Digital Dialogues

How the social web came to be .. Part 2!

And here it is! Part 2 from Trebor.... see below for part 1.
Again - Trebor, your timing is perfect! I'm in the midst of preparing a presentation for AITD this evening.... mashing up previous presentations, updating and re-framing.... but what strikes me particularly, is that much of the work I published in 2005 (based on research from 2002-2004) is still current, and I'm still saying the same things. Of course, some of the software applications are new - and they're exciting and enabling more functionality - but... the principles haven't changed.
In Part 2 - it highlighted for me that many of the popular software applications that are likely to be part of our daily lives (well, mine anyway) were around before O'Rielly coined the term "Web.20" in 2005! Which supports my argument - that much of what I'll saying at AITD tonight, isn't new!
What's different?
People and organisations are starting to listen!

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BlogTalk 2008 Announced

The 5th international BlogTalk conference on social software has been announced!
BlogTalk 2008
Where: Cork, Ireland
When: 3 - 4 March, 2008

   

"The conference is designed to maintain a sustainable dialog between developers, innovative academics and scholars who study social software, practitioners and administrators in corporate and educational settings, and other general members of the social software community.

We invite you to submit a proposal for presentation at the BlogTalk 2008 conference. Possible areas include, but are not limited to:

* Forms and consequences of emerging social software practices
* Social software in enterprise and educational environments
* The political impact of social software
* Applications, prototypes, concepts and standards

Participants and proposal categories:

Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, audiences will come from different fields of practice and will have different professional backgrounds. We strongly encourage proposals to bridge these cultural differences and to be understandable for all groups alike. Along those lines, we will offer three different submission categories:

* Academic
* Developer
* Practitioner

For academics, BlogTalk is an ideal conference for presenting and exchanging research work from current and future social software projects at an international level. For developers, the conference is a great opportunity to fly ideas, visions and prototypes in front of a distinguished audience of peers, to discuss, to link-up and to learn (developers may choose to give a practical demonstration rather than a formal presentation if they so wish). For practitioners, this is a venue to discuss use cases for social software and to report on any results you may have with like-minded individuals."

Proposal submission deadline: November 16th, 2007
(and it's peer-reviewed - just in case you need the "brownie" points)!

It will coincide with start of the academic year and start of semester, but I'm sure the students won't mind a week of self-directed activities!!! ;-)
See you there!

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How the social web came to be...

I'm currently writing a chapter for a text-book (yes, I know - traditional publishing.. but...) on Adult Teaching and Learning - my chapter is focused on e-Learning (surprise, surprise).
In the process of a brief retrospective of e-Learning implementations across higher education, colleges (including community colleges) and the corporate context it's extraordinary how focused the literature is on evaluating e-Learning by comparing the functionality of the technology against traditional teaching practices (didactic, classroom-based learning) rather than evaluating the experiences of the learners, or reviewing the innovative implementations that have extended the learners far beyond the boundaries of their classrooms and institutions!
The comparisons are just fundamentally flawed! No wonder these papers and reports can produce statistics that draw conclusions that are less than positive.
The innovative implementations that have demonstrate the potential for engaging, enriching, empowering all seem to be lost in isloated case studies and blatantly ignored by large government funded reports on trends...
In the meantime - this presentation from Trebor Scholz "How the social web came to be (part 1): A Social-Cultural History of the Social Web" is an elegantly presented review that might inform some of the opponents of learning technologies !
Looking forward to Part 2 Trebor!

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Australian Blogging Conference

The Australian Blogging Conference
When: Friday 28th September, 2007
Where: Brisbane - QUT

"This unconference, modelled on the successful BloggerCons in the United States, aims to redress this by providing a forum that will allow Australian bloggers to gather together and talk about blogging and the Australian blogosphere.  It aims to be a user-focused conference for the Australian blogging community.   

This will not be a conference in the traditional sense.  It will be relatively informal. Instead of lengthy presentations, people will be invited lead discussions on various topics throughout the day – some practical, such as how to build a better blog, and some theoretical on the role, influence and future of blogs."

That means no academic papers (no DEST points) - just straightforward, informal discussion and networking - a great model for inspiration and sharing ideas.
There's a growing list of participants  on the blog - and an expanding conversation happening over at Facebook too!

I wonder if they're going to record or stream any of the sessions.... that might encourage some participation for those unable to travel to Brissie...?