Mindmaps: The Connections Between Us

Learning Circles-- Innovative Form of Collaboration

I was recently asked to write a blog on learning circles for MicroSoft's Partners in Learning.  I am going to include some of that blog  here.  I have been involved with learning circles for most of my career.  I started with learning circles for organizing cross-classroom collaboration in the 80's as networking was just beginning to be possible.  Jim Levin had figured out that a military network, The Source, could be used during the night hours at a relatively low rate.  So this was our first network of computers.  We started connecting classrooms where we had research colleagues.  So Naomi Miyaki connected us with a classroom in Japan, Moshe Cohen had connections in Israel, Ron Scollins knew about networked classrooms in Alaska and we found some connections to classrooms across the border in Tia Juana and Mexico City.  It was during this initial project - The Intercultural Learning Network- that the ideas for learning circles emerged. I have since used learning circles in many different contexts.  IEARN Global Learning Circles and Global Teenager Progject connects primary and secondary classrooms around the world, Jim Skelly connects collage studens in global conversations with learning circles and I use learning circles to connect researchers as they conduct their studies. So here is a brief overview of learning circles. 

 

So here is the first of a series of blogs that will focus on learning circles…

The Online Learning Circles Model is an innovative structure for group collaboration. Online Learning Circles are being used effectively in cross-classroom collaborations by many thousands of students around the world at all levels from primary to graduate school. This short video draws a contrast between two approaches to group work: committee teamwork and facilitated small group process. In committee teamwork, a task is divided among participants each doing a part of the work. In facilitated small group process, the leader collects different perspectives and summarizes to create the report. This contrast is used to show how learning circles combine these two approaches to maximize strengths while minimizing drawbacks. The result creates a form of collaboration based on distributed leadership.

 

This online learning circle model has six dimensions.

• Diversity of participants
• Centrality of project-based work sponsored by participants
• Distributed leadership and collective responsibility for projects
• Phase structure for interaction from opening to closing the circle
• Knowledge building dialogue
• Final group shared product

The goal of learning circles is to bring together people or classrooms with a wide variance in perspectives around a theme-based inquiry. Learning circles participants include whole classes in cross-classroom collaborations and individual learners in university and professional development learning circles. In each learning circle, participants sponsor projects around a theme. The circle projects are participant-lead through a process of distributed leadership. Learning circle interaction proceeds through a set of phases from opening to closing. The outcome of knowledge building dialogue leads to a shared product.

The norms and expectations, the implicit rules that guide learning circle interaction are trust, respect, flexible thinking, responsibility and reciprocity. It is important to design activities that surface issues that result in norm setting by the group.

In future blogs, I will describe how learning circles are organizing learning in different virtual learning environments from primary to university graduate classrooms.

Tracking the Cycles of Life

Time is divided into cycles that are exist beyond us, the spinning of the earth the path of the moon and the planet's path around the sun. But there are are also personal cycles.  A birthday is a personal marker of the passage of a yearly cycle, we have individual sleep, work and activity cycles.  Technology has helped us track a number of cycles and that is the topic of this blog. 

SLEEP CYCLES

I will start with one my favorite  phone apps called Sleep Cycles by Maciek Drejak Labs. For 99 cents you can learn a good deal about what goes on when you are alseep. 

My interests in sleep cycles stems from my college years where one way to earn money was sleeping in the Dream Lab.  My head covered with electrodes and wires, I would sleep while complex machines tracking my patterns.  It was this experience where I learned that we sleep in cycles, normatively of about an hour and half.   We move from awake to light sleep moving gradually to a deep sleep with very little movement  where when the body repairs and regenerates tissues, builds bone and muscle, and overall strengthen the bodies ability to deal with challenges.  Following deep sleep, there is more restless cycle of Rapid Eye Movement or REM sleep where the person experiences dreaming.  And then we start over again with light sleep on the way to another cycle of deep sleeping.  If you are waken during a REM period you will remember your dream. If you wake up during the light phases that begin and end a cycle, you will be rested.  However if you wake during a deep sleep, you will feel miserablely sleep-deprived all day.  If you have regular hours in the same time zone, your body is pretty good at figuring how to adjust your sleep cycles to the hours of sleep you have.  But if your time comittments vary, now your smart phone can help you. 

