A HUGE day! So engaging to be exposed to ideas, perspectives and practices from other countries – many similarities and also many differences!
The venue is cool – as I’ve mentioned previously, the ability to connect on fast wireless access is terrific and a luxury that so many of us in Oz don’t have – at work, at home or just out in the streets! My hotel is totally wireless and free of charge….
Mark Bernstein from Eastgate Systems was the first keynote speaker – Mark addressed some very topical issues about weblogs (blogs) suggesting that we need to think about what we’re doing with blogs and start studying it – stop trying to convince people that blogs matter!
Mark is also a publisher and raised the issue of fiction vs authenticity in blog writing – doesn’t it actually matter?
I think about how my students write their blogs – in many cases it’s about self-disclosure and self-presentation at the early stages of their writing – so does it really matter if it’s fiction, or not? I wonder…
Will the fact that the blog is public or private have an effect on the fictious aspect?
Mark has a refreshing approach to the study of technologies and effects and I hope we can link up with him for a future LTUG event – possibly even by webinar or in person downunder!
Next up was Stephan Schmidt from Berlin – he described his use of blogs as a knowledge management tool for a bottom up structure. He also uses Wikis to store knowledge and grow communications. The development and structure of how the blogs develop into knowledge communities is very similar to my experience with students – initially blogs start as isolated blogs, then they start to link to each other, then small communities develop, the communities start to overlap and eventually you have a meta-community of knowledge within the organisation – a great model for the use of learners and the development of knowledge artefacts! Have a look at their software model called SnipSnap – a blog/wiki hybrid.
Daniel Dogl from Zoomblox showed us software developed for a collaborative learning environment for kids 7 – 14yrs old – high interactivity, really funky, really fun!!! We all seemed to want more software that looks like this – certainly kids would benefit so much from this environment – just fabulous! Follow the link from Daniel’s name for his Powerpoint presentation.
Jorg Kantel presented on the use of blogs as an alternative media – he compared the blogging phenomenan to the radio – it was easy/cheap to build and it was useful….blogs…ditto!
Blogs, according to Jorg move from distrubtion of information (or news) to communication – an immediate form of alternative publishing!
That’s all for the moment – I need to go and have some dinner…more later – but a last thought are a couple of new words for your glossaries:
New Words:
Flogs – blogs of friends
Vogs – video blogs
Digital Dialogues 