conference
-
OpenEd16 & my manel shame
I’ve been at OpenEd in Richmond this week, and I feel bad about this post, because it’s been an amazing conference. For example, I’ve just come from post conference drinks with Audrey Watters, Ken Bauer, Christina Hendricks, Autumm Caines, Laura Gogia, Jim Luke, and so on. Anything that brings those people together in one place is worth applauding. So what follows is meant in the best possible friendly critique manner. OpenEd conference needs to do better at, well, being open. Before we start, I’ll say I dislike the way people use ‘open’ as a means to bash others eg “if you’re open why do you charge conference fees at all?”.…
-
Keynotes & communities at ALT-C
I was at the ALT-C conference last week (I become Chair of ALT for this year, will try not to break it). I’ve noticed over the years that there are two communities at ALT (there are many more of course, but two main ones I think). These can be labelled practitioners who have started to use some ed tech, and more full time educational technologists. For the former group, Alt-C is not their normal conference, they may be physics lecturers, but they have started to use technology in an interesting way. This may well be their first time attending. For the second group, ALT-C represents the main UK conference in…
-
The new or reused keynote dilemma
James Clay wrote a post about ‘the half life of a keynote‘ recently in which he pondered how long you should keep giving the same talk for. I know people who always create a new talk, and people who give the same one for almost their entire careers. This year I decided I would create new talks for every keynote, so it’s something I’ve been thinking about. I think the initial reaction is that creating new talks is better. But now I’m through my new talk phase, I’m less convinced. To add to James’s conversation then, here are my pros and cons. The advantages of giving the same talk multiple…
-
No country for old ideas, this
So, I've been in New Delhi this week as a keynote speaker at the EdgeX conference. It was great to catch up with George, Dave, Stephen and Grainne, and to meet Jay Cross, Clark Quinn and LesFoltos. Viplav Baxi and the team were the most amazing, hospitable hosts, and it's been a real pleasure to be here. I thought I'd share a few of my own perceptions from the visit, although one has to accept they are based on a very limited scope of India, but for what it's worth. Start-up fever – It feels like a very exciting place to be at the moment. The opening speaker said he felt…
-
Digital scholarship recognition – the debate
So, I was the invited keynote debater at this year's EdMedia conference in Lisbon. I had ten minutes to put my case in favour of the following motion: "This house believes that in the next decade, digital scholarship (in open journals, blogs, and social media) will achieve the same status in academic settings as traditional scholarship" My (poor quality, one take audio) slidecast is below. Digital scholarship debate View another webinar from Martin Weller My argument was that there are a number of converging pressures which will make recognition inevitable. These were: 1) Impact 2) Efficiency 3) Efficacy 4) Complementarity 5) Institutional benefit 6) Variety 7) Human factors Antonio Figueiredo…
-
5 things I think about Learning Analytics
<Ed Techs go in search of data in the wild> I am at the 1st Learning Analytics conference in Banff, which has been interesting. I came not sure of what it was, or what my take on it was. The conference has been good, very interdisciplinary in nature (for which you can read 'I didn't understand some of it'). I'm still not sure about a lot of it, but here are five things that have occurred to me over the course of the past few days. I don't believe they're strong enough to say I've learnt them, but rather they are things I now have come to a tentative viewpoing…
-
Learning Analytics 2011 is the place to be
(This man wants your data) I'm pleased to say I've managed to get some funding to attend the first conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (LAK 2011), organised by George Siemens and the good folk at Athabasca. It's in Banff, Canada, Feb 27th to March 1st. Look at some of the people on the steering committee: Erik Duval, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium David Wiley, Brigham Young University, US Dave Cormier, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada Tony Hirst, Open University, UK Grainne Conole, Open University, UK Dragan Gasevic, CSIS, Athabasca University, Canada Simon Buckingham Shum, Knowledge Media Institute, UK Caroline Haythornthwaite, University of British Columbia, Canada I think this first conference…
-
Let’s play OER Roulette!
(The academic version of sending your child up a chimney) This is the last in my trilogy of Open Ed 2010 posts. For my presentation at Open Ed 2010 I wanted to do something a bit different. I had the last slot on a long second day (ie ‘the graveyard shift’) and I was speaking after David Wiley (who gave an excellent presentation as always), so the odds were stacked against me. In addition my daughter accompanied me so I wanted to include her in some way. I remember seeing Elvis Costello in concert once and he had a large wheel at the front with a number of songs listed…
-
Am I done with conferencing?
This is no reflection on Open Ed, I’ve been moving away from conferences for a while. I enjoyed giving my presentation at Open Ed, and I managed to make it interactive to an extent. But I’m coming to the conclusion that I’m done with the traditional conference format. I had a couple of discussions with Brian and Scott around this and talked about how difficult it was to break away from the traditional format. The reason comes down to money essentially, although it’s tied up with a host of other issues. There is a circular logic in organising a conference that is difficult to escape, let’s call it the Conference…
-
The strange case of the unconnected conference
(An unexpected appearance by the Two Ronnies went some way to alleviate frustration about the lack of wifi at OpenEd 2010 – Richard Hall and Joss Winn in full flow). I was at the Open Ed 2010 conference last week. First off, I want to say that it was great to finally meet Brian Lamb and I really enjoyed presentations from Richard Hall, David Wiley, Erik Duval, Joss Winn and others. So this post is not a comment on the quality of the conference or the discussions I had there. The conference was held in the science museum CosmoCaixa. This is a great museum and my daughter loved it. It…
