Daily Archives: September 10, 2008

Elluminate me

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A crowd of approx. 82 participants of the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge course, commonly known as CCK08, just met in a synchronous online session in Elluminate. It was quite an experience for me as that was my first live session in Elluminate. Previously, I was only able to watch recorded sessions of webinars.

Participating in this hour long discussion was challenging as I had to listen to the various speakers and watch the rapidly flowing chat. This time, the whiteboard could still be mostly looked at peripherally. Had the session been at the previously set time (2 a.m. in the morning for me), I would not have been able to follow for most of the time, I guess, as I am not a night owl. ;-)

I think I would have coped a little bit better even now if the chat window had been bigger. This little window was way too small for me to see the comments properly. I’m not talking about the size of the font, but rather the comments themselves. At times they just sped past and were gone beyond the scrollbar. Maybe I can increase the window size. I haven’t figured that one out yet. However, I still have 11 more weeks to go to either find a way to enlarge the text chat area or to get used to reading the comments in the small window without losing track of the speaker. :-)

This shows that I am not so good at multi-tasking. George Siemens, who moderated the session by himself for a few minutes before Stephen Downes joined, and was already there before the session, did a wonderful job of talking and reading the comments at the same time and getting back to them.

Screenshot of an (empty) Elluminate session. The text chat box is way too small for my liking as a lot of stuff happens in there.

Screenshot of an (empty) Elluminate session. The text chat box is way too small for my liking as a lot of stuff happens in there.

My surname around the world, well, at least part of it…

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Occasionally, I have wondered where people live who have the same name or who might even be related to my family. My mom’s side of the family does have a pretty complete family tree going back a few centuries. From this side we know that there are relatives living in the USA whom we also know. But the information on the other side of my family is rather spotty.

Today, @Digitalstudio sent a link to the website “World Names Profiler“. This was a great opportunity to check out where I may find people who share the same surname.

So, here is the result:

People with my surname can be found in some parts of the world

People with my surname can be found in some parts of the world

The name pops up most in Canada with a frequency per million (FPM) of 36.9. That is followed by Luxembourg with 8.5, the U.S.A. with 7.03, and Germany comes in 4th with 3.56. The number seems to be right for Luxembourg, as we are just shy of half a million people in this country and I only found two fellow “Hoeppner”‘s in the online telephone book. Of course, some, like me, may not be listed. However, if we divide 8.5 by 2 minus a little bit because we are not quite half a million, that gets you close to the 3. There may even be more as these people may be married

Checking the FAQ gave me a better picture of how many names the database actually includes:

How many names do you have information for?
We hold data for approximately 300 million people in 26 countries of the world, representing a total population of 1 billion people in those countries. In our database there are 8 million unique surnames and 5 million unique forenames.
What countries do you have data for?
We have data for 26 countries in Europe, America, Asia and Oceania.

OK. But already the top four countries for my name have more than 300 million inhabitants. According to the CIA World Factbook, they have close to 421 million people. So even though 300 million may look like a big number, it is not in closer examination also taking in account that there are an estimated 6.721 billion people on earth.

Even though these numbers do not really represent “the world” because 26 is a far cry from the 192 recognized by the United Nations, it is still interesting to see where I might bump into another person with my last name – related or not. Canada seems to be the hot spot, especially Manitoba. When looking at the top cities, I’d have to go to Gurnee in Illinois or second to Encinitas in California. That’s not really in Canada, but somewhere warm is also nice. :-)