Sleep cycles is a smart alarm that will track your sleep cycles and help wake you when you are in a light sleep.  You give the program a time range (30 minutes before you need to be up works well) and you will be waken in the lightest period of sleep during this period. This is vital when you change time zones.  But aside from the alarm function, I look forward to seeing a picture of how I slept each night.  At night my phone sits off the edge of the bed tracking my movement.  In the morning I judge my sense of my quality of sleep and then see what the phone app thinks of my night of rest.  You can also keep sleep notes to help connect activities and eating patterns to sleep cyles. I am begining to understand more about my particular sleep cycles-- which vary widely each night.

Tracking Cycles of Daily Activity

Another tech toy for tracking cycles of activity is the FitBIT-- which by the way is going to be my birthday present. Here you wear a small device that tracks your activity day and night.  And like the sleep cycles will send data to your computer to track your progress.  But more than just track your cycles of activity and nonactivity it will share this infomation with your friends so you can compete to climb the most stairs or take the more steps.  I have been trying to complete with my daugher with problem soving games that rely on speed of processing. Try as I might, my older mind is not as nimble as hers and no amount of hours seem to erase the effect of age.  However, I might be able to more active than her--  or at least I can try.

 

LIFE CYCLES--Timeliners... 

Larger cycles of life..the stages of one's life might be tracked on a time line software  and there are number of programs for creating timelines.  Microsoft word has a time line template for the PC, but I could not find one for the Mac.  I made a quick timeline called A Century Cycle on xtimeline --a free text based timeline program.  I am planning on a 100 years of life and my DNA  says I have a better than average shot at long life. 

Then for comparison, I put the same information in Tiki Toki  and made this timeline. 

The point was really to mark a personal transition for me.  I am transitioning from parenting & working to retiring& parent care.  (And, hopefully I will be adding the  role of grandparenting soonl.

I have been supporting new action researchers through cycles of research at Pepperdine University for over a decade.  It is my hope that the students I have taught will continue to learn through these cycles of personal, professional and scholarly innovations.  But I will be ending my formal role in supporting these efforts when I retire in July 2013. I do however plan to continue to be active in writing and supporing  Learning Circles and in developing organizations  that support action research (Center for Collaborative Action Research, Action Research Network of the Americas, and American Education Reseach Association Action Reserach Special Interest Group.  These are structure that support personal cycles of change. 

 

Trends- Political and Technical

My son shared this link of this representation of the history of political ideology. I think it is important to see the differences of our two party system over time. It seem that over time, there is movement to correct the imbalance that happens when on party moves too away from the center. I really enjoyed this one page history of our nation. It is too large to include certainly worth exploring. 

http://xkcd.com/1127/large/

 

Another interesting view for educational trends is show in graphic design. 

Confessions of a Poll Data Addict

I admit it.  I am an addict.  I check polls first thing in the morning and last thing at night.  During the day "alerts" steam into my phone promising me new results -- new numbers.    And they pull me back to my addition. Once started, I can waste hours mulling over this poll or that one, reading trend data, news stories and ready to write my own. Often when I am not sleeping at night I am writing talking points for candidates.  Don't talk about government regulations, no one wants to be regulated.  Instead talk about government assurances-- assurances that our food is safe, our bridges are strong, and houses will last. Don't talk bout taxes or tax breaks, talk about collective investments in our future.  The virtual spin room haunts my nights. 

Can I blame technology for this addiction?   Access is an addict's paradise and acess seems unlimited.

1) My daily Fix:  Talking Points Memo's (TPM) Poll Tracker. They push national election poll data, swing states, key voters polls to me in a handy phone app.  And the new polls stream in all day. They use regression analysis to integrate polls over time and create smooth trend lines which provide a way to see how the positions of different groups of voters shift over time.  And I can go deeper and deeper into whatever race I want making my own judgements based on current developments in the race. 

This should be enough... but .. 

