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Masterclass Social Software
Last Wednesday I was present at a Master class social software organised by the Digitale Universiteit. I've written a larger post about the event at my Dutch blog. I will write something about this master class in English soon, but for now I only have the energy to point to the Dutch piece. So if you're able to read Dutch, please head over to Skallagrigg. If your Dutch is not that good I can only ask you to be patient until my eye infection has gone and I can look at the screen for a longer period of time.
P.S.: Never mentioned in the literature, but having healthy eyes is definitely a prerequisite for blogging ;-)
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Preliminary research results - Interview with Anne Bartlett-Bragg
Reflecting on Presence at a distance
A bit of reflecting on presence regarding the seminar at HUMlab I attended last week. This has been on my 'to blog' list for the whole week. So let's do it! Jonny Holmström talked about peer-to-peer file sharing networks, a topic a bit off my area of interest, but it was in the line of Joi Ito's contribution to the Creative Capital Conference in Amsterdam last month and therefore a nice follow up.
Question: what made me sit through a seminar at a distance of over 2000 KM?
One: I've been to Umea, I have a feel for the surrounding area of HUMlab (the campus, the town)
Two: I've visited the physical HUMlab, so I know where Jonny was standing in the room and what the physical lay-out of the room is.
Three: I met some of the people that were physically present last week (Patrik, Jim, and of course Stephanie)
Four: I was visible present in the room via the chat channel, feeling some sort of social connection to the people physical present. (and social pressure of 'staying there')
Five: The presentation was interesting.
Bottom line is I felt comfortable participating, even in the discussion after the presentation. Big advantage I noticed was the use of the chat channel. I could ask questions and 'talk' at the same time the speaker did and therefore didn't have to wait for the right moment to ask my questions or make my remarks. And what happened last week was that Stephanie read my remarks via chat out loud in the room, probably feeling obliged to involve me in the room and therefore I probably got more attention from the speaker (although he didn't really know he was talking to me) than would I have physically been there. Interesting!
I've marked the next seminar at HUMlab in my agenda, since Bicyclemark will be presenting, whom I've met just weeks ago during a lovely blogging dinner. So I should even feel more comfortable, since next time I will know the speaker as well :-) Oh, yeah. The topic is very hot as well: podcasting!
Excellent resource for e-learning
Since I'm getting more and more involved in education I'm looking for resources that give me insight in the current theories in the field. Just yesterday someone from elearningeuropa.info portal approached me to write an article for them. It took me about ten seconds to decide to say yes :-) The portal is an initiative from the European Commission and seems to be an excellent resource about e-learning.
