Conference blogging and microblogging etiquette
By Paul McMahon on Oct 18, 2008 in Learning for a Flat World and tagged blogging, conference ettiquite, distraction, LSA_Paul, microblogging, presenting
There was a flurry of posts on an email list I belong to last week following the ACEC08 conference in Canberra where a lot of participants in sessions were using laptops and other mobile devices to blog, twitter and otherwise connect and collaboarte during speaker sessions. A lot of the discussion centered around the ettique of doing this and not paying attention to the speaker. I have lost the link now but an attendee at the Learning 2.008 conference in Shanghai made the comment that as she came in late to a session by a big name invited presenter, she was surprised to see laptops with card games being played on them and emails being written that were clearly nothing to do with the presentation. This is what I was getting at when I made this reply to Graeme Wegner’s excellent post on the topic.
I am inclined to agree with the sentiments and the ideas of the other comments here as I also do lots of notetaking on the PC during conferences but I am surprised that noone has yet turned the tables and asked if you let your kids connect to their social networks during your classroom presentations?
Now there is some food for thought!
Before you start saying that they may not be sharing the content of your presentation, just reflect if you are always sharing the content of the presentation that you are in.
Now, unfortunately, I did not get a reply to my post. I did, however, read the post of another reader Kerry J, whom, I thought, put down some good ideas about how we should all be teaching and learning today. I really love the idea of “to be pointed at a pre-recorded presentation to watch in advance of the day — then come prepared to actively discuss, debate and evaluate the concepts presented”. The only problem is that this seldom happens even though the technology enables it.
Like many things, it is where we need to be heading!
If you want to add a comment or a vote to whether you like the ablity of being able to use laptops during a conference presentation, you might like to access and complete the survey by Jason Zagami, a Queensland Lecturer in Education, available as a Google Spreadsheet here.
1 Comment(s)
I was shocked about a 8 months ago to witness a well known advocate of ‘network learning’ declare that he would not do a de-conference as he really preferred to just present and not get ‘caught up in discussions’.
I think issues around ‘enabled devices in presentations’ are indicative of transition we are in the middle of. It goes to the heart of the pedagogic conflict and while many school leaders and academic advocates, talk the ‘collaboration’ talk – they do not walk the walk (possible because they have gone through content driven academic and management systems and their brains have just been shaped that way).
The big question is where does the ‘knowledge’ originate?
Your ‘empty vessel’ (That Kerry J rfers to) infers the Platonic view of knowledge that there is an ‘expert’ who understands the way the world is and we must dutifully await instruction. It is hard if you are an academic or a teacher ‘paid’ for your knowledge to get past the content delivery mode – sometimes it isn’t a sinister ‘control’ thing- more often it is the feeling that you have not done your job properly if you don’t finish the PowerPoint.
If you believe the knowledge resides in the network (a more constructivist approach) then at these conferences and hopefully in our classroom ‘processes’ must occur to liberate and generate that knowledge. Again our presenters and colleagues are not necessarily predisposed to such skills.
In any communication there is a sender and a receiver, and both have expectation of each other. While we feel that a more progressive attitude should prevail at such conferences – the complaints of others indicate that many in the audience expect to sit passively and be feed information.
I do believe in experts and I do believe in knowledge residing in the collective – I do not believe the challenge is to eliminate one over the other. The real challenge to be faced (in conferences, classroom and work environments) is to find the right blend of didactic delivery and facilitated collaboration to meet the challenge at hand.