2) My obsession continues... grabbing my ipad I pull up the  270towin app. and create my own electorial college map.  What a sense of power! I can see what will happen if this or that swing state goes red or blue.  I can see where the battles are tightening and I engage in compulsive strategizing about where I would send the candidates and to whom they should be speaking as well as what pitch they should be making.   

3) It won't be long till I compare my 270towin map with the Huffington Post electoral college map. Their optimism about the outcomes provide a more partisan view of the poll data which can help when I get too stressed.  Their use of a cartogram visulaizes the electoral college.  Undecided independents and citizens of Ohio an Iowa get way too much attention.  And staying undecided with an  overdose of information seeks media attention. 

4) At my desk... the New York Times Fivethiryeight site buries me in data and news stories. Sometimes the stories don't match with what I am tracking.  One poll in a different direction can start a flurry of stories about what is happening. 

5) For another partisan view, I open TWELECT a phone app. This site analyzes the positive and negative tweets  coming in at 10,000 tweets an hour. A trend line records which presidental candidate is getting more positive tweets. Scanning the random collection of tweets of Americans makes me think about John Dewey's book Education and Democracy and worry that both are at risk.  

6) Prediction Markets provides an alternative to polls. I check intrade prediction market to see how much shares are selling for.  I haven't traded because something deep inside me says that this would be too much... an addiction to data is one thing but adding gambling to it -- well I can't do it.  But I want to know how people are voting with money. 

 

 

The rush from all this information....

What do I accomplished with all this access, all this data, and what I accept as highly obsessive behavior?  Is it a complete waste of time?   I have to admit that having this technology at my fingertips gives me sense of power.  I do not hang on the words of newscasters.  Instead I watch for their spin. I think I have access to the same information.  But of course I am trusting mathematicians and that pollsters as a group are getting reasonable data. And at this moment... poll tracker servers are down and I need my fix-- which is why I am reflecting on my addiction. 

Reflecting on tweets, and all the technology we have to share our ideas, why are the ideas shared so devoid of meaningful commentary.  Instead of open, meaningful  debate over  issues, I fear we have we have created American Idol President contests where micro analysis of gestures have taken the place of thoughtful analysis of policies.

Perhaps the best thing about this addiction is that my supply of information will dry up in two weeks. After a period of withdrawal, I look forward to more balance in life and hopefully some campaign reform legislation.  These megacampaigns are too stressful for everyone. 

Data Representation

A few months ago, I discussed the role of data visualization in learning. Recently more tools have been developed that make it easier for one to create clear graphics to visualize relationships.  I have been exploring one tool that is in beta development called Easelly--www.easel.ly.  This tool provides a canvas and a selection of "Vhemes" like those shown below which are different templates that are ready to edit. 

I experimented with the Venn diagram and created this graphic in a few minutes.  But I did find that there were some small glitches using the tool in the Chrome browser(the textbox pop-up for editing opened last remained on the screen and the delete key would sometimes not work). I  switched to Firefox and these small (but annoying) problems disappeared. So in a few minutes I made the following venn diagram about learning communities.

The share options included download, url, and embedded code. It was easy to work with and I think this program has great potential.  

My next experiment was to work with the grapic of the US map with percent circles.  I was hoping for some numerical control over the size of the circles and did not find that. This is not Excel and the graphics are not proportional and there is nothing to help you scale them.  I did work on using the size of circles and the size of text to give a visual representation of the the current presidential polling data.  This graph took a bit more time, but well under an hour to create.  I found that I could figure out all of the graphic commands without needing to read any instructions. When I needed to change something or adjust the size, I could easily find the way to do it lookin up at the tool bar.  I especially liked the easy way of moving the graphics forward and backwards with arrows under the word position. The hand icon for moving the graphic with the line and arrow for adjusting size does just what you expect them to do. 

So this is my mapping of polls results in the presidential campaign.  Once I got started, I wanted to change the states colors to blue and red.  But I could not do this. The states were not individual graphics. So while this program worked well, we always want more for what we don't pay for.  I have to say I was impressed with this tool and remained amazed at what is available for use without cost.  The editor of Wired predicted this cycle of "free" tools on his TED talk a good number of years ago and I was skeptical.  But I am a happy believer these days. 

