleboro’s woes? Of course not. I think Simon Moores summed it up well in his article:

By all means experiment and engage but at the same time, local government as a whole, needs a collective review of an increasingly tired-looking communications strategy, which places its well-established channels at a distinct disadvantage, at a time when blogs and tweets and pokes are increasingly a popular source of information and news for the public-at-large.

These are just some thoughts off the top of my head. I’d like to hear from you. What can local government and officials truly bring more communication and collaboration with the people they serve? How can citizens get involved, make their voices heard and make where they live a better place for everyone?

Related Reading/Viewing:

September 18th, 2012

Sherri Hartlen-Neely

The name JoryPepper is a combination of my two beloved house rabbits who have since moved on to greener pastures filled with carrots and lasagna. Jory (1992—1999) and Pepper (1995—2007).

I now have two dogs — Kisses and Tucker. Born in 2005, they are brother and sister from the same litter. They don’t replace Jory and Pepper but we love them just as much and they are equally spoiled. In 2008, we welcomed Miss Oreo to our little family. She is a black and white dwarf Dutch bunny who enjoys chewing everything in sight and torturing the dogs and in 2012 Miss Oreo found her new BFF, Miss Mortimer.

While this web site is my primary home on the internet, you can also find me on Facebook.com, LinkedIn.com, Twitter and Google+.

The views expressed on this site are my own and don’t reflect the views of my employer, nor does it reflect my employers intentions, plans, or strategies. The information is provided to you in “as is” condition with no warranties, and confers no rights.

I allow for comments on my blog posts. However, I reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments. I will moderate and delete comments I consider to be spam and will consider the overall reading experience for my readers and quality of my blog.

Welcome to JoryPepper Communications!

Outsourcing Versus Offshoring…

August 30th, 2012

One of my pet peeves? Incorrect use of words. I’m not talking about typos or hastily spoken words that are quickly corrected. I’m talking about intelligent people incorrectly using terminology. In this election season the words that are currently driving me crazy are outsourcing and offshoring. Let’s set the record straight…

According to Wikipedia:

Outsourcing is the process of contracting out a business process, which an organization may have previously performed internally or which the company deems necessary or important, to an independent organization, where the process is purchased as a service. Though the practice of purchasing a business function—instead of providing it internally—is a common feature of any modern economy…

Offshoring describes the relocation by a company of a business process from one country to another—typically an operational process, such as manufacturing, or supporting processes, such as accounting. Even state governments employ offshoring. More recently, offshoring has been associated primarily with the sourcing of technical and administrative services supporting domestic and global operations from outside the home country, by means of internal (captive) or external (outsourcing) delivery models.

If you’re angry about U.S. jobs being moved out of the country, then you’re angry about offshoring not outsourcing. Please use the terms correctly.

Thank you.

Get Ready to Mob Williams’ Trading Post in Middleborough!

June 28th, 2012

According to a study by The Maine Center for Economic Policy (MECEP) and the Portland Independent Business and Community, in general, every $100 spent at locally owned businesses generates an additional $58 in local impact. By comparison, $100 spent at a representative national chain store generates $33 in local impact. Simply put: Money spent at local businesses generates as much as a 76% greater return to the local economy than money spent at national chains. There is now a grassroots effort underway in the Middleborough/Lakeville area to support local businesses and keep the money we all spend in the community.

The “Cash Mob Middleborough-Lakeville” Facebook group is a grassroots open community that promotes buying local and organizes cash mob events in the area.  Everyone is welcome in Facebook group, located at: http://www.facebook.com/groups/283423471748758/.

A Cash Mob is a group of people who assemble at a local business and commit to spending $10 or $20 at that business. The purpose of these mobs is to support both the local businesses and the overall community. They are also a way for people in the community to come together and socialize.

In May, the group sponsored the first Cash Mob at The Main Drag sandwich shop in Middleborough Center. According to the owner, Leslie Martella Muse:

“More than 50 new customers came into the shop on the day of the Cash Mob.  There was also an overflow of new people coming in and ordering food in the days leading up to – and after – the actual event. “

The next Cash Mob location has been chosen by the Facebook community. On Thursday, June 28, 2012 from 9:00am to 6:00pm, area Cash Mobsters will descend on Williams’ Trading Post – located at 556 Wareham Street (Route 28), Middleborough.

Martha Dupuis, owner of Williams’ Trading Post, was very excited to hear that her shop had been selected as the next Cash Mob location. She is rallying her staff and bringing in extra products so that everyone will find something for their home or garden during the Cash Mob event. She has even extended her hours on June 28th so that everyone has a chance to go in, look around and say hello.

