Learning mainly
OpenEd09 was a great conference. Possibly one of the best I have been to.
Sharing is very powerful. In Leigh’s circle, people have sought to develop stuff, posted it as a work in progress to find other people working on similar things just down the road. Bingo: collaboration, synergy, time saving and dare [...]
I’ve been a very very itinerant dabbler in Twitter.
Twitter emerged at the OPenEd conference complete with conference tag: #opened09. Not as a trickle, but a steady stream. I wondered a little at how people kept up until I saw they used some other applications. Moving into using TweetDeck instantly quadrupled my productivity and ease of [...]
A comment from Maureen Bell at HERDSA led to an impromptu list of things teachers once learned:
Divide the board into sections
Hold the chalk at the horizontal
Use the same colours for headings and subheadings each time
Underline with a squiggly line rather than a straight line (because nobody can draw a straight line)
Keep a section for first [...]
After conference. I am too tired to write much with any coherence, plus I do not have any decent internet access. Lots of thoughts.
Yesterday, the last of the conference, a trip to Whistler.
Last night tea with Randy, Patricia Schmitt and Christine Geith, all with a Wikieducator connection.
Today is Saturday, we took the Ferry to [...]
UMW: a university with blogs
http://umwblogs.org/
“No parameters, just engage honestly with what you are doing, thinking about” – Jim Groom, in his OpenEd session.
2900 users in 2300 blogs. People given their own spaces. Jim’s Blog.
Case study: “I want my students to build a literary journal” http://literaryjournals.umwblogs.org/ They did it.
Random links: Flickr blog shots | The Blog [...]
This is probably one of the best conferences I have ever been to. Has a good mix of emergent and formal.
Some emergent conference planning principles:
Provide minimal paper, and no conference bag.
Minimal paper=conference programme in pocket size form.
Provide wireless.
Have a comprehensive website with things you need to know.
Don’t provide food. Just park the conference near [...]
The THEME: OK, getting our teaching resources better, more current, less stress on the teachers who do the writing, having better lives. OER may help. What are the questions? Where thiungs go well, WHAT FACTORS ARE IN PLAY?
Afterthoughts
Used the wrong title for my session: it’s really all about the power of micronetworks. Maybe the key [...]
Tuesday: FINE
Edited Phillipas 40min exam programme, slept in, laundry, cabbage rolls for breakfast, (Chitako is an awesome cook), bus, library, missed Randy sadly.
Then off to the afternoon session with Downes and Wiley. Two guys talking for 3.5 hours. I had little awareness of the breadth of the issues around commercialisation, not in theory, but in [...]
Plan to meet up with Randy Fisher today. I know what he will ask me about. I really should shift my stuff to wikieducator and kill off akowiki. Got some questions as well.
OpenEd: already too much to think about.
Random sessions of particular interest
1. John Mott: PLE’s and LMS’s: “Traditional LMSs are not open. PLEs are. [...]
Sunday: RAIN
Wandered along another part of Commercial Drive. Supposed to be a carless day, but no, commercialism and realism has won.
The cars were back on Commercial Drive yesterday, after four weekends of street closings, and Ed Wilkerson of Magnet Hardware is thrilled and relieved.
So is the owner of Café Abruzzo two blocks away and the [...]