I tried a second tool that also looked promising.  This one is called infogram (inforg.am).  I used the same polling data and chose the theme/template that looked most promising.  The program was difficult to figure out.  I had to enter the data a number of times as the choices were not transparent to me. Simple things like changing the color of the people in the chart was also very limited and not at all clear. Even harder was to figure out the ratio.  The data I put in was in three rows: Obama, Romney and Undecided.  I put in the percent for each of the categories.  The representation looks right but the number of people on the screen far exceed 100. If I could get them to 100, the data would be clear but I saw no options to change this. The ability to ability to interact with the chart--even through it was minimal- could be helpful.  But it also makes it hard to see the data in one screen.  So for visualization purposes, this was not as successful a tool.   The embed code was not apparent on initial sharing choices but after viewing it on the web, you have the option to get the code. 

Finally, Gliffy (http://www.gliffy.com/) is a really useful tool for making grapics that has been around from some time . It is very easy to use. But it does not have the templates for creating data repressentations.  I think that the more we can visualize data, the more likely we are to engage in data-driven decision making. 

Flash Mob- Tim Riel

Flash mobs are are formed when a group of people who appear to be unrelated moving through or enjoying a public space suddenly suddenly break out of everyday life to be come performers.  The people who really are just passing through or enjoying their space, are quickly cast into the role of audience. While the first performers are few in number at the start, as the event unfolds,  members of the newly created "audience" often jump up and join the performers.  No one is clear what is happening or who is part of the performance.  I have always secretly wanted to be swept into a flash mob. 

My nephew, Tim Riel, decided to orchestrate a flash mob in San Francisco to celebrate his 30th birthday and invited his family and friends to participate.  This gave a chance to see how a flash mob is organized.  A few teaching videos were circulated, some with the whole dance and others with just the chorus.  The dancing  was to The Time of my Live from the soundtrack of Dirty Dancing.  Then on July 28th, the flash mob travelled to San Francisco and collected and then moved from one location to the next, each time spontaneously breaking out into song and dance.  The music was provided by a gas powered setup on a luggage rack with a tiny nano ipad connected.   It was so much fun to watch the reactions of people as the music started and then appeared to pull the dancers out of the air. 

I did a pretty good job of avoiding the camera in this final performance but you might be able to find me in the back with during the middle of the video with sunglasses and with an orange and black top. I had so much fun!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZDlPixAOKo

 

 

 

Augment Reality is coming to a headset near you...

The news from google is that they are creating augmented reality goggles.  While the development is secret, they are likely to use the same Android software that powers Android smartphones and tablets. Equipped with GPS, motion sensors, a camera and audio inputs and outputs they will be quite the fashion statement. But I would be surprised if they are the only ones with an augmented reality device in the works. AR is the next big frontier in technology.  This is the connected age and the internet is coming out of the box and into our accessories. 

Now to be fair, taking the internet out of the box of the computer is not a new idea and many others have been working on prototypes of wearable technology for a few decades or more.

So what is augmented reality?  If you are looking at what we affectionately call the "real" world, AND you are also seeing an overlay of information that is not technically there, but is for you, that is augmented reality.  Every point on earth has an "address," it can be specified by it's longitude, latitude, and altitude. Information that is "dropped" at a specific addresse can be made visible by anyone with a device that enables them to access the information.    Some examples of what this might look like will help. 

You are a doctor and you are doing a knee replacement.  You have a MRI scan of the leg.  But you are not not looking at it on a film or even on a computer. You are looking at the leg but you have a small projector in your glasses that places the MRI image over the leg of your patient.  Before you make the cut, you can virtually see inside the body like superman. 

You are a member of a firefighting team and when you look at the fire line, you can see the wind direction and speed as swirling colored arrows spinning around giving you valuable information of the future path of the fire.  An transparent email floats in the air with a map and directions from the team caption. 

You are going home to grandmothers for thanksgiving and you are driving. Your specially equipped sunglasses are projecting a path on road in front of your car. You  The virtually signs posted on the side of the road tell you how far and long your travel will be with images of you grandmother cooking the turkey. 