Ms. Dupuis is also inviting other local businesses to who are interested in providing gifts for the Cash Mobsters during the event to contact Sherri Hartlen-Neely at 774-213-1003 for more information.

More Information:

Middleborough Gas and Electric Department: An Overview

May 10th, 2012

On Friday, March 16, 2012 starting at 7:30 p.m., Middleboro’s gas and electric department will be holding one of their regular monthly public meetings. Judging by the number of emails, blog posts and general conversations around town, however, this meeting is destined to be anything but ordinary.

If you’re a residential or business customer of Middleboro G&E but haven’t been paying attention then now would be the time to start. According to an email from Allin Frawley, a resident in town as well as a member of the Board of Selectmen:

Under the new business section of this month’s G&E meeting, the commission will release nine years of executive session minutes. Included in these minutes are the negotiation of the G&E General Manager’s contract which was voted on and signed in an executive session. This contract makes the General Manager the highest paid manager of a municipal utility in Massachusetts: $188,850 salary with a productivity bonus of $3,631.73 for a total annual salary of $192,481.71.

What’s the problem here? First the contract being voted on and signed in executive session is a violation of open meeting laws. All of the General Manager’s performance reviews and salary increases have happened in closed executive sessions. In the past three years, thanks to the secrecy of executive sessions, the General Manager’s salary has increased by $32,481.71. I’ll say it again, in case the statement took your breath away: In three years, his salary increased by $32,481.71. Along with the issues surrounding the General Manager’s salary and contract, the G&E Commission also has to address four open meeting law violation charges.

Due to other issues that have come up in Middleboro in the past few years, the Gas and Electric department has been able to operate without any public review or inspection. It’s now time to stop this behavior. They are required to operate under the same open meeting laws that our other town departments and officials have to operate under. Show up on Friday, March 16th and let the G&E department know that this abuse of public trust needs to stop. Now.

Middleborough Gas and Electric Commission Meeting Details

Friday, March 16, 2012

7:30 p.m.

Middleboro Town Hall, Selectmen Meeting Room

10 Nickerson Avenue, Middleboro

Meeting Minutes

Further Reading

 

Casino In Middleboro? Who Knows…

March 18th, 2012

In separate votes Tuesday on Beacon Hill, the House and Senate approved a compromise bill that paves the way for three resort-style casinos and a slot parlor. The Senate still has one more vote to take today, but that is considered a formality. The bill gives the governor eight months to negotiate a compact, payment in lieu of taxes, with a federally recognized tribe. The Mashpee tribe is considered the odds-on favorite because the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) waived federal rights in a 1987 land deal with the state.

What the casino bill does for the Wampanoag:

  • Sets aside $5 million for the governor to negotiate a compact for payment in lieu of taxes with a federally recognized tribe. That compact will require legislative approval.
  • Sets parameters for the governor to negotiate only with a tribe that has entered into an agreement to purchase a parcel of land for a proposed casino and also requires that a vote be scheduled with the host community.
  • Requires a statement of financial investment rights of any individual or entity which has invested in the tribe since 2005.
  • Sets a deadline of July 31, 2012, for the compact negotiations between the governor and tribe. If a deal isn’t struck and the commission determines the tribe won’t have land into trust, the gaming commission can seek bids from other developers on the Southeastern Massachusetts casino.
  • Gives a federally recognized tribe a seat at the table on a 15-member gaming advisory panel that will consider gambling policy and create subcommittees to examine community mitigation, compulsive gambling and impacts on cultural facilities and tourism.

Source: Cape Cod Times, November 16, 2011

Further Reading

Follow-Up To Productivity Busters Post…

March 17th, 2012

I have made some headway on getting my professional and personal productivity back up to speed and will be blogging about that more later. (See my posting on September 3rd for more information about the beginning of the journey.)

But, in the meantime, I wanted to share two articles that talk to my whole struggle with productivity and information overload. The first comes from Lifehacker and has some good tips about beating your filing cabinet and system into shape. The second comes from Paul Hemp in The Guardian. While the full article is no longer available online, there is a nice summary of what information overload is doing to society, organizations and individuals.

Also, for what it’s worth… my whole quest for increased productivity and personal knowledge management, I’ve been looking at wiki products. There’s a nice round-up of wiki products (paid and free) on Sitepoint.com. If you have thoughts on any of these products I would love to hear from you!

I’m still working through Getting Things Done and it does help but recently I ran across two other “systems” that might work for you: Assess, Decide, Do and the 5S Methodology.

I’m marching forward and doing the best I can… how are you doing?

Further Reading

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