HURONTARIA 1999-A Jan B. Hurych English part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Note: Click on. Some pictures were removed to keep the total length of files reasonably short. SEARCH IN PART A - 1999 6 Go Copyright Jan B. Hurych. Copying of this material is not permitted. For reprinting, republishing or any other reproduction of this material, in whole or in part, the permission from the author must be obtained first. All names of persons or institutions are fictitious except where stated otherwise.Write to/ Pište na: [email protected] BOL-37-3 Page 1 of 1 HURONTARIA - 1A/99 Canadian Czech-out Monthly Kanadsko-èeský mìsíèník. Back to Title Page of Hurontaria (Jdi na titulní stránku Hurontarie) Commentary: Well, we finally got it: because of our good work, we were promoted from tri-weekly to a monthly magazine. OK, OK, it's only a joke, but Hurontaria will be now issued monthly. This way, I will avoid the last minute rush when sending the issue to main server and three mirrors as well. On the other hand, you do not need to feel cheated, I added one extra section to each part. It is rather simple: I am trying to switch from quantity to quality. We are not going to add the pictures to individual issues however: sure, it would be easier to fill the issue, but the reason against is quite simple. The Net is getting crowded and loading of pages in general substantially slowed down. Because of minimum of graphics, we were not harmed too much and we do not want to lose our advantage in the future. We have fast loading and high reliability on our mirrors as well and if you have problems, just switch to another location. They have different time of the day, that means different traffic - and besides, the electronic delivery time is negligible compared to waiting time. It works like this: you probably noticed, that very seldom you get the page loaded as "a whole", but rather in sections. The reason is that the data are transmitted in smaller parts, so called "packets" which are picked by the rule of FIFO (first in, first out). So, when your first packet was sent to you and while it is being displayed on your screen, the other people's packets are being served. If there is no traffic, your second packet is sent almost immediately after the first one, so it may look like the whole thing is being sent together. The real time eater is not the text, but the pictures. Just for comparison: We have only four tiny pictures on the Title Page (plus one for background), but together they take five times more bytes than the whole text there. Some of you who do have more time are invited to see our Photogallery , you get there from our Title Page. We will be updating it time by time and every update will be announced here. I would like to use this space also to point out to some software which really impressed me. Last time, it was Freezip ©, the copy of which can be still downloaded from our Title Page 1 of 17 Page . In this issue, it is another freeware, Irfanview©, the fastest picture editor and viewer I ever saw. It is obvious it cannot do everything, but it is incredibly short and therefore works like a lightning. It recognizes all picture formats (no, not vector graphics) and animated gifs are really moving there. The changing of picture size, intensity, contrast or even format conversion (say bmp to jpg) is just a cinch. It can do much more: anybody can create the slide show or loop audio or videoclip. If you have a scanner, the program will find it and do scanning directly. It will not occupy all your screen, just the real size of the picture (or less if you reduce it). You can download it from http://stud1.tuwien.ac.at/~e9227474/ And while you are there, click on mail and pls say Hello to the author, Irfan Skiljan from Bosnia, who is also the student in Vienna. INDEX: A - ENGLISH PART Other Dimensions: INTERVIEW WITH DAVID B. HARRIS. Life: THE FIGHT FOR LIFE WE NEVER KNEW BEFORE Short Story: THE OLD HEROD Bits: PET A BYTE Inclinations: FLOWERS Note: Click on left column. Part B (or C) is in Czech, and the content is different. For Part B (or C), please go back to Title Page . ape Chuckey´s Paradigms and Paradoxes: " I have better taste than my wife. You may judge for yourself: I married her while she only married me ." SEND me a mail to my address below; your comments will be appreciated. If you want to receive announcement of the new issue by mail, add the word SUBSCRIBE . Novelty: we can send you English issue by e-mail, you can then read it by browser off-line. Add in your letter words SEND HTML A . We would also appreciate if you let us know where did you learn about Hurontaria. Copyright © 1999 Jan Hurych. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for any other purpose must be obtained from Page 2 of 17 author. All the names of persons are fictitious except where stated otherwise. Webmaster Jan [email protected] OTHER DIMENSIONS: INTERVIEW WITH DAVID B. HARRIS DAVID B.HARRIS [email protected] is the Corporate and Higher Education Specialist and an owner of Technology In Education Institute , Seattle, Washington (USA). This Seattle based company specializes in Using Technology To Enhance Learning. He and his partner Margo Harris (School and Community Specialist) specialize in: - designing, developing, and delivering online training and education - supporting learning organizations - supporting knowledge management - integrating technology into classrooms - creating alternative learning opportunities - supporting coaching, mentoring, and informal learning opportunities. Mr. Harris’ primary interest in knowledge management is applying the principles of knowledge management to training, education, and learning. Currently, he chooses to concentrate on online learning. With the help of 40 participants, he is testing a new online workshop, Designing Online Learning Workshop. Mr. Harris received a Masters of Business Administration degree from Western New England College. He is pursuing a Doctorate of Education at Nova Southeastern University. His area of specialization is Instructional Technology and Distance Education. The company homepage is on http://www.techined.com/ Mr. Harris professional profile is on http://www.techined.com/DBH.html From: David B. Harris To: Jan Hurych Subject: Re: interview for Hurontaria Date: December 17, 1998 ---------------------------------------------- Page 3 of 17 JAN: In your interesting article "Creating a Knowledge Centric Information Technology Environment, 1996" you are discussing the knowledge centric approach , where the Information Technology environment would be characterized by a conscious effort to "transfer knowledge rather than transferring information. To transfer knowledge, the receiver's context and experience must be taken into account" (Quote, Mezirow, 1991). You define knowledge as " the combination of information, context, and experience". In other words, both sender and receiver have to be aware of the other's context and experience. The real crux is the application of knowledge for different environments, conditions and time, simply for different problem. That's where the context is most important. How do we go about providing the information with the proper context? Mr. HARRIS: A good start would be to document the problem and the resolution. Particularly in the Information Technology arena, we seem to have a propensity for discussing a problem, arriving at a solution, and implementing the solution. We fail to document the problem or the resolution, we just implement it. Later, when a maintenance team or someone else is trying to figure out why a system works the way it does, there is no documentation. This "just implement it" approach has two critical drawbacks. The first is anyone looking at the system at a later time can easily misinterpret what has happened. Required functionality might be removed and unnecessary functionality might be kept. The second drawback is we miss an opportunity to evaluate our decision making processes, to learn from the processes themselves, and to get better at making decisions. The next step is to start documenting the "why" of the problem solving scenario. This means go beyond documenting the problem and the resolution to documenting the rationale for making a particular solution. By documenting the why , we start to build a knowledge base that can be used to understand a particular set of decisions and we can use the knowledge base to help us learn how to make particular types of decisions. By the way, documenting the problem solving scenario does not necessarily mean keeping a text database. We could also use video tapes of meetings, sound recordings, emails, documents, and any other media that capture part of the scenario. JAN: Another interesting idea of yours is that "an IT environment that encompasses a knowledge centric approach will have an emphasis on knowledge transfer rather than Page 4 of 17 problem solving". Many times in my engineering experience I was offered "the solution" which simply didn't fit. More fruitful was the approach of "case studies" and analysis of the situation at hand as well. The main obligation of interpreting those case studies and weeding out the bias of information providers is of course always on the problem solver. It would be more constructive if the "senders" could do it for me, that is before providing such information - but is it always possible? Namely if they do not know my context? Mr.