You see young students outside on the playground running around like crazy kids, but they are not seeing a playground.  They are running in and out of the way of huge prehistoric dinasours searching for the ten things that don't belong in this time period. 

While glasses will make use of our nature way of seeing, we can also see augmentations through the lense of a cell phone. But you don't just want to read about augmented reality.. you want to see it and Pattie Maes talks about it as a "6th sense" in this TED talk. 

Augmented reality can bring experiential location-based learning to students by taking advantage of existing places while projecting complex learning enviornments.  But students will need to have strong problem solving skills, critical thinking skills, and good navigational skills. They will need brains that have designed for higher order skills.  Too bad teachers are currently helping students to shape brains that help students rememeber factual information, select among four choices, and drawing perfectly round circles. If only our real, or augmented worlds, needed these skills, we have the next generation of experts ready to excell. If this is the not the case, we should retool and work on firing and wiring brains for kids that will serve their needs in the connected age. 

Now if what you want to ditch school and become a pool shark, or a digital artist, there is an AR application for you!

Teaching with Google+ Hangouts (with extras)

 Google Tools for Online  Synchronous Classes!

Google+ "Hangout" provides a effective meeting place for teaching synchronous "online" classes.  The visual presense of the students helps all of us develop a sense of community as we build our knowledge collaboratively. But, until recently,  it was missing a way to keep track of group ideas.  We used other tools, such as etherpads or google docs, which let all user modify and see changes as they are added to the document in "real" time. These interactive writing technologies are game-changers for collaboration. The use of these tools opens up channel of communication as everyone has the ability use the written mode to augment what is being heard in the verbal channel. This multichannel interaction also helps keeps multitasking students focused on the learning goal-- hopefully decreasing the pairing of classtime with facebook scanning. But finding a video, text and auditory channel that works well has been a challenge. 

So when I went to teach this week, I was very happy to see Google+ Hangouts had extras.  And knowing the Google owns the etherpad technology, I was pretty sure it would be something like an etherpad.  I was impressed.  There is file-sharing, whiteboard and notepads (google docs).  The notes open up  and are saved in your google document folder.  This full word-processing environment that can be exported to word or other formats and any document can be added to the Hangout. 

So in Google Hangout, you can open up any document or show anyting on the screen.  I have added a screencast (made with JING- also free) to illustate the environment and talk a bit about how we use it to support learning online. 

How to start a Hangout... 

 

 

The second screencasts shows you around the interface and the tools that you can use. 

 

With any beta version of applications, there have been some small problems but mostly it has worked well.  I have had up to 10 students in class  at the same time with minimal sound problems.  It has a noise concellation feature that reduces echoes. 

There is a feature we discovered during the screencast that did not make it in the demo.  If you click on the name of the notepad or sketchpad on the left, it opens up in the center space which was what did in the video.  But if you push the arrow, it opens up in the browser.  This makes it possible to have the notes open on one part of the screen as you use the window as a sketchpad or powerpoint projector. 

My wish list if any Google designers make it this way, is to make it possible for people to write in different colors and then have the option to selectively change the text to a single color.  This would be great for seeing who contributed which ideas (as in etherpads)  and for reviewing and commenting on text at a later point (the only left reason to use MSWord rather than google docs).   What would make it better would be a way to integrate it with google sites (wiki-web sites).  It would be great to be creating a web environment collaboratively. It has to be coming as it seems as if Google is working on finding the right integration of tools. 

What I liked best about the environment is that it was NOT teacher-centered.  There is moderator who gets to decide who gets to talk.  No handraising or other markers of control. And while only one person can screen share at a time, when a new person starts, it ends the last person--similar to the verbal challenge. We have years of experience in the art of turn taking.  I find that Google+ Hangout is shaping up as the right kind of tool for a meeting of learning circles-- a place where everyone leads and everyone listens.  

 

Google + Social Networking

I have been using a number of new tools  the in the last few months, but the one I am most excited about is google+ .  I hope it will become a valuable tool for online teaching.  Here is what it look likes: 

This unclutterd look is what one expects from Google.  When they introduced the Google Wave (see Dec 10 blog) -it crashed because it was even more cluttered then facebook.    Goolge+ is social networking with a clean, clear and intuitive appearance that is consistent with the way Google Search first appeared. Dropping  people in circles was straightforward and the representation was pleasing as the faces fell into a circle formation.  

