[Winona Online Democracy] As co-chair of Winona's Online Democracy, I've taken great satisfaction in seeing the good use being made of the electronic forum. As we continue to enter ideas, I seem to lose sight of what has been previously said and the connections that ideas might have. I'd like to encourage you to install and try out a program called "Knowledge Forum" and use it to connect with a special database that I've set up at Hiawatha Broadband Communications (HBCI). The database contains all the emails that have been posted to the list so far, but presents them visually in a way that makes it easy to follow the discussion and build on the ideas that have been presented. We'd like to know if you think our Online Democracy work could be aided by us using Knowledge Forum. It may help to better organize and follow up on ideas that are posted to the list. Following is some background on Knowledge Forum and directions for downloading, connecting, and using it. Please feel free to give it a try and let me know what you think. As always, thanks for your participation in Winona Online Democracy. Randy Schenkat --------------------------------- WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE FORUM? Knowledge Forum was designed to assist groups of people in collaborating on ideas and has been in the development for over 15 years at the prestigious Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Toronto. In the early days it was called CSILE(Computer Supported Intentional Learning Environment). It is currently marketed by a company called Learning in Motion (www.learn.motion.com) . It was developed for schools to network learners, but the developers are finding that it is also useful in networking adults as learners as well. The Winona Council for Quality (I'm staff person for WCQ) has a special contract with OISE and LiM to pilot the use of the software at a community level in Winona. >From the description below, I think you'll see there are parallels with what we are trying to do with our discussions in onlinedemocracy. Knowledge Forum is used to facilitate problem centered collaborative knowledge building. It operates over a computer network (in our case, the Internet). Students and teachers can create notes that express their ideas or theories and enter them into a database, they then read and build on each others' notes, and create views to represent different aspects of their collaborative work. It allows any number of small groups to carry on discussions and debates among themselves and with each other. The software provides an easy interface to the complex array of individual and group discussions. Knowledge Forum is about: improving ideas, it encourages learners to work jointly, to contribute ideas to a communal data base, to create resources for the entire community, ideas can be revisited, critiqued,built on by others, and organized in a variety of ways. OBTAINING & INSTALLING KNOWLEDGE FORUM First you might want to consider the system requirements for your computer. For Macs A power Mac with Sys 7.5 or higher 32 megabytes of memory with at least 6 megs free Windows A Pentium machine with Windows 95 or higher 48 megabytes of memory with at least 6 megs free If you'd like to try Knowledge Forum /CSILE, first send me an e-mail ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) so I can enter your user name and password then go to www.learn.motion.com (for those of you that have made entries in online democracy I already have inserted your name and password -which is just your first name and first initial of last name in lower case i.e. stevek) At their home page, the third item on the list is Knowledge Forum, click on it. There's some good background information on Knowledge Forum by clicking on Knowledge Forum 3 or the demo slide show. To download Knowledge Forum, click on "Down Load Client Now". It will ask for your name and institution for institution put "Winona Pilot". You need to fill in all the information or it doesn't go forward. The software is about 1.5 megs so it will take some time to down load. It will ask you where to store it and also if you want it unzipped(which you do). After the client downloads a screen will come up that says "Welcome to Knowledge Forum" The large square that says "Knowledge Bases" should be empty. Click the button at the bottom that says "edit servers" Another box will appear that say "Edit Servers" Type in "skyline.hbci.com" (without the quotes) -- this is the server address we are using at HBCI In the box called "Server Names", click "Add Server" This should cause "skyline.hbci.com" to appear in Server List box , you can then click "OK" This will put you back to the "Welcome to Knowledge Forum" screen. Now enter your name and password - (your first name and the first initial of you last name in lower case are used for both the username and password, so for example, if your name is John Doe, your username is "johnd" and your password is "johnd") Now in the Knowledge Bases box there should be four servers listed (as follows): winona.kdb/skyline.hbci.com KnowledgeForum3Demo.kdb/skyline.com KnowledgeForum3Demo.kdb/kf.motion knowledg.kdb/skyline.hbci.com this one has another use now! You have now successfully installed Knowledge Forum!! USING KNOWLEDGE FORUM To view the online democracy database, highlight "winona.kdb/skyline.hbci.com" and click on "Sign On". This will log you into the data base. The first view you'll see is labeled Infrastructure. If you double click on any of the notes you'll see the entry made by that person. To close a note, go to bottom right and click close. To see the other views that have been created , click on views in top left. In the drop down click "go to views". The display tool will appear and you can go to any of the view that has been created so far. You'll notice the advantage of being able to see the connections of people's thoughts. Play around with looking at the views if you're so inclined. When you are done, you can log out by clicking on "File" on the top left and selecting "log out". USING THE TUTORIAL If you're adventuresome, you might want to go to the tutorial database and play around with notes, building them etc. To get to tutorial, click on "KnowledgeForum3Demo.kdb/skyline.com". Instead of entering your first name and first initial , enter "guest1" for your name and "guest1" again for your password and then click "sign on" ( if guest1 doesn't work try guest2, 3 etc. as other people may be on at the same time) After logging on, a screen will appear titled "About Knowledge Forum". If you click on "Features", you'll find a good tutorial for using some of the features of Knowledge Forum. When you're done using the tutorial, you can log out and re-enter winona.kdb/skyline.hbci.com and you'll be able to see the onlinedemocracy notes. If you would want to add a note that the whole list will view, please be sure to also email it to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Also, remember when you download the client , you were offered a manual which you could down load. If you have questions- please email or give me a call.. 452-7168. You can also call Learning in Motion's Help desk at 800-560-5670S. Tell them you're with Winona Pilot and you'd like advice.. Let me know how it works on your computer. Also, let me know if you'd be interested but currently your computer can't handle the software. What do you think? Would you like more background or training on using Knowledge Forum? Randy Schenkat 1419 Conrad Dr. Winona,MN 55987 507-452-7168 ---------------- This message was posted to the Winona Online Democracy Project. Please visit http://onlinedemocracy.winona.org to subscribe or unsubscribe. 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