Yesterday was a particularly good day in my experience with this program so far. Met up with Nick and Scott at Michael Weinstein's place before class, which sparked a 6pm online Skype session between our little group there and those who were planning on attending the 9pm class.
We actually ended up discussing ahead of time many of the issues Margaret brought up in class, and I think we were more prepared for class and wiki editing because of it. It was really helpful to be in close proximity to my classmates, even if we spent much of our time staring at our own computer screens... I think that we were able to quickly engage each other with many little questions and comments that wouldn't be worth the effort to communicate online. I intend to help continue weekly-ish meetings with our local crew, but a question presents itself: What do all those more isolated from the rest of our cadremates do to get the same quality of experience?
One simple, already implemented solution is to Skype them in when we meet up. This works, it's true, but it doesn't seem to go far enough to really bring the wealth afforded by our proximity to their situations.
What if we incorporated more video at these meet-ups? I could use my laptop's built-in camera for the purpose, and could bring a few other webcams back into service to add other video streams. Could I do that simultaneously? I'll have to look into it.
Another thing might be similar to my suggestion last night surrounding our hesitation surrounding the wiki... We could agree to a set of behaviors that would encourage more openness throughout the week. For example, I try to be on Skype and available anytime I'm sitting and working on class-related things. I haven't spontaneously Skyped with too many people, but maybe if we all agreed to certain availability messages to indicate "I'm here, let's chat!"...?
I'll try to pose some questions like this to the forums, but if someone reading this has any suggestions, the comment button or an e-mail would be great.