With Google+, I could understand the site within a very short time.  The markers for what is public and private made sense both in writing and reading messages in the stream.  Messages  can be sent to everyone or to one or more circles.  They are marked as public or limited, and if limited, a click on "limited"  shows who, exactly,  the message was shared with.  Messages format themselves with pictures, videos, links and location easily inserted. (Despite years of facebooking, I still couldn't tell you who sees what and which things are found on my profile, home, walls or messages. The metaphors don't work for me.)

The four icons at the top of the site (house, picture, person and circles) are easy to decifer into  home, photos, profile and circles. When I selected  the photos, I found my  picasso albums had migrated  to google+ without any effort on my part.  While the social networking is not all that different from Facebook, it feels clean and sleek--no ads, no things blinking and or screaming for attention.  My circles are clear,  and I can tell who sees the messages. If I click on a name, the number of circles I have place them in show up so I know where they are in my social network.

GROUP VIDEO CONFERENCING -- for free!

What makes Google+ unique in the crowded social networking field is the hangout feature.  You can video conference with up to nine people.  That will make my teaching much easier-- but only for the small group meetings. Our hangout test seemed to work well although I have only had this one session--(connecting from Taiwan while I was travelin)g.  I am looking forward to using this feature for learning circles meetings in my online classes.  

Margaret Riel  -  Jul 24, 2011 (edited)  -  Hangout-  Limited 

Margaret Riel hung out with 8 people.

 

If you are not overwhelmed by reading things from people you know, you can use  "sparks" to connect to whatever people out there are talking about.  If you type "newsweek," you well get more than you might want to read about the current cover pictures of Bachmann. Or "stock market" will give you everyone's thinking about why the market is jumping up and down. 

One thing I like is that it is easy to open Google+.   +Margaret sites on the top left of my gmail.  So I am more likely to shift over without waiting for that email message from facebook or linked that reminds me that the social world is steaming by without me.  I think that google+ might slowly pull people away from the more chaotic, ad covered, facebook world (well maybe only people like me...my kids are not bothered by clutter).  And maybe with circles, it will be easier to manage the spheres of contacts. However, I have to feel sympathetic with those  who ask-- who needs another way to connect to friends... I am personally overwhelmed by email alone and I find myself longing for a less connected space and time.

 

 
Google reported 10 million users signed up in the first two weeks in July.  I am not sure how many there now.  And I was hard to sign up as you had to be invited.  I guess that is part of creating the buzz. Everyone wanted to be invited. 

Web2.0 Con Artists at the BigDeal (bigdeal.com)

Con Artists intentionally mislead people to get their money. And on the web, as on any context, their are "snake oil" salesmen, and con artists who will come up with any number of schemes make money off of the unsuspecting.  

Web1.0 (the early "broadcast" notion of the web) had plenty of hucksters...

 

These include con artists who

• wrote convincing hard luck story and asked people to send them money and share their story
• sent you email about the millions you have won...but you just need to pay the relatively small customs duty on your prize.
• need your help moving money and if you help, they  share their millions with you.   
• use your email address to send "help" messages to people you know telling them you are in trouble need money quickly.  

All of these scams are still looking for losers.  I recently was told by a friend that her mail list was scammed and all of friends were written to and asked to send money to help her get out of a difficult situation overseas. And surprisingly, without as much as a phone call or an email to check on her safety, one of her friends, distressed by the message, sent over a thousand dollars overseas.

 

NOW WE HAVE WEB 2.0

What does web 2.0 mean?... it means we get to be a part of the action. It is the interactive web where we can produce, respond and develop.   And, we can, without paying enough attention, be party to con artistry. 

BIG DEAL is just such a scam...

