Surrender Dorothy

This week I was speaking with one of my co-workers that commutes from Maryland into Virginia everyday. We started talking about the "Mormon Temple" because I was telling him I had gone up that way last week.

He said that there was a "Surrender Dorothy" graffiti written in huge letters for many years on an overpass prior to driving toward the temple. I had never heard of this before, but apparently it was quite the popular item in Maryland, especially since they tried to cover it with a different color paint to hide the lettering.

Anyway, I jokingly said I would "google it" to find out more info.

Much to my surprise (I don't know why), there is actually a wiki entry about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_Dorothy . Even more surprising, it says that "all the Mormons" have talked about it and it shows up in our newsletters? I had no idea I should be receiving a newsletter let alone the "fact" that this is a supposed common entry in the newsletter.

Ah, the joys of web 2.0. Actually, and I will have to look into this more, wikipedia is rapidly becoming more reliable than the encyclopedia contrary to public opinion.

The wisdom of the crowds comes into play here I guess. I have been in conferences where they have entered bogus information into it at the beginning of the session and by the end it's been corrected by an anonymous expert/person surfing the internet.

Well, more about Dorothy later. I'm late for a meeting that I didn't want to attend anyway.

Technology - Knoll

I know. I know. Google is huge. Google is taking over.Google is this, that and the other. But, I think they have a reason to strut around fairly proud. They have some great products. I love the blog tool, even if wordpress has some features that it doesn't have. I love Picasa, even if Flickr has some other features. However, Picasa has the features that I need and it integrates well with all the other tools offered by Google.

So, this is the latest that I've heard about that I'm suggesting we utilize in our "learning toolkit" at work - Knoll.

Knoll has the tag line of "a unit of knowledge." Instead of a blog, it's intended for very focused topics of knowledge. This is yet another example of web 2.0 combining the best of multiple ideas into one area. So far, to me, it seems to be a slight combination of the wiki, the community of practice, and the blog idea all rolled up into one. Think Wikipedia, Ning, PBWiki, Blogger, e-learning product, and CNET product rating system all wrapped into one neat little package.

I haven't started one yet, but I will. I've got Ning, the wiki and the blog covered and so it only makes sense to take this next step.

Come to think of it...this should be posted on my work blog and not my random rebecker blog, but it was just too exciting not to share here.

If implemented properly, this could do wonders for the learning community. I'm thinking of it for delivery of compentency based instruction. It may not work as a competency management system, but it could deliver the content.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/knol-is-open-to-everyone.html

Example of utilizing Knoll - http://knol.google.com/k#