EdBlogger reflections

I spent five or six hours today at O.J. Simpson's alma mater, Galileo High School in San Francisco, taking part in the first EdBlogger conference. Half the crowd was blogging the event live and chatting online and sometimes just reading their email.

I was the lone corporate guy (or maybe one of only two) amid a crowd of 40 ed bloggers. Just about everyone else had a cute little Apple laptop in front of them.

A few of the things that caught my ear:

Learning objects. (This is a sentence; read objects as a verb.)

Relationships are tough to put in a repository.

The RIAA gets in the way of spontaneous access.

What's the defining characteristics of a blog? New stuff on top, according to some.

The atomic unit of a site is the page; the atomic unit of a blog is the posting; the atomic unit of a wiki is a change.

More easily recognized in the schools than in business: phobia about writing in public.

One participant introduced himself as "sys admin and principal."

Patrick Delaney, host & ringmaster

My BOF (birds of a feather) session drifted into talk about Wikis:

The social context makes it or breaks it.

Wikis first dealt with a project on pattern langauge in software. Many entries argued a position: "This is how it should be." The Wiki-words (links) were nouns. I wonder what a verb-word only Wiki would look like.

Most Wikis are short-lived. The passion dies.

"Wiki gardeners" tidy up unruly entries.

(Jay:) Participants rarely seem to violate the trust implicit in giving them control over making/changing entries.

(Jay:) To encourage comments on ed-blogs, shouldn't commentary be graded?

The BOF continued down to Ghiradelli, with lunch at McCormick & Kuleto's. It was a beautiful day.

Blog fodder -- ask five questions, show everyone's responses.

Web culture in conflict with community-controlled school culture.

What nurtures blogging? (1) Repression (So Polish girls blog about sex; boys in Iran talk politics.) and (2) No street life (As in frigid Finland or blazingly hot Sinapore).

Social engineering, a future problem. One fellow's son receives spoofed messages from "teacher." Justin Hall's tales of sexual awakening -- without forewarning his partners -- could grow.

Freedom. Not clear about student blogs and politics.

Dan Mitchell & Will Richardson

Back at Galileo, memes from panels:

The Browser metaphor reinforces the concept of passive consumption.

If blogs are digital paper in a binder, Wikis are erasable white boards.

One great aspect of blogs is that you can review things that are still works in program.

IT is so primitive now. Imagine if you had to call the Help Desk to use the toilet. Whoops, we have a toilet paper read error. Let me put you on hold....

Will RIchardson

Tim Lauer

Karen Claxton

Chris Kelly & Paul Allison

Phil Wolf

Posted by Jay Cross at November 23, 2003 05:56 PM | TrackBack