And the people at BigDeal eagerly invite you to help them get rich.  How does it work? Well read their page and see what you understand.  http://bigdeal.com/about/learn  It is written in such a way to encourages misunderstanding. The average person brings a set of experience with auctions to help them understand.  Ordinarily, one doesn't pay for a bid unless one wins.  Here it is clear that you pay to bid.  That is the message that they emphasize. But it is reasonable to think that you are paying the cost of the bid--which is clearly listed as 1Cent.  That fact that these penny bids are far more expensive is not so clearly identified. 

You have to buy a bid package. The system assures you there is no trouble moving money into your account because you can always get it back but you have to buy "bid packages." The minimum is $22.50 but they encourage you to add more to cover the cost of the item you hope to buy. Then, you start bidding "pennies" on objects with the clock winding down to zero... but every time a person bids, after time is over, the clock moves back 30 seconds to allow other losers to more time to bid. Most people will keep bidding their pennies and understanding that the countdown of seconds takes hours. When the person can no longer bid, and after trying to figure out why, he or she is likely to discover that these "pennies" each cost 75 cents and whatever money was in the Big Deal Bank, it is gone. 

Now if one is a less impulsive, and carefully read and understood everything, is there is a way for the person to get a big deal?   First, a person should be willing to buy an item at full price (plus a generous shipping charge) before they bid on it.  If they invest a few hours,  and they are very lucky, they might save a small bit of money--while helping to scam others out of their money for Big Deal.  Let's see how it works.... 

Let's suppose a person plans to  buy a $500 ipad. 

Here is one that sold for only $319-- 

Big deal collected 31,900 bids (from some unknown number of people) and each of these bid earned them .75.  So now Big DEAL has collected $23,925 for a $500 IPAD. Now some of these "losers" might chose to make up the difference between their bid loses and actually buy the ipad.  Say 25 did this and each of these people averaged 300 bids at a cost of ($225). So 25X225 = 5,625 is subtracted from the total (The people can pay the difference between their bids and the product).  This still leaves a profit of $17,675 to Big Deal on one action. And they have about 10 past-time actions active auctions and 100 other auctions. While some of the auctions come in at much less, even their best posted deal on a ipad, $67.32  still nets them a possible profit of $5,049 on a $500 product (minus the bids of anyone who uses the buy option).   

Now suppose a person understood the process and only started bidding when the price of the ipad was at maximum level, say $315. This is only $4 for the end, but it represents 400 bets which take hours as the clock resets for 30 secs after every bid. Say a person bid every other time bidding 200 times (each costing .75) for a total cost of $150 and wins the bid.  This person would then pay pay the $319 plus their bids and the total cost would be $469 saving only $30 after a hour or more of intense bidding. However with free shipping from Apple, the saving is now only a handful of dollars. 

But I would wager that most of the people bidding think that the 1C means they are betting one cent. And most of the people will lose their money.  And the amount of money most people lose is  equal to the shipping cost charged in buying the item at full retail from Big Deals.  So there is no redemption. Big Deal offers loyalty bucks (in return for your cash) that can be used for small discounts on products that are readily available on the web for the discounted price with no loyalty bucks. This is is no big deal.  

The worst part of this con job is you help others to be losers.  As you bet, you encourage others to do so and it is reasonable to assume that most of those people were pulled in by the urgency of a good bargain about to happen... a big deal. And most of them will be people who have not yet learned that a penny spent is not a just a penny earned. 

I would like to say that (like other scams that I have warned many of you about), I was too smart to fall for this.  But, alas, I was not.  I believed the "only two ipads a day" note and saw an ipad was on the board.  So I didn't do what I always tell others to do--read carefully and understand everything before you take action.   And once my money was gone, and I realized my error, I wrote to them and explained how I was mislead by their postings. I did not ask for my money back, but only to have a fair chance to bid more carefully with penny bids that I understood cost .75.  If they were in good faith, they would let me try again. There was no loss to them and in fact, I had helped scam others. But they told me sorry, the money is theirs. I suspect that most of their money is made this way.  I have since learned about another service, quidbid which has a similar process but they are more transparent about the process.  The amounts of bids on their site are much lower, suggesting that people understand the process. 

So my penance for being so impulsively foolish is to write this post so that I might, at the least, help someone else not to be scammed by the allusive promise of a ...Big Deal.