Cyberchronicles
Lessons
from The
by Jose Lepervanche, May 2003 (*)
These Lessons from The
Peace River where written after spending the last Memorial Day weekend camping
with friends at the Peace River Campground near Arcadia, Florida. The lessons
were posted as follow-up discussion questions in my online courses about IT
Project Management, Critical Thinking and Computer Logic and Technical
communications. Although the final questions were slightly different depending
on the course, the lessons were easily applied to current topics in the
different courses. Later in another Cyberchronicle, I
will post a summary of the discussions and conclusions by my students. Enjoy the
lessons and apply them to your own life. If you want to answer the final
questions, feel free to send your answers back via email.
Lesson # 3 (Countdown) –
Life is a Project
Being an online instructor is like being a parent. Once that you have children
or students you always keep them in your mind. During this past Memorial Day
weekend I had the opportunity to be away in the wilderness and get connected to
a river: The Peace River.
We were around of 30 families camping in tents in the Peace River Campground (www.peacerivercampground.com). Many of these
families used to camp every Memorial Day Weekend and this was our first time
with them.
Although I tried to get my mind disconnected from my online courses,
this was a very difficult task. Students, like our children, are always
there even if we cannot reach them. On Saturday morning, I found an excuse to
disappear from the campsite and went to the near town of
Internet Search
I visited the Public Library and they required a local library card and, even
after identifying myself as faculty, they told me to go to the local Chamber of
Commerce (which was closed) and to the South Florida Community College (which
was also closed). I visited the local Radio Shack (they sell Internet access)
and they referred me to a local cybercafe (or bar?)
which happen to be also closed (I think they were going out of business).
Well, now I understand why some of my students have difficulties finding
Internet access in some rural areas. After my search, I decided to relax and
followed the flow of the circumstances. Similar to three of my children who
were not camping with me, I believed that my students would be able to survive
two days without news from their instructor.
On Sunday we were canoeing in The Peace River (www.canoesafari.com). The river is an historic river and one of the
most popular
I am going to share my three top lessons that I learned from this canoeing
experience that relate to my online courses and life:
Lesson #3 – Life is a project.
Similar to a project, our canoeing trip had a lot of planning. It was not an
easy task to coordinate around 100 people (mostly kids) going out down the
river paddling 10 miles in a 17 foot metal canoe. Our project had a starter
point, objectives, scope, scheduling, resources, risk, control, and a closing.
Sometimes, we had to paddle hard, stop for a while, balance the canoe to avoid
flip it over, etc. At the end we all were satisfied with the result of our
effort. We all learned to plan, implement, control, and evaluate our canoeing
project.
How do you relate an outdoors project/activity with any of your current
workplace projects? Use analogies, metaphors and tell the lessons you have
learned.
Tomorrow, I will continue this Cyberchronicle and the
other two top "Lessons from The Piece River" list.
Have a great week and thank you for your online survival skills.
Jose
-------------------------------
Jose Lepervanche, M.S, N.E.
Information Technology Online Faculty
Lesson #2 – Teamwork
Could imagine more than
100 people flowing down the river in 30 canoes? Most of them were guided by
couples with small children including one with a baby, some with an only women
crew, some with one adult, and some with teenagers with their parents in
another canoe. Cold drinks and sandwiches were in eight different canoes. Could
you imagine how to keep this fleet within reasonable distance and be sure that
we all protect the others?
The solution was a very
good effort in Teamwork. Adults took care of several canoes and we tried to be
together. One of the leaders who knew the river and the place for our lunch
stop was in the first canoe and another one was in the last canoe. It was great
to see how different natural teams were formed and how they changed according
to the speed, currents, etc. At the end all the canoes arrived safely to the
lunch stop. We continued with the second phase of the trip and we all arrived
tired but happy to the Canoe Safari dock.
Individually, each canoe
crew had to work as a team too. We had to coordinate the balance, the force of
paddling, direction, and we aware of waves, floating wood, tree branches,
and……alligators. Yes, we spotted three during the journey. Some of the canoes
flipped over due to unbalance but they were able to be flipped back to normal.
One of the canoes hit a branch and the lady on front fell to the water. Her
husband tried to help her and almost fell to the water too.
As you see, teamwork
required individual abilities, combined abilities and, when your team is part
of another team, more coordination to have an overall success.
Have you had any
experience where a project was unsuccessful or successful due to one team
inside the big team?
(Project Man) Share your
experience.
(Tech Com) Tell us your
story and the lesson learned.
Do you have any idea what
lesson is #1 in my list? Make a guess. Lesson #1 is coming soon.
Jose
-------------------------------
Jose Lepervanche, M.S, N.E.
Information Technology Online Faculty
Lesson # 1 – Enjoy the journey
During our life we have
many opportunities to create projects, make plans, find the best decisions
alternatives, make mistakes, improve our score, change careers, move, and start
all over again. It is a continuous cycle, a continuous wave, a continuous
journey, a continuous adventure.
As we move up and down,
left and right to reach the next port of destination, we have to be sure that
we have a port of destination. Many times we go around and we don't know where
we are going. This is the importance of finding your life purpose. We have to
find the direction to our life. We should then create objectives and goals that
are feasible and enjoy the journey.
As we planned our canoe
trip, we made expectations about the unknown journey. Many of the experienced
campers told to the new ones, not to bring anything that could get wet. Some
did not paid attention to the advice and brought their cameras, towels, bags,
etc. As an old boy scout, I protected my camera with two plastic bags and I was
ready to be wet.
When the journey started
many people were thinking in a peaceful day down a peaceful river. Well, it was
The Peace River! We all went down the river trying to be together and trying to
overcome small obstacles such as rocks, branches, other canoes, airboats, etc.
However, we did not know that the biggest obstacles were…water guns!
Yes, the fun part of the
journey was trying to avoid the water guns from people staying at the river
banks or even swimming in the water. They were waiting for the canoes, like
birds of prey, to approach them and suddenly they discharged all the water from
their water guns in our bodies, canoes, belongings, babies, cameras, etc. We
were really wet during almost all the journey.
Some of our experienced friends
knew about the water guns and they were prepared to defend their canoes with
their own water guns. In some places The Peace River turned to be a fun water
battlefield. It was great to be together in some of the areas and to cross the
water obstacles while paddling at four arms per second.
During our lunch stop, we
did the same. While we were resting and swimming in the river, our artillery
crews defended our beach by shooting water to the canoes who attempted to cross
in front of us. It was our time to get others wet too. Later, some of these
people waited for us down the river. The river had its cycles too.
We continued our Lewis and
How do you engage in your
workplace obstacles? What do you do to have a pleasant working journey?
Jose
-------------------------------
Jose Lepervanche, M.S, N.E.
Information Technology Online Faculty
There were many other lessons that we learned from
The
(*) Jose
Lepervanche is an Information Technology Faculty member at