BJ Fogg's Weblog

My parents yacking from Africa

My parents are in Ghana right now doing humanitarian medical work. They are using YackPack to stay in touch with my entire family. Yesterday my dad yacked to say they are doing fine. This morning my mom yacked us to give us details about the people they are meeting.

The YackPack audio is crystal clear.

I'm listening again to my mom's yack as I type this now. I'll send her something back, of course. What can I say that will make her smile? Maybe I'll play the guitar and talk about my garden weeds. That might amuse her, especially given how lousy I am on the guitar.

Crafting a mission statement -- finally the torture is over

I'm sure many companies feel a bit tortured coming up with a mission statement. We did.

We thought about hiring a consultant and doing retreats offsite. But we didn't have the money or the time. We just kept working on YackPack, and from time to time someone would put our general sense of mission into new words. But we were neverly completely happy with it (sometimes I wondered if we should give this one more millisecond of thought . . . who says you need a formal mission statement?)

By some miracle and without really trying too hard, someone came up with a simple sentence we all like: "We help people use the power of voice to build relationships."

When I shared this sentence with the whole YackPack team, everyone's face lit up. Don't get me wrong . . . there were no bolts of lightning or speaking in tongues. It was just a feeling we all had: "Yep, that's exactly right."

At YackPack we've always had a mission. Now we have a statement too.

Improve your grading with YackPack

I finally put together a short movie that shows how you can use YackPack to make grading easier and more effective. This method has made my life as a teacher much, much easier.

http://yacklearning.net/education/grading/grading.html

You'll find more about YackPack in education at the YackLearning.net.

Enjoy!

Genius Kids Use YackPack for Math

This week my team learned about an online math program for gifted kids that uses YackPack to communicate. As we listened to some public yacks they've shared, we were amazed and amused. As  10-year-old voices explain solutions to tough math problems, it sounds like Einstein overdosing on helium.

For more on the program, see their site at Math Scene Investigation.

I'll check into posting some audio here so you too can  be amused and amazed. Until then, you can hear how happy the school board folks are about this program

YackLearning.net -- YackPack for educators

Since our launch we've had a good response from educators. But we've never catered to them . . . until now.

We just launched a site that shows how YackPack (and audio messaging in general) can be used in learning and training. We call this topic YackLearning.

You'll find the site at www.YackLearning.net

I welcome your feedback and suggestions. I even welcome your critiques.